My 30th high school reunion was this weekend. Richmond High School Class of ’89. I won’t go into an extended meditation on the subject. (I mostly did that for my 25th reunion.) But, I’d recommend going to these things. People are, for the most part, just people, and you come to recognize that the folks you knew in high school mostly aren’t the caricatures that maybe you’ve built up in your head. (Although, there are a handful of people that remain stubbornly disagreeable.) My sense is that, by understanding the people you grew up with a little better, you come to understand yourself a little better. And, as I mentioned after 25 years, in a sense, it’s a chance to visit with your younger self a little bit.

Anyway, have a picture.

After Sandy Hook, I wrote a blog post with the modest proposal for mandatory firearm insurance. There is a cost of firearm ownership imposed involuntarily on innocent third parties in the form of their injuries and deaths. Injuring or killing someone is a statistically unlikely event for any given firearm but one with high costs when it does happen — costs that you don’t see at the same level in other Western countries without our abundance of firearm ownership.

I envision something with strict liability that runs with the weapon — your firearm injures someone, your insurance policy pays. I think there would be some kind of cap on an individual policy and then, something like the medical malpractice system in Indiana where a state fund pays out for damages in excess of the individual limits. I would also suggest a tax on firearm dealers and/or manufacturers with different rates based on type of firearm and the experience of that particular dealer/manufacturer. If the guns you sell don’t often wind up being used to kill or injure people, you wouldn’t pay so much. If your shop somehow winds up with a lot of guns being used for criminal activity, you’re going to have to pay more. (A bit similar to the unemployment system. If you end up firing a lot of people, you pay more into the unemployment system.)

This is the relevant portion of what I wrote at the time:

We mandate liability insurance for cars. Why not for firearms? Bring market forces to bear on this issue. More firearms make things safer? Insurance rates will go down (if true).

Anyway, what I envision is a requirement that a firearm owner obtain liability insurance that covers injuries caused by that particular firearm. (Runs with the weapon – provides an incentive for people to secure the weapon in a way that ensures, for example, kids don’t have access to the weapon.) I would also envision a policy surcharge used to subsidize coverage for uninsured losses, treatment of mental illness, enforcement of existing regulations, and safety education efforts.

 

 

Yesterday, I posted some thoughts on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Apparently I also had some thoughts on the 40th anniversary, among other things potential parallels between European exploration — is our space program more like Leif Ericson or more like Prince Henry the Navigator:

One question I remember from history class was the one of why the Norse didn’t end up colonizing North America. They simply didn’t have the population, technology, or other resources necessary to sustain the effort. Prince Henry, on the other hand, devoted a substantial amount of resources on behalf of Portugal to explore the African coast and ultimately find a route around Africa to the Pacific. Eventually they had Dias rounding the Cape of Good Hope, da Gama making it to India, and Portugal benefiting from the spice trade for years to come. The European gold rush that followed has shaped the world to this day.

It may be that we don’t have the resources to sustain space exploration. It may be that there is no outer space equivalent to the profits from the spice trade. But, I’ve always been of the mind that we ought to figure out the whole space colonization thing so that, when we inevitably screw up this planet irretrievably, the human race has some options.

In any event, last night the kids & I went and paid our respects to Neil on the Purdue campus.

It’s the breaking of bonds, and the reasons submitted to a candid world, that make the 4th of July important. It’s not so much thanking the military or our forefathers. It’s not the flag. It’s not the fireworks. These are all part and parcel of the larger idea. The Founders broke the bonds of blood and tradition in service of a larger idea.

The larger idea is that individuals are self-determining beings. Liberty is their natural right and their natural condition. Authority should not be suffered solely for it’s own sake. Proper government is designed and maintained by the citizenry, it is not revealed and handed down from on high.

I am thankful that the Founders were products of the political culture of the Enlightenment and not of our own day. It is not plausible that our current Representatives would pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their honor to break from Authority that no longer serves its purpose: to secure the rights of the citizens.

So, when we are at our parades and  picnics and what not, by all means, celebrate our history, revel in the patriotism, thank the troops, love our country, honor the Founders, but spare a thought for the Declaration:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. –And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

–John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

I had an exchange with Chris Hardie about Mayor Pete. He said:

I’m excited about Pete’s campaign, especially as a Hoosier tired of how our state is usually seen politically. Just hoping we don’t trade our appreciation of his candor, authenticity & thoughtfulness for the buzz of celebrity.

To which I replied:

I share your concern, but this is a very Hoosier reaction. Like when the weather is nice, and the assumption is that we’re going to have to pay for it with bad weather.

(And, as Chris pointed out, it was glorious and sunny yesterday; rainy, cold, and windy today.)

So, the assumption is that if Mayor Pete rises too high, a hammer of some sort will pound him down. Maybe there will be a Milkshake Duck situation (though I kind of doubt it). More likely that the zeitgeist and his political opponents will just kneecap him with some variant of a Dean Scream attack.

But it’s not just the weather or in politics where we can’t have anything nice. Last week, the news came out that a group of scientists were able to essentially use the planet as a giant telescope and coordinate data collection that resulted in the first ever imaging of a black hole. The work of Dr. Katie Bouman in developing an algorithm to process that data was instrumental to the imaging. There was a great picture of her excited as her work came to fruition. An earlier Tedtalk on the matter where her knowledge and enthusiasm about the subject was clear. At 29, she’s relatively young for a scientist. So, it was a good story.  Moreso in my household because she went to high school where my kids go and she grew up in our neighborhood. The message around here was “work hard and you can achieve great things”

But, the Internet being what it is, it was utterly predictable that trolls would try to bring her down, because having something nice is intolerable to some folks. In her case, there was a strong thread of misogyny — a sort of bitterness that a woman would become the face of an achievement where men were also involved. Social media having turned into a click-driven sewer of misinformation, the emotion-provoking misinformation featured as prominently on, say, YouTube as hard news because their algorithm and advertisers value eyeballs more than accuracy.

It’s difficult to resist the onset of cynicism. Why strive for greatness? Why seek to create something new and good? Why seek to improve upon the status quo? Any achievement of value will just get dragged down into the muck. Nevertheless, I guess like the song says, you gotta kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.

I’ve been struggling for a pithy way to articulate this to myself and haven’t quite made it, but I wanted to get it down on paper, or pixels or whatever. It seems to me that a good, responsible, useful news story will either discuss a news event that’s important to people’s lives in and of itself or, if not independently important, is a fair representation of something larger that is important.

War erupts, a tax is imposed, your street is going to be closed – these are things that have their own importance. Family struggles because job is displaced by automation; Joe, like many others, is an addict and here are his struggles – both are important stories even though they don’t necessarily have a direct impact on readers if it’s in fact true that there is a statistically significant trend in job displacement or addictions.

Local politician or important politician says something awful – maybe news worthy. Random college kid, celebrity, back-bencher from far flung district says something awful – not so much. Again, I think the question is: does the news truly have an impact on our reader’s lives and/or is the story truly representative of something significant in the world? There is obviously a lot of grey area here, but I guess what I’m getting at is that if the media outlet is telling stories about something not particularly representative or substantial, just to push your emotional buttons or sate your desire to laugh at freak shows, that outlet isn’t doing you or society much good. It’s just manipulating you for profit and likely eroding the community by showing you the world through a fun house mirror.

Alex Biese, writing for the Asbury Park Press, has an article about the new Jonathan Coulton album “Some Guys.” I’m the kind of middle-aged geek that fits squarely in Coulton’s nerdcore demographic.  The new album is somewhat different, “a set of 14 note-perfect renditions of soft rock hits from the 1970s, such as Gilbert O’Sullvan’s “Alone Again (Naturally),” Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne” and Michael Murphey’s “Wildfire.”” I haven’t listened to it yet and so am not making a recommendation. What prompted me to comment here was Coulton’s description of the push back he got from other guys if he dared to say he liked this soft rock:

“I’m sort of exploring this aspect of my influences,” Coulton said. “But also as it relates to – you know, I’ve always loved this music – so as it relates to me being a kid and feeling shy about that, being afraid to tell people that I liked soft rock, being afraid that someone was going to say I was weak.

“You know, it’s always that thing when you’re a kid where you say you like a band and somebody else says, ‘They suck.’ And it’s even harder when you say ‘Dan Fogelberg’ and they’re like, ‘Dan Fogelberg?!’ Like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

Soft rock wasn’t particularly my thing, but back in the days liking computers and science fiction/fantasy novels wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that ensured coolness and acceptance among the rest of the kids at school. The thrust of the article focuses on toxic masculinity as a force that kept a guy like Coulton from being forthright about his appreciation of soft rock. And, that’s appropriate given the zeitgeist at the moment. I was particularly interested in the discussion of “the romantic overtures of a supervillain in “Skullcrusher Mountain,” the frustrated worldview of a software programmer in “Code Monkey” or the sci-fi heartbreak of “The Future Soon.”” They all make hay out of the trope of the frustrated nerd trying to get the girl. I don’t think any of them is advocating toxicity, but in both stories, I’d say the girl is mostly a prop in a way that is maybe problematic. I don’t think this particularly registered to me as an issue prior to the #MeToo movement. For his part, Coulton says:

“You know, it has been pointed out to me several times that characters like those are sort of classic examples of typical awful male behavior. And you know, when I wrote them I don’t think I had the context to really understand them that way. You know, I had to ask myself, ‘Where did those characters come from?’ and the answer is inside my head, but that makes me feel a little weird. How did I know how those characters felt? The answer is, I think, probably, that I have experienced those kinds of feelings on some level and I recognize that they’re wrong, which is why those characters are behaving badly but they also lack a self-awareness. And I think that is the joke of those songs, that they are completely unaware of how monstrous they are. And that has always been a theme that has run through a lot of my work. I don’t know why but it’s there.

“But I sing those songs now at shows and I wonder, ‘This is maybe hitting people in a different way than it did when I first wrote it.’ Or I guess, more to the point, I’m understanding that it’s hitting everybody in very different ways, in a way that I didn’t understand when I first wrote them. I first wrote them and it just meant what it meant to me and I thought it meant the same (thing) to everybody else, but now I realize that some people might be receiving those messages in a different way. I don’t know, it’s been a very interesting time.”

Even beyond the issue of gender relations, I think there is a lesson to be taken that we should take joy where we find it. If you find something you like, be it soft rock, computer games, medieval cosplay, entomology,  blogging about state government, whatever — delight in the fact that you have found something that makes your life happier. There are limits, of course. That doesn’t mean have fun at someone else’s expense. But this thing where people avoid what they like because other people will regard it as uncool is tragic. Life is short enough and hard enough without intentionally depriving themselves of joy.

Sen. Lanane introduced SB 32 which provides for same day voter registration. The person has to provide proof of residence and complete a voter registration form. I predict that this won’t go anywhere. Fifteen states currently permit election day registration, so it’s feasible. But, my guess is that the voters most likely to benefit from election day registration are less likely to vote for lawmakers currently in control of the General Assembly. Therefore, no dice.

David Mack, writing for Buzzfeed News has a long article on the Tippecanoe County case in which a Purdue student was sleeping in her boyfriend’s bed when another man snuck into the bed and initiated sex with her, knowing that she thought he was the boyfriend. The Purdue student woke up and went along with it because she thought it was her boyfriend in the bed. The guy was charged with rape but was acquitted because Indiana’s rape law only prohibits sex compelled through force or threats, if the victim is mentally disabled and can’t properly consent, or if he or she is unaware that the sex is occurring. None of those elements was present here in the case of this sneak rapist. The woman wasn’t forced or threatened, she wasn’t mentally disabled, and she was aware that the sex was occurring. She was deceived as to the identity of the man who climbed into her boyfriend’s bed.

Prosecutors apparently could have but didn’t charge sexual battery which prohibits someone touching, “for the purpose of sexual gratification, ‘another person’s genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast when that person is unaware that the touching is occurring.'” But, even that only potentially covers the period of time where the guy was trying to initiate sex, rubbing on her and whatnot, while the woman was sleeping. The larger violation here was that he knew she wasn’t agreeing to have sex with him; she was agreeing to have sex with her boyfriend. If it had been her boyfriend, based on subsequent events, it seems like she would have been o.k. with the initiation while she was asleep. So, it’s not even clear that charge would have stuck.

This has led to legislative efforts to address what happened here. But, there are line drawing problems. I think most folks — myself included — are comfortable declaring that what this guy did was a crime and a pretty serious one at that. But what are the outer limits? “I know your consent is not directed toward me but is directed toward someone I’m impersonating with whom you already have an intimate relationship” is definitely fair to criminalize. Opponents of defining consent in the criminal laws to encompass something like this cite fears of over-reaching government and a slippery slope.

Some of that resonates with me. Much as I trust and appreciate our local Prosecutor to exercise sound discretion, you can’t always count on the right person being in that office, so I’m a bit skeptical of the advocate in the story who “rolls her eyes at the notion that prosecutors are going to bring criminal cases against men who falsely tell women they love them to get them in bed. There are evidentiary standards that need to be met, she argues, as well as prosecutorial discretion to pursue only the most egregious cases of deception.” Relying on the tender mercies of a Prosecutor acting in good faith can lead to bad places if the wrong person is in that office. As best we can, we should define as a crime only those things we wish to be prosecutable offenses and try not to rely on prosecutorial discretion any more than we have to.

That said, if a practice is wrong, toxic, and causing harm to some non-trivial cross-section of the public, we shouldn’t be afraid to criminalize the practice simply because it’s common or even if there are going to be some grey areas in hard cases. Wrongful prosecution is always a legitimate concern, but the fact is that instances of women being sexually abused, harassed, and otherwise mistreated are rampant while the number of men wrongfully prosecuted for such abuse, harassment, and mistreatment is and will likely continue to be miniscule in comparison. Ideally, of course, you try to create a system and a culture where none of that happens, but if bad things are still going to happen to good people, we have lots of room to adjust the scales in favor of women before men are in danger of getting worse treatment in this area.

So, if the legislature proceeds, what level of deception rises to a criminal offense? Maybe criminalizing saying “I love you” to have sex is too subjective and hard to prove; but how about saying “I’m not married?” I don’t know what level of crime that ought to be, but I wouldn’t be bothered by that kind of thing being criminalized even if there currently happen to be a lot of guys running around lying about their marital status to get laid. (But, again – line drawing problems – what if it’s a committed relationship rather than a state sanctioned marriage?)

The larger cultural issue is an “all’s fair in love and war” approach to sex — mostly when it comes to men trying to have sex with women. As a guy approaching 50 who’s been married for almost 20 years, I’m not really on the front lines of this sort of thing, but it seems to me that a big part of the problem is men being taught that sexual conquest will earn them a measure of esteem among other men. (Let’s call it the “pussy grabber” effect — something that’s done, not for enjoyment of the act itself, but so a guy can brag about it to P.J. and Squi.) That’s obviously not something the legislature can address directly, but maybe defining “consent” as excluding “consent” obtained by deception would be an indirect step toward reducing women becoming collateral damage of men trying to impress other men.