PREDICTIVE TEXT
Jeff: ‘T9 is awesome. Here’s their home page.’
☞ There’s an on-line demo and even a training game. And for the words your cell phone’s predictive text doesn’t recognize – it will, in the future, once you spell them out the long slow way.
SCULPTURE
This nine foot-long syringe by sculptor Edie Brown incorporates a 55 gallon oil drum and is called, Oil Addiction. The U.S. uses 178 of these drums every second.
It was placed in an exhibit of oil drum art for New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas and it won an award. (Do you know of an environmental organization that might want to display it? I think it would go well in the lobby of the Energy Department or Environmental Protection Agency, but not under this administration.)
HATE
Steve: ‘There are many reasons why one person may (however irrationally) hate another enough to commit a heinous act, and no one wants to see crimes against their own group be considered less deserving of punishment than another. However, it is the essence of hate crime statutes to make such a distinction and elevate some over others. To argue inclusion of gays and lesbians is to argue a step towards the effective repeal of the statutes, for when all cases are ‘special,’ none will be.’
☞ Well said – but I think incorrect. It’s not just African Americans who are protected now, it’s people of ANY race, including white (even though there have obviously been more hate crimes against blacks than whites). It’s people of ANY religion who are protected (even though synagogues tend to be defiled more often than churches). And, yes, if a bunch of hateful gays hopped into their pick-up and found some apparently straight man at random, chained him to their truck, and dragged him through the streets of West Hollywood until he was decapitated – they would be guilty of a hate crime if hate crimes based on ‘sexual orientation’ were added to the existing 1968 federal statute. Because, yes, in a sense all people ARE special, and none should have to fear being targeted just because of who they are.
More of your comments in the days to come.
