This is the conversation that began it all, assuming the cynical voice in my head is telling the truth:

Student A: Charles Murray is going to speak here and he’s a racist!
Student B: Oh my god, that’s awful. We can’t let that happen! We must stop him before he normalizes racism!  Who’s Charles Murray?
Student A: He’s a racist! Everybody says so. He says blacks are genetically intellectually inferior.
Student B: Such hate speech! Where did he say that?
Student A: In a book called “The Bell Curve.”
Student B: That’s horrifying. Did you read it?
Student A: Are you kidding? I would never read that racist’s filth.
Student B: Oh, absolutely. It’s our privileged duty to stop this racist.
Student A: So you’ll come out and protest, burn down the auditorium if we have to so that this racist can’t spread his hate speech?
Student B: Of course! If I can find something black that’s cute. It’s so exhausting finding just the right outfit to wear to a riot.

A simple study, using the text of Charles Murray’s talk, stripped of his name, ended up showing that he was, at worst, spreading ideas that were deemed “moderate.”  Not moderate by shitlord racist standards, but by the standards of academics. Continue reading →

There was a march yesterday, a glorious march, to force Trump to release his tax returns, or at least force Congress to make him. Perhaps word spread across the resistance Facebook page that if the march was glorious enough, Article VIII of the Constitution would kick in, Trump would be stripped of the presidency and Hillary would be installed in his place. A few hundred showed up. The rest twitted their heads off.

Trump remains president. How could this be since they are the majority and so very passionate?

Nobody noticed that Liberty House was closing its doors. They were too busy saving the world, one twit at a time. Liberty House was how those greedy, evil, materialistic, racist, sexist boomers who ruined everything did activism.

In 1966, a small store called Liberty House, with precisely this in mind, opened at 343¼ Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Abbie Hoffman, through his involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was the manager. Liberty House sold handbags, book bags, dresses, children’s clothes, pillows, quilts and other “crafts of freedom,” as they were known, produced by an outfit called the Poor People’s Corporation.

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Not being deeply engrossed by the sort of general tech stuff that typically appears at Wired, this would never have come onto my radar but for Radley Balko’s twit: “This article is badly misinformed.” That’s sort of like saying that 2 Girls 1 Cup is inappropriate for a kid’s birthday party. At risk is that readers of Wired aren’t lawyers, or likely remotely aware of the scope and depth of issues at the intersection of law and science. It was a post about “forensic science.” Oh boy.

For those who believe Wired to be a credible source, and aren’t put off by a freelancer, Emma Grey Ellis, who has nothing in her background to suggest she’s qualified to write on the subject, offering a “think piece” on something about which she’s incapable of intelligent thought, this presents a problem. Every person who reads it is likely to be stupider for having done so. Not that they’ll realize it, and they will bask in the certainty of Dunning-Kruger that they are now well-informed.

Radley runs through a twitstorm of problems with the article. Like Ellis, he’s not a lawyer. Unlike Ellis, he knows forensic science well. Indeed, having put in serious effort to debunk junk science, he’s worthy of being called an expert on the subject. It’s not that Ellis, not merely a non-expert, but exceptionally shallow, isn’t allowed to expound on her baseless views, but that the attributed credibility of appearing in Wired suggests to the unwary that she knows what she’s talking about. She does not.

While the post is long and simplistic, one fundamental point Ellis raises is so utterly absurd as to demand further attention. Continue reading →

Unbeknownst to many, if you’re a federal agency, you have regulations. And if you have regulations, you need people with guns to enforce them. NASA is not special. They have their enforcers too. The difference may be that the kind of law enforcers who go to war for NASA lack the enemies who engender the fear and fury of regular folks, so they feel a bit lonely, unappreciated, less than respected.

But when an enemy of the state appears, giving them reason to flex their law enforcement muscle, they seize the opportunity with gusto. Norman Conley saw his opening and he went for it.

Joann Davis, and her late husband Robert, worked together at North American Rockwell, which had a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) in connection with the nation’s space program. By all accounts, Robert was a brilliant engineer, and he ultimately became a manager of North American Rockwell’s Apollo project. While working on the space program, he received many items of memorabilia, including two lucite paperweights. One contained a rice-grain-sized fragment of lunar material, or “moon rock;” the other contained a small piece of the Apollo 11 heat shield. According to unverified family lore, the paperweights were given to Robert by Neil Armstrong in recognition of Robert’s service to NASA.

A heartwarming tale of hard work, brilliance, contribution to the space program and the appreciation of an astronaut. Except Conley’s heart was cold. Continue reading →

The death of New York Court of Appeals Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam was tragic and shocking. But that her death is being attributed to suicide makes it also bewildering.

In the hours after her body was found, the police said they were treating her death as a suicide. The judge, 65, had recently told friends and a doctor that she was suffering from stress. And tragedy had followed her closely: On Easter in 2012, her mother committed suicide at age 92, according to two law enforcement officials. Two years later, around the same holiday, her brother shot himself to death, the officials said.

There would appear to be a thread of mental illness in her family, though no one has come out and said this, and I’m certainly not qualified to offer a meaningful opinion. Her doctor spoke of the stress she was under, the demands of her job as a judge on the state’s highest court, for speeches, for life with her new husband of eight months, her third new husband.

Still, no one saw this coming. Continue reading →

In the bad old days, Wellesley College was one of the Seven Sisters, women’s colleges where debs would go to meet Ivy League fellows and, if all went well, graduate with their Mr.S. degrees. But over time, the sex segregation ended, and it now stands alone as a very small, exclusive, well-regarded liberal arts college. It’s rated number 3 in national liberal arts colleges by U.S. News.

One might expect this to mean that it’s a pretty good school. Would it make you cry to learn that it means that the rest of the schools are just that god-awful? After all, if one is incapable of critical thought coming out of a liberal arts college, then what possible reason could there be for its existence? And as this staff editorial at The Wellesley News demonstrates,* there is no critical thought needed to remain a student.

Many members of our community, including students, alumnae and faculty, have criticized the Wellesley community for becoming an environment where free speech is not allowed or is a violated right. Many outside sources have painted us as a bunch of hot house flowers who cannot exist in the real world. However, we fundamentally disagree with that characterization, and we disagree with the idea that free speech is infringed upon at Wellesley. Rather, our Wellesley community will not stand for hate speech, and will call it out when possible.

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In 1971, Helen Reddy released “I Am Woman,” which became a number one hit after being re-released the following year. It was a great song, catchy tune, good beat, and made Reddy some decent coin. It became the anthem of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and changed everything. Oh wait. No. It didn’t actually accomplish anything. But it was definitely empowering at the time.

There is nothing wrong with music, art, symbols that stir people’s passions. Sure, they may be merely feel-good symbols, and they raise awareness of issues that matter to people. Whether the issue is one you care about isn’t important. If someone does, they’re entitled to their say, their song. Or their statue. And if it’s good enough, it will sell a million copies. Or get approval to stand on a traffic island in downtown Manhattan, even if it began life as guerrilla art.

Arturo Di Modica dropped his bronze, Charging Bull, in front of the New York Stock Exchange in the middle of the night on December 15, 1989. He intended it to send a message.

Arturo Di Modica first conceived of the Charging Bull as a way to celebrate the can-do spirit of America and especially New York, where people from all other the world could come regardless of their origin or circumstances, and through determination and hard work overcome every obstacle to become successful. It’s this symbol of virility and courage that Arturo saw as the perfect antidote to the Wall Street crash of 1986.

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Not that the dedication of Ezra Klein to explaining the universe for the benefit of the unenlightened isn’t appreciated. It is. It’s just that, well, he’s got a slight tilt to his explanations, all of which are meant to suggest that his politics are right and anyone who doesn’t share his (and partner Matty Yglesias‘) strong progressive feelings is a shitlord. Maybe he’s right, but then, some of us are more tolerant of different values.

Yet, Klein offers a post at Vox that raises a curious possibility, given the depth and scope of partisan divisiveness in the nation. Many would attribute the mindless tribalism to the advent of the internet, of social media, allowing echo chambers to create the impression of public discourse when it’s nothing more than confirmation bias on steroids. Is politics broken? If so, who broke it? Common wisdom attributes this to social media. But common wisdom is often wrong.

Here’s something everyone knows: Social media is driving American politics into a ditch of partisanship. Political junkies log on and cocoon themselves in a bubble of friendly punditry, appealing fake news, and outrageous acts from the other side. Every retweet and every like is another moment of identity confirmation, another high five to our friends, another reminder that we’re right and they’re wrong.

The result is, well, this ugly mess — President Donald Trump, red and blue Americas, polls showing we fear and hate the other party more than ever before, conspiracy theories growing like weeds, a polity where agreement is impossible and everyone is angry. Damn you, Facebook! Curse you, Twitter! (Instagram, you’re cool.)

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One of the reasons some people prefer a condo, just as others reject one, is that they come with rules. If you like the rules, then it’s the right place for you. If not, then maybe you would do better elsewhere. One common rule is no dogs. Regardless of your feelings toward critters, some people prefer it that way. Are they not allowed?

Well, sometimes the answer is no, when the rules of private accommodations clash with government regulations.

Two residents, Walters and Kromenhoek, had emotional support dogs authorized by their doctors (these were not “service dogs” as defined by the statute, though the plaintiffs called them service dogs). As you can imagine, other condo residents are not OK with the facial violation of the condo rules. Talkington blogged about the situation, and he and another resident Felice repeatedly complained about it for months.

Walters and Kromenhoek sued Talkington and Felice for alleging violating 42 U.S.C. § 3617, which says: “It shall be unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any person in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his having aided or encouraged any other person in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by section 3603, 3604, 3605, or 3606 of this title.”

Two residents didn’t like the way two other residents flouted the rules with their “support” dogs, and wrote about it. Continue reading →

How much fun is it to have a cop pull you over and, after some cute little word games, hand you a ticket? For an ice cream!!!  Even better, an invitation to the prom!!!

When Officer Cameron Burke pulled over Jenna Rodgers, a student at Warwick High School in Lititz, Pennsylvania, and told her she had exceeded the speed limit by 15 miles an hour, she was confused because she knew she hadn’t. It turned out the traffic stop had been arranged by her boyfriend, Collin Kauffman, who approached her car holding a sign that said, “You’re under arrest if you don’t say yes. Prom?”

Is that not adorable? Imaginative? Charming? Oh, come on. It fills people’s hearts with joy, and only the most cynical haters would find something malevolent in such a cute ploy.

Whether Kauffman’s promposal strikes you as charming or alarming will depend on your attitude toward police and the restrictions imposed on them by the Constitution. Although everyone involved thought it was all in good fun, Burke violated the Fourth Amendment by stopping Rodgers for no legal reason, and there are similar problems with other feel-good stunts involving cops and motorists.

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