The story of American Religious tolerance

According to this article at the Smithsonian, America is not quite the bastion of religious freedom that it is so often portrayed to be, and it never was.

America can still be, as Madison perceived the nation in 1785, “an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion.” But recognizing that deep religious discord has been part of America’s social DNA is a healthy and necessary step. When we acknowledge that dark past, perhaps the nation will return to that “promised...lustre” of which Madison so grandiloquently wrote.

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Old photos

I co-founded a band in 1973. We called it Ego, and the 8 of us (sometimes nine) played the music of Chicago, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Doobie Brothers and many other types of music. Many of our arrangements were our own. The trumpet player for Ego (Ron Weaver) recently sent me some photos from our band days 35 years ago, and I'm astounded at the emotions that the photos have triggered. At this point (see below--I'm the 3rd from the left), we ranged in age from 16 to 20 years of age. We were all going to school and most of us were working other jobs too. Yet playing with Ego was our passion. The proof is that we were willing to split our $200 fees eight or nine ways. I'm now three times the age that I was back then, but I felt like an adult even back then. I was studying in a pre-med program, totally unaware that I would switch paths and end up practicing law. Totally unaware that I would be raising 10 and 12-year old daughters 35 years later. I could have never imagined giving up music, and I haven't, though I have never played with a large group since Ego. Several of the other players still have careers playing music, two of them (Charles Glenn and Kelly Durbin [not in the above photo]) on a high level. It was a lot of work to organize a band in 1974, given that this era was pre-email and pre-cellphone. We wrote out much of our own music with pencil and paper, including detailed brass parts. None of this could have happened without everyone pitching in, and the band was filled with talented and hard-working people, all of whom had good senses of humor. Somehow it all worked for more than two years before we went our separate ways, pulled by a variety of things, none of which I can clearly articulate at this point. There's nothing like an old photo to bring these memories flooding back. In fact, I'd never before seen this photo, so seeing it was like stepping into a time machine. This photo makes me want to jump back in time to play Chicago's "Make Me Smile" with the group or to struggle once more through an original tune we wrote in 7/4 time. It is such an amazing gift to see this photo so many years later (and to be alive to see it 35 years later). It is such an amazing thing that the mind, though it forgets so many episodes of the past, clings for decades to emotionally-embedded memories. This photo also makes me wonder whether it was the hard work of co-running and marketing a band that might have prepared me for resolving many of the conflicts I encountered later in life. There was a lot of improvising that was required back then and only some of it involved music. Much of that improvisation involved logistics, like how to afford necessary equipment, how to build our own mixer and lights and how many of us needed to convince parents yet again that we needed to borrow the family station wagons to make it to the gig. This photo also reminds me of that wonderful tired feeling, at about 3 am, when we had finished working and finished unloading the equipment back home, when we knew that we brought some joy to the audience, and that we would have a chance to do it again a day or a week later. In case it's not obvious, I'm really proud of what we accomplished as teenagers. If a parent asked me to suggest a way for their own teenager to grow into a responsible adult, I might blurt out: "Tell them to run a band." It's not the only way to come of age, but for me it was a terrific path. This photos is packed with emotion for me, and looking back at it, the emotion was the logic of what we did. Whoever says that humans are primarily rational rather than emotional creatures has it so very wrong, indeed.

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…Like I’m Eight

In the movie Philadelphia, Denzel Washington plays a savvy courtroom litigator whose catch-phrase in front of a jury is "Explain it to me like I'm eight-years-old." It's a great line and maybe I'm looking for that kind of clarity now. I really don't know what to make of this. Obama---who won election with a very solid majority of the popular vote and a most impressive majority of the electoral---has managed to be reasonable to the point of impotence. He's on the verge of validating every cliche about spineless intellectuals. The man is smart, erudite, has charisma, and can't seem to say no to the Right. It is possible that this is another one of those situations where we the people simply don't know what's going on and cannot therefore grasp the tactics or strategy. Maybe this is cleverness at such a level that it looks clumsy and gutless. I don't believe that for a second, though. (The only thing that makes any kind of sense in that vein is the idea that he is handing the GOP more and more rope with which to hang themselves. The problem with that is any rope, in order to work in an execution, has to be tied to something substantial on one end.) [more . . .]

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Justice Isn’t Boring

I'd heard about this Boring case a couple of years ago, and it finally has reached a verdict. In essence, Google's Street View crew accidentally drove up and filmed a private road, and the owners had nothing better to do than sue. I'm picturing some legal adviser drooling over Google's coffers and thinking they had an angle to get something substantial in the form of a settlement. But the case was pretty weak, with several judges simply stripping off charges, until they were left with second degree trespass. But they won! They beat Google! As Geek.com puts it: Boring couple win $1 compensation for Street View trespassing.

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Can Future Censorship Be Regulated?

The question at hand is, who decides what you find on the web? I recently read Regulating the Information Gatekeepers about search engines. This article focused mainly on commercial implications of search engines changing their rules, and the ongoing arms race between companies that sell the service of tweaking web pages and links and click farms to optimize search engine ranking positions, and the search engines trying to filter out such bare toadying in favor of actual useful pages. On my MrTitanium.com site, I ignore all those search engine games and just provide solid content and current items for sale. In 2002, MrTitanium was usually in the first dozen results when Googling for "titanium jewelry". In 2003, Google decided that the number of links to a page was the primary sign of its usefulness. Within days, link farms popped up, and my site dropped from view. I waited it out, and in 2004, Google changed the rules again, and MrTitanium reappeared in the top 30. Top five for "titanium earrings". But the real question is, should someone be regulating these gatekeepers of information? Who decides whether a search for "antidepressants" should feature vendors, medical texts, or Scientology anti-psychiatry essays? There are two ways to censor information: Try to block and suppress it, or try to bury it. The forces of disinformation and counterknowledge are prolific and tireless. A search engine could (intentionally or inadvertently) favor certain well represented but misleading positions (such as Truthers or anti-vaxxers) over proven science, and give all comers the impression of validity and authority to "bad" ideas. But the question of regulation is a dangerous one. The best access to information is open. But if a well meaning legislature decides that there needs to be an oversight board, this board could evolve into information police and be taken over by populist electors who choose to suppress good information. On the other hand, the unregulated and essentially monopolistic search industry began with great ideals, and so far has been doing a good job at a hard task. But it, too, could become malignant if there is no oversight. Another facet is, whose jurisdiction would this fall under? If the U.S. congress passes laws that Google doesn't like, they simply move offshore. There are designs for, and even prototypes of, data centers that float beyond any countries jurisdiction, powered by waves and sun, and connected via fibers and satellites. If the U.N. starts regulating, then whose rules apply? North Korea? Iran? China? And who could enforce it? The information revolution is just beginning: We do live in interesting times.

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