Category Archives: View

Mail 782 Sunday, July 14, 2013

I am way behind on mail so I will try to do this one as a catchup, then follow with a brief view.

So far we have had an unexpected outbreak of sanity following the Zimmerman verdicts. Of course Zimmerman was a “white Hispanic”, whatever that means; id he is wise he will become an Hispanic Hispanic as soon as he possibly can.

Riot video

Hello Dr. Pournelle,

There may have been no comments yet when you posted the link to the riot video, but per the comments there when I followed the link, that footage is of rioting in Vancouver in relation to the Stanley Cup. I have no first-hand knowledge of either Miami or Vancouver, so I can’t say whether those comments are correct or not. This being early days (or hours), I wouldn’t be surprised to find misreporting to be common.

Best wishes.

Jason Bontrager

There weren’t any yet when I went to bed. I wonder why people fake such things?

You probably know this already

Jerry, according to comments posted on it, the rashaentertainment.com piece about rioting in Miami from the Zimmerman verdict was actually shot in Vancouver BC (Roedy Green’s stomping grounds – I’m sure you remember Roedy from BIX), and the cause of the riot was people unhappy about the Stanley Cup (hockey) result.

“You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the riot.” Or some such.

–John

I didn’t know it but it doesn’t astonish me. As I said, it was late. The interesting thing is that there was so little of it. Just as the activity in LA has been fairly tame after threats of much worse.

Prosecutorial misconduct in the Zimmerman

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

The addresses below report on:

1. Professor Alan Dershowitz’ accusation that the prosecutor in the Zimmerman case violated Zimmerman’s civil rights by withholding exculpatory evidence from the trial judge.

2. A Florida state attorney who had noted this misconduct was fired over it with threats.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Dershowitz-Zimmerman-Prosecutorial-Misconduct/2013/07/14/id/514957

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-zimmerman-evidence-firing-20130713,0,4147108.story

It ain’t over till it’s over.

Best regards,

Alfred Bowman

Well, Zimmerman escapes double jeopardy this time — unless the Administration wants to delay some other laws, rights, etc. or, in some other way, manipulate due process.  The FBI was not able to prove anything to pull another Rodney King double trial:

<.>

After interviewing nearly three dozen people in the George Zimmerman murder case, the FBI found no evidence that racial bias was a motivating factor in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, records released Thursday show.

Even the lead detective in the case, Sanford Det. Chris Serino, told agents that he thought Zimmerman profiled Trayvon because of his attire and the circumstances — but not his race.

</>

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/12/155918/more-evidence-released-in-trayvon.html#.UeM9mT7DVoY

Zimmerman is continuing his suit against NBC; how rightly so:

<.>

Lsst night’s not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial will enable the neighborhood-watch volunteer to resume his case against NBC News for the mis-editing of his widely distributed call to police. Back in December, Zimmerman sued NBC Universal Media for defamation over the botched editing, which depicted him as a hardened racial profiler.

</>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/07/14/zimmerman-lawyer-to-move-asap-against-nbc-news/

And, this President is using the emotional frenzy of a thousand mice squealing in agony to promote more of his unpopular policies:

<.>

President Obama called on the nation to honor Trayvon Martin a day after George Zimmerman was acquitted of his murder by asking "ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence."

</>

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/14/19467556-obama-honor-trayvon-martin-by-battling-gun-violence?lite

And life goes on…

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

My own thoughts on the Zimmerman trial for whatever they are worth.

#1 The charging of Zimmerman was racially motivated.

#2 If I had been in the Martin boy’s situation where I had a phone as he did, I would have dialed 9-1-1.

#3 What really troubles me most about the trial is that the prosecution was allowed to add a new charge after the defense had rested. That in itself appears to me to be something other than a fair trial. It is very scary. You get the court, ready to defend yourself and the government can decide new charges at any time with no opportunity to prepare a defense. Wrong!

Greg Brewer

It was clear that the federal government exerted enormous pressure on the state and local authorities, and when the local prosecutor declined to file charges or go to the grand jury due to concluding the case could not be won, a special prosecutor was brought in. Every pressure was exerted. And it may well be that we have not seen the last of this. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/zimmerman-civil-rights-charges-142917019.html

Have you read the Florida law? Here it is:

http://www.husseinandwebber.com/florida-stand-your-ground-statute.html

Under the law, there’s no way Zimmerman should have ever gone to trial, but it’s also in my view entirely indefensible. It goes against everything you ever taught us about gun safety and personal responsibility. Under the law, I can go punch Mike Tyson in the face in locked room. If he hits back and I fear "great bodily injury" I can shoot him because I have no place to run. The situation is entirely of my choosing yet, I am not responsible for the results of my actions. This goes way beyond any "stand your ground" and into a license for mayhem. Not sure how anyone can defend that portion of the law. It encourage reckless behavior which may have been the case in Florida, but we’ll never know. Even my wife said after reading the law she would vote to acquit.

I would not be in favor of amending California law to the “stand your ground” condition. I think the requirement to retreat before employing deadly force is reasonable so long as you are not in your own home. Or perhaps it is not. I am not a legislator. I also do not live in Florida.

Of course it is difficult to retreat if you are on your back on the ground being beaten. Had Zimmerman threatened Martin with a firearm it would have been a different case. And we still do not know who struck the first blow; clearly the prosecution did not try to show that Zimmerman was in the habit of initiating violent confrontations. I didn’t comment on the case while it was in trial ; I had in fact expected a hung jury. Acquittal on all counts including lesser included accounts indicates that the jury believed this was a true case of self defense. It should never have got to that point, but I am not sure the stand your ground law was responsible for that. Of course I grew up in the era in which a man’s home was his castle.

"Stand Your Ground" comment

Jerry, the guy who gave you the piece on the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law may be somewhat mistaken.

He said “Under the law, I can go punch Mike Tyson in the face in locked room. If he hits back and I fear "great bodily injury" I can shoot him because I have no place to run.”

Tucker Max gives an absolutely beautiful exposition of the legal concept of “proximate cause” (legal term), in “Hilarity Ensues” at pp. 188-190 (http://books.google.com/books?id=0PJ2PdpE2XkC&pg=PA188#v=onepage&q&f=false <http://books.google.com/books?id=0PJ2PdpE2XkC&pg=PA188#v=onepage&q&f=false> ). He starts by quoting the Wikipedia entry, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_cause <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_cause> , on “proximate cause”: “In the law <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law> , a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to a legally recognizable injury to be held to be the cause of that injury. There are two types of causation in the law: cause-in-fact, and proximate (or legal) cause. Cause-in-fact is determined by the "but for" test: But for the action, the result would not have happened. For example, but for running the red light <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light> , the collision <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision> would not have occurred. For an act to cause a harm, both tests must be met; proximate cause is a legal limitation on cause-in-fact.”

That would seem to be directly applicable to your correspondent’s hypothetical, and suggests that your correspondent would not fare well at trial. While Iron Mike’s return punch might be the cause-in-fact for his fear of great bodily injury, his initial assault on Iron Mike would almost certainly be considered the proximate cause, making him, not Iron Mike, responsible for the final outcome.

–John

<http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3844/honor-compromise-middle-east>

I was sent this link by a liberal rabbi who loves Israel and has long since given up expecting solutions to its problems. I think it was prompted by his “radical right” younger son’s enthusiasm and also my having said that I can’t believe that the West really wants to preserve Syria’s existing boundaries or arm the anti-Assad forces unless the weapons are first used on the Al Qaeda wannabes (think Stalin and Trotsky but no arms to either lot I suppose is the lesson from that). Obviously Israel is suited just fine by events in Syria. Still, what is the long term hope? I saw a film called “Hasidic” recently which makes one realise that help is not always from the logically obvious area. If there are millions of bearers of Ashkenazi genes in 100 years time they will be descendants of the families of Hasidim and other Ultra-Orthodox with their 10 to 20 children not the smart secular breeders of 1.2 children.

The historical changes for shame/honour to guilt/individualist-rationalist cultures and any regressions would be something I would like to read about. Any suggestions? Are Big Man cultures typically shame/honour cultures?

It can’t be all about literacy above a primitive level for listing stock. While a military aristocracy remains important one get such anachronistic but traditional behaviour as Langsdorff, the captain of the Graf Spee, risking dishonour in order to save his crew from certain death and settle them into digs in Buenos Aires, and then promptly shooting himself after writing to his wife.

Can Indonesia have some influence on Arab Muslim culture in the long run? Where does Iran fit in culturally? (I suspect that the tribal illiterates in Iran are not much different from Arabs, Pushtuns and Pakistanis who are also tribal and more or less illiterate).

J

Of course the modern view is that Langsdorff must have been mad. Falstaff’s discourse on honor – who hath it? He that died a Wednesday – seems to be the accepted view today.

"Because of your deliberate, willful and unscrupulous actions, you can never again be trusted to step foot in this office."

<http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/13/justice/zimmerman-it-firing/index.html>

And more will come out now that the trial is over.

I read this earlier this morning and besides inappropriate laughing, for which I plan to punish myself in appropriate fashion once I decide exactly what that means, I think there was a further error here.

The NTSB girl was not wrong, just misunderstood. These were not the names of the captain and crew, these were the comments on the cockpit voice recorder recovered in the black box.

From: Bob

On the midday news program yesterday on the Oakland TV channel, the announcer said she had just been given the names of the crew members on the Korean airliner that crashed at SFO the other day, and proceeded to read these names:

Sum Ting Wong

Wi Tu Low

Ho Lee Fuk

Bang Ding Ow

By the time she got to the fourth one, she apparently realized that sum ting was indeed wong, and called for a break, after which she said the names were erroneous but that they had been confirmed to the station by the NTSB. Apparently an intern at the NTSB, some witless girl, had indeed confirmed them. The intern has now been sentenced to crucifixion and the announcer will have a month of ethnic sensitivity training.

Bob

Now, personally, I sort of tend to feel that peoples who normally use names like Fuk and Lipschitz have little to complain about, but, hey, what do I know, I have a completely normal name.

No, not THAT one…sheesh!

G

I cannot think of an appropriate comment…

"I was wondering if there was a rogue cow, a particularly temperamental one.”

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/10064225/Cow-attacks-It-looked-like-they-wanted-to-kill-him.html>

Roland Dobbins

I lived from third to 8th grade on a farm, and while we were wary of bulls, we were not concerned about cows.  Of course our dogs didn’t bother cows. 

Feds Take Raisins from Raisin farmers

This rivals the bunny inspectors. The Feds take part of the raisin crop with no payment to the farmers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/one-growers-grapes-of-wrath/2013/07/07/ebebcfd8-e380-11e2-80eb-3145e2994a55_story.html

I keep wondering when we will get the laser-like inspection of the budget, line by line, that was promised in the 2008 election. The one that told us of the coming Hope and Change, Yes We Can.

Andrea Rossi’s megawatt plant

Thought you’d like to know that Rossi’s megawatt plant was only shown running in public once and that was October 28, 2011. Although scientists and the press were invited, and an AP reporter was present, none of the guests were allowed to see any measurements being made. And a very large diesel generator (450 kW or more) was connected to the device at all times while it was running.

Rossi later said he sold 12 more of these "plants" including some to the US military. But almost 2 years after the demo, no customer has been named and none has ever been identified.

As for the recent tests of a "hot ecat", the tests appear to have been done badly, using Rossi’s lab, his power source, and instruments and methods specified by him and used by him previously. It is not, as was claimed, an "independent" test. It involved some scientists from the University of Uppsala but other scientists from the same department, attacked and repudiated the work.

Rossi’s representatives include free energy crooks (Schneider in Germany) and a weird fellow (Roger Green in Australia) who sells distributorship shares for peanuts when if the device were real, they would be worth millions or billions.

Rossi writes on his blog that he has a million unit per year plant constructed in the US but when he was forced to talk to an inspector from Florida’s nuclear regulatory agency, he told the agent that he did no manufacturing in the USA.

Excellent summaries of the problems with Rossi’s work are detailed by Steve Krivit in his web site. See for example http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/RossiECat/RossiTimeline.shtml. There is also a somewhat disorganized but still useful web site by Gary Wright: http://shutdownrossi.com/ . It has details of Roger Green’s attempts to sell distributorships and includes relevant emails directly from Rossi to prospective customers. Here is one link about those emails. http://shutdownrossi.com/law-legal-issues/andrea-rossi-roger-green-fraud-scam-update/

I have trouble finding stuff on Wright’s site but there is much of interest there. It is also important that Wright calls Rossi a criminal and Rossi has not sued him.

Rossi behaves in every way as an investment scammer. So, by the way, does another claimant to high power LENR/cold fusion and that is Defkalion now in Canada.

Please let me know if I can provide any additional information. I am quite convinced that Rossi has absolutely nothing and never did. He has, however, been extremely clever in choosing scientists to fool and methods to fool them with.

Mary Yugo

Lust and Jealousy

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

I don’t have any "studies" to back this up, but I find it pretty improbable that physical jealousy will ever be excluded from our psychology, any more than the Victorians ever managed to abolish Lust. It’s just not a matter of rational choice. Considering Chastity to be a virtue is a workable response to this aspect of the human condition.

Also, the reality of STD’s should give anyone pause before they conclude that Chastity will ever drop off the radar screen as a virtue. A world with STDs is a world that requires condoms, and honestly, if you’re rational enough to remember a condom every time, you’re not doing it right.

J

CDC says Americans still consume too much, but studies show no benefit in reducing salt

http://kfor.com/2013/07/09/cdc-admits-long-standing-error-there-is-no-benefit-in-reducing-salt/

"To translate this last study into teaspoons: the finding was that anything between 1-1/2 and 3 tsp of salt per day is just fine, and there were adverse effects from eating more than that or less than that. Most Americans who are not consciously restricting salt fall in this range (1-1/2 to 3 tsp). People who are on low-salt diets for medical reasons are getting as little as 1/2 tsp, and they’re well into the range where dearth of salt is harming them."

I’ve been saying for years that the initial studies they based this on were clearly flawed, and wondering why, if CDC and the rest of the government couldn’t see that, I should just accept that they knew better than me on anything.

Graves

And yet we borrow money to promulgate all this.

Subj: Fear and Loathing at Commerce

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353011/fear-and-loathing-commerce-kevin-d-williamson

>>Rather than simply identifying the [malware-]infected computers and fixing them, the agency set about physically destroying its IT hardware — not just computers, but keyboards, printers, digital cameras, and other equipment entirely unrelated to the problem. … The only thing that stopped EDA from destroying its entire IT infrastructure was that it ran out of money to fund the demolition.<<

Our Tax Dollars At Work! For Our Security!

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Subj: Video: 3D Printing of Liquid Metals at Room Temperature

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3pXn8-sHA

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Atmospheric CO2 Level

It seems the current high CO2 level of 400 PPM is causing the deserts to start greening up. Maybe you’re a Climatologist, since I seem to recall you suggesting this might happen.

http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Media/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2.aspx

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50563/abstract

David Smallwood

Not a climatologist, but an old operations research guy who pays attention to the data rather than the theory…

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20130711.aspx

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

‘The windowless, two-story structure, which is larger than a football field, was completed this year at a cost of $34 million. But the military has no plans to ever use it.’

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-brand-new-us-military-headquarters-in-afghanistan-and-nobody-to-use-it/2013/07/09/2bb73728-e8cd-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_print.html>

Roland Dobbins

We had good strategic reason to go into Afghanistan and throw out those who had harbored our enemies; and to make it plain that if they went back to harboring our enemies we would be back.  Then we should have left.  Instead we stayed.  I do not know why.  No one has ever given me a satisfactory reason for believing that anyone was actually so ignorant of history as to believe Afghanistan could be made into a liberal democracy through any military influence we could exercise. Alexander the Great knew better.

Worse than Gandhi vs. better than Hitler

Dear Jerry Pournelle:

I notice that some people compare Edward Snowden unfavorably to Martin Luther King, Thoreau and Gandhi; and that the same people tend to compare the USA favorably to China, Russia and Venezuela. Technically these comparisons are correct, but still that’s holding Snowden to a much higher standard than the USA. If anyone ever compared me to Gandhi, even unfavorably, I’d be pleased; but if anyone ever compared me to Hitler, even favorably, I’d be furious. The latter is called ‘damning by faint praise’; so maybe we can call the former praising by faint damns. I’d say, in both cases, ‘so that’s who I remind you of?’

I have heard this nation called better than Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Taliban Afghanistan; and this from people who thought they were saying something nice! (Assuming that they thought about it at all.) Am I the only one to see the grievous insult in this? The soft bigotry of abysmal expectations?

Sincerely,

Nathaniel Hellerstein

paradoctor

View 781 Saturday, July 13, 2013

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/13/george-zimmerman-found-not-guilty/2514163/

It wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Zimmerman had the mass of the media against him, and the threat of pillage and riots hung over the case. That is still possible. George Zimmerman Not Guilty: Florida City Braces For Riots

 Zimmerman verdict sparks worry of riots

 Rioting Feared Now That George Zimmerman Has Been Found Not …

And of course Preparing for Riots After Zimmerman Verdict Is Racial Fear Mongering

Now as I write this I see http://rashaentertainment.com/riots-underway-in-miami-after-not-guilty-verdict-in-george-zimmerman-trial/ but no indication of whether the police were prepared or not.

That. it turns out, was a false report.  It looked pretty tame on the video. 

Previously

Ex-Chicago Cop: Zimmerman Acquittal to Cause Race Riots

Social unrest will “dwarf the Rodney King and the Martin Luther King riots”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 28, 2013

Following a number of tweets making threats to kill white people if George Zimmerman is acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin, a former Chicago police officer warns that the outcome of the case could spark race riots in cities across America.

It’s now bed time in Los Angeles, and we’ll know in the morning I suppose. I am told that it is racist to expect riots, and we have seen that it is racist to prepare for them.

We have this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBtSN7-zoj0 but it’s a pretty tame scene compared to what happened after the Rodney King verdicts.

We have apparently escaped what happened in Los Angeles when white truck drivers were pulled from their big trucks and beaten and many stores were looted and burned.  Perhaps we have a restoration of sanity. 

Of course the verdict was to be expected given that the initial investigation did not result in charges against Zimmerman. The prosecutors charged with winning the case didn’t want to make the charge. One assumes that is because they didn’t think they could win the case, although there were also charges of racism influencing the prosecutor’s office. A special prosecutor from another county was then directed to charge Zimmerman. The new team put on a brave face and tried their best to win, but they started from a bad position.

The media were mostly in favor of convicting Zimmerman of something. In Los Angeles many talk show hosts openly stated that Zimmerman was guilty and deserved severe punishment. At the last minute the prosecution decided to allow a lesser verdict of manslaughter; given the use of a gun, this cold have resulted in thirty years imprisonment. There was even speculation about child endangerment (also with a gun) but that came to nothing. This could have been interpreted as desperation on the part of the prosecution.

Zimmerman, meanwhile, was designated as a “white Hispanic”, the first and only member of that racial group I have ever heard of. And despite the clear language of the Constitution about double jeopardy, there are already plans to find new ways to prosecute Zimmerman. There may be interesting times ahead.

Or perhaps not. It is still possible that sanity will prevail.

But what really happened in the Zimmerman case? All we can say for certain is that the prosecution could not convince a jury that whatever it was, it did not rise to as criminal act. A seventeen year old youth was killed in a situation in which he had as much right to be present as did Mr. Zimmerman. There are mixed stories of how that came about. There was enormous pressure on the jury to convict – some riot threats were made well before the jury was selected, and if we are aware of those threats in Los Angeles it’s a more than fair assumption that all of Florida has heard them. There are a number of precautions taken to protect the jury from retaliation by those who find the verdict monstrous; the jurors must have been aware of some of this. Nevertheless they convicted Zimmerman of nothing.

Over time the case will be tried again and again on line, in books, in documentary films, all with one or another slant; but in the end we know about as much tonight as we will ever know about what really happened.

And that is enough for tonight. We will know more in the morning.

View 781 Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Today I had a visit from Paul Schindler, former Editor of BYTE when I was the lead columnist, and we had a long walk and a good talk. Paul is retired now, and having paid his tribute to the worthless teacher education program is now a qualified teacher of history and civics in a high school near the Bay area. I learned a good bit about the new California high school mandates. When I mentioned the lines about a village Cromwell unsullied by his country’s blood to try to get some of the flavor of Grey’s Elegy, he pointed out that in order to enjoy that you would need to know who Cromwell was. I replied that it is impossible to understand the US Constitution without knowing who Cromwell was; that the English Revolution in which they killed the king, followed by Cromwell’s Commonwealth, had so marked the English conscience that they recalled the King rather than have another rule like that – even though, as the liberal Macaulay would say, they then “threw into the Thames the bones of the noblest prince ever to rule England.”

“May be,” he said, “but the curriculum mandates what they will know on the test and if they don’t know it teachers are rated badly, and principals are upset, and terrible things happen, so unless Cromwell is in the master curriculum he’s not likely to be in the lessons”. I pleaded that this was madness, but then we were interrupted and the subject went to other things.

I’m going to think on that one for a while.

I’m trying to work on my introduction to the public domain California Sixth Year Reader, which I more and more believe is vital to education of students in the 5^th to 7^th year of schooling: it contains materials they ought to have read, and some of the tools they will need to learn one of the great pleasures of life, which is reading good poetry. That is an acquired taste, and those who never acquired it don’t know what it is they are missing. Of course many of the words in the Sixth Year Reader, considered necessary and proper for California students from 1914 until about World War II, are now considered too hard for them. which is a terrible pity.

I was reminded of all that because I was reminded of the Grey’s Elegy, a poem I did not care for when I first encountered it, but learned to love as I grew older, partly because of the story of the young General Wolfe who conquered Quebec and insured that North America would be English, and not French. He took his troops up the St. Lawrence River past the French sentinels at Quebec where they deployed at night on the Plains of Abraham. The battle the next morning decided the fate of Canada. Whilst they were being rowed upriver, Wolfe recited Grey’s Elegy to those in his small boat. When he came to the lines

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

he paused in his recitation and said, “Gentlemen, I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec tomorrow.”

It took me weeks to learn to read that poem sometime back in my teen years during World War II, and why I took the trouble to read it over and over until I understood it I can’t say. I can only say it was worth it in the enjoyment of other poetry over the years of my life. There is something about great poetry that can’t be duplicated in rock music or overly precious prose, or – to me anyway – the stuff that is often presented as poetry in modern poetry magazine where rime is forbidden, rhythm is seldom found, and meter is avoided as a plague. But that’s another essay.

What I am looking for is some way to induce young people to make the investment at their age that will have a major payoff when they are older. Not a payoff in cash, but in enjoyment and understanding. But that too is another essay.

“Sometimes the character of the opposition defines why something ought to be the most politically viable thing in the world.”

<http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/>

This is a long read, but is an important article, IMHO.

—-

Roland Dobbins

Even the first part which only tells the story is worth reading. This has gone much farther than we predicted even a few years ago. And the trend continues.

Salve sclave.

It was in fact memory of Cromwell who protected the English people from Christmas and other vices as he understood vice which cause our Framers a hundred years later to limit the powers of the Federal government.  But of course Cromwell is no longer remembered.

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/Elegy.htm

View 781 Sunday, July 07, 2013

I took most of the week off. Niven and I got some work done on our next book, and Friday we spent the day at the Los Angeles Zoo in search of inspiration for some scenes. More on that another time.

The Arthur C. Clarke Prediction of Sexual Behavior

Meanwhile, over at the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) members site, there began a complicated conversation about sexual harassment. The discussion was heated but mostly involved hypothetical cases. Then there came a report of an incident involving an editor I once worked with and a female editor I have never met, at a convention party. The offended party posted something on line, and a SFWA official reposted that in the SFWA discussion. Since neither party was a member of SFWA and the event was not an SFWA event, I failed to understand why this was SFWA business; and in what must have been a fit of absence of mind, I said so.

There was a storm of response, at which point I seem to have lost the rest of my senses because I got involved: so far no one had specified what the accused had done, merely that it was sexual harassment. There were other discussions, none of any actual incidents; and since no one seemed to know any actual cases, I decided to supply one in which the facts are not at all in dispute, it was all very well known to nearly everyone fan or professional in the science fiction community thirty years ago, and the principals were pretty well beyond being harmed by talking about it since the major figure has been dead for decades.

I did have an interest in the subject, because in his 1953 book Childhood’s End Arthur C. Clarke had predicted that the development of reliable contraceptives and a foolproof paternity test would end marriage and sever the connection between procreation and sex: it would bring Western Civilization (and thus everyone else) into a culture of sex for pleasure and recreation unrelated to marriage and child raising. I had discussed this with him a couple of times in the 1980’s, and his comment was “Well, I was right wasn’t I? Isn’t that where we are going?” ( http://the-american-catholic.com/2012/04/03/arthur-c-clarke-on-how-to-destroy-marriage/ )

At the time Arthur was writing Childhood’s End he met, courted, and married Marilyn Mayfield, a young American divorcée with a young son. They lived together for less than six months, and separated before the publication of Childhood’s End; the divorce proceedings took a decade, and involved legal and financial issues to the point that Arthur avoided coming to the United States lest he be served with demands for money. When his friends asked him about his marriage, he indicated that he did not want to talk about the subject, although he did tell me once that “She was very young and I was set in my ways, and it was all doomed from the beginning.” He made it very clear that he was not blaming her, and I never heard him say an unkind word about her; of course he didn’t say very much at all about the subject. Arthur was unfailingly kind to his friends, but he seldom discussed his personal life even with much closer friends than I was.

But as I look at the changes in Western sexual customs and courtship I am often reminded of Clarke’s sociological prediction. Apparently the extent of the hookup culture is disputed, but every month or so I seen another article on casual sex, hooking up, and current college practice both at Spring Break and normal times. And of course there are the Tom Wolfe books Hooking Up and I Am Charlotte Simmons. But there was nothing about hookup culture in the SFWA discussions either inside the SFWA membership forums, or in the open discussions resulting from the distorted picture put together by the ‘leak’.

The discussion of sexual harassment at SF events was mostly abstract, and for some reason I decided to inject into it a well known story that seemed relevant. The facts were never in dispute and the whole story was widely known in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. To wit: Randall Garrett, a popular science fiction author with a large number of publications to his credit – he made a living at SF even before his Too Many Magicians novels, selling tons of stories at a few cents a word – was a very popular figure at SF conventions. He was often asked to perform, which he did: he sang ballads interpretively. A couple of favorites were “Have Some Madeira, my Dear”, and “Thais” (actually a poetic review of the opera Thais turned into a ballad). His performances were usually accompanied by a volunteer from the audience, some young woman who would dance interpretively as the ingénue in the Madeira song, or the courtesan in Thais.

Randall had another very well known practice. After a few drinks, he would roam the convention parties looking for women he did not know, making certain that this was someone of age ( most often late twenties or older ). He would then approach, stand well out of reach without any physical contact, bow, and say “HI. I’m Randall Garrett. Let’s F—.” This happened many times at many conventions between 1970 and about 1980, after which he was disabled until his death in 1987. His habit was known to nearly everyone of importance in the science fiction community. I know of no one who encouraged him, and many told him to stop it, but he persisted, giving the argument that he never made physical contact, he never pursued or persisted unless he was actively encouraged to continue, and he was doing no more than offering casual recreational sex. He would also cite the argument that women had as much right to desire non-relationship recreational sex as men – he could cite articles from women’s magazines stating that idea.

The one time he came to a convention that I had any authority over – a SFWA Nebula Awards event I chaired – I looked up Randall and told him to cool it, and was greeted with a hurt look for suggesting that he would act that way at that sort of event. I don’t know what he would have done if a fan convention chairman had given him the same instruction. For all I know that happened and he obeyed. It was not a common topic of discussion with us. In those time, before the Internet and cheap long distance telephone calls, there were many friendships among science fiction writers who met mostly or even exclusively at science fiction conventions, and communicated at other times chiefly through US Post Office letters, which is to say, not very often. I had many such friends, and Randall was one of them. In addition I saw him at SCA events, and when I visited my close personal friend Poul Anderson in the Bay Area. Randall was a frequent visitor at Poul’s home.

Randall had friends all over the world, whom he met yearly at the World SF Conventions. I doubt many of them approved of his unique form of courtship, which became famous as it continued year after year.

I related this in a closed SFWA discussion. I mention it now because someone within the organization has, in direct violation of the rules, copied my post along with others contributed by other participants including past presidents, into an open web site. I found out about it thanks to email from some of my readers.

Well before I knew there was any interest in this matter outside the SFWA web site, I regretted ever getting involved in the ‘sexual harassment’ discussions inside SFWA. There was a storm of condemnation heaped upon my head. Most of it accused me of approving of Randall’s performance, which I did not, or of insufficiently condemning him. Did I not understand that leaving aside his explicit language, the very offer he made was demeaning, and treated the woman as an object whose only purpose was sex, and was definitely sexual harassment, and anyone who did not agree to that view was disgusting, and Garrett ought to have been thrown out of SFWA and thrown out of SF fandom, and anyone who did not agree to that was a disgusting sexist. Generally this was stated in stronger language than I use here.

There weren’t a lot of people saying this. Few, actually. But they said it often, and in answer to any attempt on my part to explain what I thought I was doing – I told you I temporarily took leave of my senses.

I found all this rather depressing which is one reason I haven’t been commenting on much of anything this week.

My point in bringing up this case was to try to persuade my fellow SFWA members that whatever they cared to say or do about sexual harassment at SFWA events, it was not our job or our place to try to dictate rules for SF conventions because SF writers don’t put on the conventions. They are put on by fans, and science fiction fans have a very long, and very strong, tradition of tolerance of almost anything except violence. Con convention parties are, to use Jack Chandler’s phrase, Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard. (Which sounds silly when I say it, so I guess you have to read one of Chandler’s Rim novels). Fans welcomed diversity before diversity was considered a good thing to welcome. Sex, race, gender, manner of dress, language, everyone is pretty well welcome in SF events and parties. And the fans knew all about Randall, did for years, and did nothing whatever about him.

The question becomes one of defining harassment. We can all agree that no woman – or man, or child, or anyone else – should have to put up with sexual harassment. Bad manners, rudeness, and the like are another story. I recall one fan party in Canada which was busted by the Regional Police because there was a performance of a folk singing group that involved an obscene pillow (known as the penisaurus) witnessed by mundane hotel guests (who weren’t allowed in the party because they hadn’t badges, but one pleaded to be allowed to watch, after which she called the cops in disgust). The people with the penisaurus were not condemned. The Regional Police were. Fandom is tolerant.

And Randall would and did insist that whatever else you could say about him – outrageous was acceptable – it was not harassment. To harass someone is to persist with unwanted attention, and he didn’t persist. He didn’t grope. He didn’t touch. He wasn’t threatening in any way. He offered recreational sex with no compensation. When asked what responses he got he said a few less than 10% accepted or at least discussed the possibility, about 10% tried to slap his face (he was agile so most weren’t successful), and about equal numbers said No rather nervously, said no with laughter, or said no thank you or even No, but thank you for the offer. I have neither confirmation nor challenge of his data. One correspondent said her husband tells her that the 10% acceptance is an old urban legend. If so I suspect that it derives from Randall because I never heard that claimed by anyone else.

It was also insisted that the language itself was harassment. I can’t argue with that, because I don’t use that language in the first place. Certainly in Randall’s day one might go weeks without hearing what has become known as the F-bomb; but that is hardly true now. Now probably hears several per minute in some concerts and parties. It’s just not rare. To which the argument is made that the very offer is harassment and demeaning and rude and –

I certainly won’t argue against naming it outrageous, rude, bad manners; the question is whether it rises to the level of harassment. When I was mad enough to care I was trying to make that distinction: there are plenty of things happening around us that are discomforting and unpleasant, but are they so harmful that there ought to be rules and enforcements prohibiting them? Clearly the Regional Police thought the penisaurus rose to that level and sent a squad of cops out to protect everyone from the penisaurus, but I suspect not many readers here would agree that this was a good use of police resources. I know few SF fans would think so.

For the record, I know of no one who encouraged Randall to continue this experiment, and I know many who tried to persuade him to give it up. I don’t know his motive for continuing it. It wasn’t intimidation or some kind of power play. There’s no evidence that he got any enjoyment out of dominance or anything resembling it. Nearly everyone who knew him including many who condemned this particular practice agreed that all around he was a nice guy with a contemptible quirk. In any event I’m not his advocate and I am not defending him. My whole point in bringing him up is that if you can’t come up with a reasonable consensus on what ought to have been done about Randall Garrett, then abstract discussions of rules and penalties aren’t likely to be useful. At least I think that was my point. By now I am sufficiently weary of the subject that I don’t really know.

It’s late and I ought to be in bed. I will leave this for the night, and with luck perhaps forever. It does remind me of Clarke’s prediction of the future of human sexual relations. Given fool proof paternity identification, and reasonably efficient contraception (not involving abortion) the emotional connection between sex and procreation will dissolve, and the very notion of chastity as a virtue will disappear.

And while I was thinking along those lines, I got mail accusing me of wishful thinking about the hookup culture. There really isn’t one. It’s just wishful thinking on the part of boys who can’t get dates, and a way of insulting a whole group of young women by calling them promiscuous. Although the writer of that note was infuriated with me, I found it hopeful, because it insisted that promiscuous was not virtuous, and implied that chastity remained a virtue, and thus that Clarke’s prediction was wrong. But then I picked up a copy of the LA free paper the LA Weekly with some of its articles about hooking up, and Vogue had a lead item on how the star of a bachelorette reality show was shocked to discover that none of the 9 young men courting her on TV was really interested in a permanent marriage, and I wonder about it all.

We may continue this discussion another time, but I don’t really plan to. I just want to get the whole depressing subject out of my system.

And I do note that even the mainstream press is beginning to realize I didn’t make up my stories about bunny inspectors.

Salve sclave.