Month: June 2002

Every day I see some of my neighbors walking their dogs around the condominium development. Some have pets of appropriate size for the homes they own: shelties, beagles, and smaller. A hard core of Old Yeller lovers for whom a dog is not a dog if it fits into anything smaller than a computer monitor packing case insist on keeping dire wolves in the one and two bedroom units we have around here. These dogs need an open range or at least a back yard. Their owners, I think, are mostly country folk who have never lived in a city or tight suburb before. They shave their heads so they won’t look like a hippy. It’s a community of skulls. Some work in construction. The dogs go with them in the truck. Others leave their pets home all day, letting them out only after they’ve been made to hold their bladders for up to 12 hours.

A virulence worse than rabies infects the housebound hounds: when the door opens their instinct is to throw off the stiffness of their muscles and bolt for the long stretches of asphalt. A few weeks ago, I watched one of these canine claustrophobes overrun a three year old girl who happened to be in the way. Her mother threw herself over her daughter as the hound charged with open maw and clubbed paw. He was being a dog, running out to join in the mindless run, the wild hunt of the suburban pet and owner that never brings home any game. His marine-wannabe owner chased after him and gave him a wincing kick in the ribs. “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel,” such actions make me think. The neighbor is pulling out of his little Vietnam, doubtless blaming everyone except himself for the disaster he inflicted. I felt sorry for the dog in the days that followed. Anytime that he went out (when it was likely that the girl or the girl’s mother would be around to see him), he had to wear a muzzle. The little girl could not sleep with her stuffed animals for the first few days after the attack. She is coming around to petting furry things again and we’re taking her to the zoo in a couple of weeks. A red and white For Sale sign appeared at the foot of the dog lover’s stairs. He’s moving on, to a place reportedly that has more of a yard.

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Where the Heck are We Going As A Nation?

Posted on June 27, 2002 in Liberty

“One can desire the peace of victory without desiring the ravaged towns.” — Graham Greene

The nation is at a turning point and I honestly don’t know if it is for the worse or for the better, via some deus ex machina that will now come into play following today’s decision of the Supreme Court to throw its support behind the increasing power of the religious right in this country and demolish our nation’s schools. We have here the New Jim Crow decision, one that will hopefully be reversed when and if the court obtains a new, liberal majority. But I am not looking for it soon.

Some people are beginning to talk like John Brown, that this nation’s present sins will not be purged except through blood. Sometimes I think that the blood that will be shed is going to be mine. One chatter told me that she didn’t mind. If some of us have to die for the better future, to move the mass of American public opinion back to the true middle of the road if not entirely to the left, that would be a good thing. I have mixed feelings about martyrdom. On one hand, I am ashamed that I have never been tested by an arrest or violence against me. On the other, I want to stick around to see what happens, to see that better world if and when it comes. It has seemed to me for a long time that America has been going down the road Germany took in the 1930s and Yugoslavia in the 1980s. Some ardent nationalists seem intent on suppressing what is good. I don’t know if it will be a shame or a relief for me if the storm troopers don’t come to my door to arrest me. I’m not likely to advocate violence. But we’ve come to a point where people are starting to kill off their symbols, to attempt to replace them with an insane “individuality” which is actually conformity. Is the year 2002 or 44 BC?

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Fire at #news_garden

Posted on June 26, 2002 in IRC/Chat

Fire at #news_garden

With the collapse of the Dow, the thing most on the minds of chatters tonight was the much misinterpreted decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to declare the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance to be unconstitutional. Let me just say that I support the decision for two reasons: First, the word God doesn’t appear in the constitution and it doesn’t for a good reason: the founders did not want it there. They did not want a church of England. Second, because I know that good Christians who read their New Testament closely will be relieved to see a clear separation of church and state. No good Christian should want the acts of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush to be confused with divine authority. Jesus clearly states that there is, on one hand, the State (Caesar) and, on the other, there is God. Caesar may try to appear to rule with God’s authority or even be God himself, but he’s neither.

That opinion registered, let me describe the atypical night here. We had the usual round of baiting, threatening, indirect insults, and some very potent direct ones from our users. One user, a right winger who is sure that America is going down the drain, predicted that first thing tomorrow morning the US Supreme Court would overturn the decision. When several of us, including myself, pointed out that Supreme Court decisions are not capricious, he grew steadily angrier. He began accusing several of us of being unAmerican and gleefully heaped additional expletives on the subjects of his abuse, both on the channel and in private mesages. We could do nothing about the private messages, but I banned him twice and kicked him twice, for the final time. Other people began to approach his level of outrageousness on both sides of the fence, but only this fellow lost it enough to merit a kick.

Being a channel op isn’t easy. You have to watch yourself for things like prejudices against certain chatters. It is true that the people you kick are usually in the habit of “making trouble”, but picking individuals can blind you to the abuses of others. I think this experience is teaching me to view things in a balanced fashion. It’s good to have the other ops around, including the one’s on the “opposite side” to remind you that your anti-pets aren’t the only ones flouting the rules.

As I finish this up, we’re discussing what to do about baiters, people who know how to play the line so that other people cross it while they get to stay on the channel. The chatter I mentioned was very much being egged on by others: only he said things that violated the rules. Baiting strikes many of us as evil, but defining it in such a way that does not kill chat entirely has been a true struggle.

In private, I said this to my fellow #news_garden ops:

We need to put a little distance here and THINK what we can do to minimize the baiting. Maybe there are some loopholes that need closing here. I don’t know. We don’t need to rush into this decision, but we should watch and understand the patterns that are going on. Including what we may purposefully or inadvertently do.

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