Out of the Barrel of a Gun

ABC7 reports that the San Francisco City Council has passed a resolution in support of the Iranian election protestors. They call it “a strong message“, and make a point of emphasizing that the vote passed 11-0, as if this should make President Ahmadinejad sit up and pay particular attention.

In the meantime, security forces are shooting people in the streets, senior clerics are calling for executions, and The Wall Street Journal reports that the government is charging families $3000 “bullet fees” before allowing them to recover the bodies. Somehow I think that San Francisco’s “strong message” is having slightly less effect than expected. The “activist movement” doesn’t like to admit this, but ultimately, posturing can only change people who are willing to listen. Barring treaty, trade, or threat of war, a people cannot compel a foreign government to heed their concerns, and it’s silly to expect that they could. As Iran too clearly illustrates today, a people cannot even compel their own government to heed their concerns, if it can force them back to silence without fear of reprisal.

槍桿子裡面出政權.
Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.

It was true when Chairman Mao wrote it seventy years ago, and it’s true today.

Edit: Last year, the Texas Review of Law and Politics released an interesting comparative study of nations’ civilian gun-ownership rates and their degrees of personal/economic freedom.

Every Line

Every line is like a symphony,
Every word a song,
But if you try to force them,
Then every word is gone.

“Bus Fare”

I’ve just taken my laundry out of the car when a panicked-looking woman comes up to me. “I’m real sorry, sir, but my daughter’s just been in a car accident, she’s in Oakland General Hospital and I need bus fare to visit her, could you spare five dollars?”

There is no Oakland General Hospital. Oakland is served by Highland General Hospital. It’s 9:00 at night and I don’t know this, not without looking it up. When I lived in the East Bay, I went to the Tang Center on the Berkeley campus. “Five dollars?” It’s the Christmas season. Even if she’s lying, I can afford five dollars. She needs it more than I do. I reach for my wallet.

“Oh, thank you, sir, you know ten dollars would help even more.”

Civilized Behavior: You’ve Heard of It, Yes?

I seem to be unable to attend conventions without being dry-humped anymore. It’s very annoying. Even at the Folsom Street Fair I could avoid that indignity.

Granted, I have other problems at the Folsom Street Fair, which is usually a stream of low-grade, distressingly insistent come-ons rather than single undignified acts of borderline sexual assault, but this is another story, for another day.

I first encountered this unfortunate circumstance at last year’s YaoiCon, a few days before this site opened. Friday afternoon, I was walking out back to a friend’s room to adjust my costume when someone grabbed me from behind and started hip-thrusting. It was really very uncivilized, and while someone on Constaff saw it and offered to revoke the person’s badge, I asked them to give only a first-last-and-only warning. People look forward to YaoiCon all year, and it’s easy to get caught up in the sheer vibrant enthusiasm of the convention. It didn’t feel like my place to ruin someone’s weekend only a few hours in. Under certain circumstances, a gentleman is obligated to forgive.

My next con was Fanime. It happened again, and this time was far more unpleasant.

Words Have Power

Two years ago, faced with my graduation from the University, I began looking for work. I care a lot about education, so I applied to Teach For America, along with the usual group of tech companies and the startup where I work today.

While I think that Teach For America’s mission is tremendously important, parts of the program do concern me. As one friend put it, a lot of the program’s teachers just want their requisite nonprofit time before moving on to Senate appointments, and it really does show. I’ve always been a bit more of a craftsman than a politician, personally, and I worry sometimes about whether students suffer as people for the sake of good-looking news stories. They talk about “dynamic teachers who had not only a command of the curriculum but also the ability to connect with children,” but one US News story they shared described an academy founded by former TFA teachers:

Running or yelling is forbidden; students walk in straight, quiet lines. Though classes average more than 30 students, they are so silent you could hear an eraser drop. If a child speaks without being called on, the teacher stops in midsentence. If a child’s attention strays, the teacher warns: “I’m missing one person’s eyes.”

This doesn’t feel like “connecting with children” to me; it feels like a show of force rather than compassion or outreach. The teacher isn’t saying Look at me, because this is important; he says Look at me, because I can humiliate you. The academy even spends the first week “KIPPnotizing” new students to behave that way. I almost expected the example student to snap to his feet, ramrod-straight, and shout “I am sorry, Mein Herr! It shall not happen again!” Discipline and academic rigor have their places, of course, and I’m an advocate of both, but too much of either can be a socially crippling thing.

We are more than our grades and test scores.

Saying this out loud was probably not the smartest thing I have ever done.