The way we understand new things is dependent on what we’re prepared to see and interpret. Our personal experiences shape the way we ingest unfamiliar variations of similar things we already know. We understand today’s sitcoms in terms of Friends or Seinfeld, we understand each new President in terms of the faces on our money, and we understand our salsas in terms of the mild, medium, and hot flavors and how much milk or beer it’ll take to douse the heat.

To reach for these well-known frames is often helpful when encountering new things. I know how to avoid bad sequels to movies I enjoyed and sodas with single digit modifiers in the name. I know what make of car I might want to purchase in the future and to order the hottest salsa most all the time. My experience has allowed me to get these things right most of the time. But it’s very possible to be unprepared to deal with something unexpected and exotic. If it’s something that can hardly be avoided on TV and the internet, blunders become more likely.

Zero scholarship offers out of high school, Harvard economics major, undrafted out of college, cut by two mediocre teams, and glued to the end of the bench of a third. All of a sudden tearing up the league, hitting game-winning three pointers and putting up 38 points in a win against Kobe and the Lakers? Before we throw in being the first Taiwanese American NBA player — and the first one who looks it that people under 40 might know about — it’s an unlikely and inspiring story. Before the Asian thing.

But there really is no before. Born an American, Lin’s parents immigrated from Taiwan, and his unmistakeably Asian appearance can’t be disentangled from his story. The extent to which this itself explains the unlikelihood is for another post, but references to Lin’s heritage are one of the first things mentioned about him when people find out who he is. Nobody, when introducing Lin’s story to a friend,  just says, “some undrafted Harvard grad who’s going off since he got to play.” It’s invariably qualified with the Chinese/Taiwanese/Asian description. Which means it’s important. Important to us.

It’s stupid to say about any athlete, “The only reason I like him is because he’s a good player, I don’t care what race he is.” What a lazy and race-tailored thought. No one would ever say that about Kobe, not even 16 year ago. Nobody would say that about Alex Rodriguez. Or Barry Bonds.  The disclaimer about discounting race is an admissible confession that race is being thought about. And no one likes professional athletes merely because they’re good at their sport. We know so much about professional athletes from their hometown to their legal entanglements that it’s impossible to only look at on-field performance.

And we’ve seen infinitely more footage of Jeremy Lin looking Chinese than we have of Bonds with The Clear or even A-Rod with Madonna. We know about it. We know it’s unusual. To be totally indifferent to something so unusual would be absurd. And there’s something we sense, something we can detect even if we can’t define it, and even if we can define it, we don’t know how to talk about it. We know we really like the underdog story of an improbable rise to thrilling drives and splashing critical threes on basketball’s biggest stage. And we like that he’s a Taiwanese American in the NBA. We sense there’s a level of causality between this fact and his underdog story as a whole. Then we sense that maybe Lin shouldn’t be the first Asian American star in the NBA. It’s not a comfortable thing to sense.

Yet Linsanity is an overwhelmingly positive experience! It’s exciting to know that such a hard-working and talented player is making the most of his opportunity. It’s more exciting to watch him in action, preferably in HD on TV, but in lower quality on the computer if necessary. It’s cool to see him thank his teammates and God after wins, and to take responsibility for his own performance. To watch and listen to Lin himself is a joy. The spinning drives, the tricky dribbles through the lane, fearless long range shots, all those skillful and unselfish passes to teammates whose scores we knowingly celebrate before the ball even leaves their fingertips. And then smiling post-game interviews where he credits teamwork and others’ effort. It’s when the talking heads and sportswriters take over that I’m confused.

Pundits and columnists are compelled to pound Lin into some pre-existing frame. John Starks or Tim Tebow, Fernando Valenzuela and even Jackie Robinson. As an undrafted devout Christian who defies stereotypes and broke a color-barrier of sorts, sure he has some things in common with all these guys. And most professional columns that perform such comparisons are very clear about the differences and try to capture what’s unique about Lin. Yet using the players being mentioned as a foundation of comparison weakens our ability to identify what’s unique in Lin’s case. It’s almost unimportant to group Lin with other athletes who overcame long odds and racial stereotypes unless you’re doing a historical study on this type of person. Starks and Tebow didn’t make Lin possible. In an indirect way, maybe Jackie Robinson did, but no more than for a majority of the NBA. But talking heads all over the country are forcing us to consider Lin in those terms.

The establishment sports media was unprepared for Linsanity. We can talk about talent evaluators using stereotypes, but the beauty of sports is that players can show they can play. The media isn’t like that. It’s not as much of a meritocracy and it selects for the most sticky narrative over the most correct one. They never expected an Asian American to be a breakout NBA star. If they were to deal with another Chinese NBA star, it’d be another Yao where they could depend on his foreignness to keep their hands clean and his Asian accent as a source of humor in commercials. Lin is a natural born American citizen (Lin/Tebow 2044) and speaks more like a, well, Harvard grad, than like a kung-fu master. This was the last thing the media expected.

And since no human can disentangle Jeremy Lin from his appearance and therefore heritage, it requires a frame of reference. It’s very unusual to see an Asian in the NBA, especially one whose play is giant without his body being so. Who probably needs an interpreter, but in his parents’ home country, not in America. Someone with this profile didn’t exist before and wasn’t expected to exist any time soon. To quickly figure out who the heck this kid is and where he came from seems like the media’s job. But the media is lazy, especially in sports media where the cocktail of dominant teams, superstar divas, celebrity girlfriends and ho-hum record breaking has lulled them into complacency. Sports media breaks a lot of news, but not different kinds of news. Jeremy Lin is different kinds of a news.

Using the well-known stories of other players with whom Lin had no real direct connection and hasn’t claimed as inspiration is lazy journalism. People like historical player X, people like Jeremy Lin, put ‘em in a tumbler and shake well. There’s a sense of scrambling to tack together a narrative that belies the media’s unpreparedness. Their reliance on familiar tropes and story lines to explain Lin. The montages of Asian restaurants gathered to watch Knicks games and multitude of pun signs. But every time I read an ESPN or SI article on Lin, or see a talking sports head on TV, I get the sense that they’re getting it wrong. That what they’re saying doesn’t quite align with what I see and feel. That it hardly overlaps. Important pieces of Lin’s story are going unexplained, and the gaps get filled in by flashy numbers, lofty comparisons, and more puns. The sports media was prepared for another Tebow, or Yao, or maybe even a Jackie Robinson. They got Jeremy Lin — a unique person who’s had a unique rise and they’re unsure what to do with him.

Unpreparedness leads to mistakes. It makes what’s easy and lazy very tempting. When it comes to Asians, what’s easy and lazy, and even what comes natural can be toxic. Lin’s shown every step of the way that he’ll rise above any media errors, but in time, someone in the media should get it right. On a personal level, in this series, I hope to get it right.

In the meantime, Lin will continue to build his story, be a class act, and hopefully tonight douse the Heat.

Next time: Mayweather, Whitlock, and Chink in the Armor x3. Gotta take this one on.

Image courtesy of: http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/
..

How the story’s not being told

Because the parent business pulled ads from Sunday night’s 78th ranked cable TV show, California State Senator Ted Lieu(D-Torrance) is calling for a boycott on two hardware stores in his own district. Lowe’s Home Improvement, averaging 131 employees per store, has two locations in Torrance, California (about 262 jobs) and is headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina. Because this company decided it did not want to spend any more money to run advertisements during a religion-centered TV show with a 0.3 Nielson rating, Senator Lieu attempted to intimidate the company and wrote an angry letter calling them “bigoted, shameful, and un-American.” Furthermore, Lieu wrote to Lowe’s CEO Robert Niblock that pulling the ads was “profoundly ignorant” and threatened legislative action. Lieu, a government official, is brandishing a boycott and possibly a bill of attainder against a hardware store because they won’t spend their money on the television show he wants them to.

All American Muslim is a reality TV show that “follows the daily lives of five Lebanese American Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, the largest Muslim community in the United States.” Airing on The Learning Channel, it drew 908,000 viewers during its latest December 11 show. Amongst potentially dozens of companies pulling advertising from All American Muslim, Lowe’s was targeted by Senator Lieu, leading the company to release a statement saying,

“Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

Before Lowe’s pulled its ads, a group called the Florida Family Association contacted several companies urging them to stop advertising on All American Muslim, citing what they believed to be a narrow and agenda-driven point of view in the way Islam was being portrayed on the show. For their use of free speech, the FFA had their website hacked by a cyber-terrorism group. There is plainly correlation, yet no proof of causation that the actions of the FFA were solely responsible for Lowe’s decision, allegedly taken by as many as 60 other companies. Fairness and consistency would dictate that Senator Lieu investigate whether these other 60 companies have indeed followed suit, and unleash his boycotts and legislative actions against these other businesses as well.

.

Ted Lieu, long-time Islamic advocate

There’s a couple fishy things about this story. Ted Lieu is my state senator — I live in Torrance, California but was abroad when he won a February special election to replace a deceased senator. A state senator is not a member of Congress or the federal government. Yet he is the face of the crusade against a North Carolina-based corporation? Where are the democrat House members in all this outrage? Late to the party, at least — maybe they have Lowe’s locations in their districts — but Lieu has two! Lieu is a state senator holding no position in the federal government, arising as the most bombastic critic of a company headquartered thousands of miles away from his home district. He’s not a muslim himself and his district has a 0.8% “other”  racial demographic as of the 2010 census. What experience is this guy drawing from when he says, “The show is about what it’s like to be a Muslim in America, and it touches on the discrimination they sometimes face. And that kind of discrimination is exactly what’s happening here with Lowe’s,”?

Guess whose state senate term is up in 2012?

Lieu has held his state senate seat for only ten months after replacing the late Jenny Oropeza in February. In California’s 48.39% registered democrat 28th state senate district, it shouldn’t be too difficult to hold on to next November, but some national name recognition couldn’t hurt, especially if Lieu decides he actually wants to run for higher office in 2012. Reading about Lieu online, I can’t find a single shred of any Islamic-advocacy previous to this All American Muslim thing, and I can’t find any articles linking him to anything else like this. This is attention-seeking. This is theater.

Maybe Lieu wants to take this democrat’s seat in Congress.

This is opportunism. Maybe Lieu didn’t think about his boycott showmanship possibly affecting hundreds of workers in his own district, but drives by the Lowe’s I always drive by and liked that he wouldn’t have to go far if he wanted to get on TV in front of one. Maybe he doesn’t care how many of his constituents’ jobs’ he might be endangering because of his gerrymander or because he already has backwater Torrance in his rear-view mirror. Maybe his favorite thing to do on Sunday night at 1oPM is watch The Learning Channel, I don’t know. But he attached himself to a cause and the media helped him launch it to the national stage.

.

The North Carolina company decided to stop advertising on the show “All-American Muslim,” on Discovery Communications Inc.’s TLC channel, after complaints by the Florida Family Assn., a conservative Christian group that lobbies companies to promote “traditional, biblical values.”

,

The retail giant stopped advertising on TLC’s “All-American Muslim” after a group called the Florida Family Association complained the show was “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

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Lowe’s spokeswoman Karen Cobb said the company had a “long-standing commitment” to diversity and pulled the ads only after the show became “a lightning rod for people to voice complaints from a variety of perspectives.” Other companies had also removed their ads from the show, she wrote in an email.

.

Lowe’s has ads on All American Muslim >> FFA complains >> other people with other perspectives chime in >> Lowe’s pulls ads from All American Muslim

Don’t play their game

This is a manufactured controversy that is perpetuated by its opponents who accept its premises. Don’t accept any suggestion that a company headquartered in NC has to spend its money the way a state senator in CA says it does and apologize at his behest. Don’t accept that Ted Lieu is someone who has any credibility on this issue or that his threats of a boycott and legislative action are real. Ted Lieu doesn’t have a following — my hometown follows Lieu’s name in the paper, and I didn’t know who he was.

And don’t let Lieu or any members of the mob he’s fired up tell you what or when Lowe’s thinks. Don’t accept the Democrat-Media Complex’s tricks to get you to think there’s a provable causal relationship between Lowe’s pulling ads and opportunistic politicians condemning the store. Don’t accept the idea that the FFA was solely responsible for Lowe’s decision or that they represent anyone other than themselves. Don’t accept the story that one radical fringe group in Florida gained control of a North Carolina company’s advertising decisions, convincing them to discriminate and the first and loudest protector of the poor victims is a state senator from California who’s  been in office for ten months and has no connections whatsoever to the supposedly victimized group. Don’t play their game!

Do think about these types of stories with consideration to the interests of those involved in generating them.

Do go buy something at Lowe’s if you support free speech.

And if you live anywhere near me — vote against this tool, Ted Lieu in 2012.

UCSD administrators are a bunch of sissies carrying out the time-tested strategy of appeasement. If we just give them the space they want this time, it’ll all be okay. It will not embolden or further galvanize a door-busting mob. This is wisdom.

Monday morning, a gathering of students burst through the front doors of CLICS to reclaim their traditional 24 hour finals week study space. The CLICS library had been closed this year due to budget cuts, but students demanded the library be opened and seized the space. Some students were able to somehow enter the library from another entry point and opened the flood gates for students to pour in and refuse to leave. Administrators said that’s okay, but emphasized the spacious main Geisel Library was already open 24 hours for finals week. Nonetheless, they removed all police personnel, let the students stay, and insisted they were going to do it anyways. The administration removed the campus police and negotiated with the door busters, citing police-protester “interactions” at UC Davis and Berkeley as reason to remove the campus police. And they rejected the proposal of a football team due to recent events at UCLA.

Let’s take a look at the damage.

Image reclaimed from Howard Lipin - San Diego Union Tribune.

Apparently there’s no shot of the busted doors, either the front doors that had students bulldozing through them or the unidentified Trojan Horse entrance which is likely badly damaged. All those desks in the picture there? They used to have computers on them. I’m going to assume the administration had those computers relocated long before Monday, but it’s inconceivable that they could remove all valuable property from the library, from computers to books to furniture. Without an official administration or police presence, expect some things to go missing.

Really, that’s the most peaceful I’ve ever seen CLICS during finals week. It’s usually crowded and noisy with various odors wafting about. From this one image it appears that these students, though self-policing, are well behaved. As word spreads that CLICS was stormed by students and the administration fled, it may be more difficult to keep out toxic elements or even maintain the promised student-only atmosphere. No supervision for a bunch of college kids — even UCSD students — isn’t a good idea.

But one brave administrator kept the right perspective. “It’s a moot point,” he said. “We were on our way over here with the keys to open it up.” The administration is backing down virtually unconditionally and withdrawing its forces. The territory has been conquered without a fight. Because finals last for five more days, this can only end well.

The stupidity and spinelessness of the administration comes as no surprise, but the boldness of the students — and their strategic disassociation from the Occupy Wall Street mob — are pleasant revelations. Why the heck shouldn’t students be allowed to use the library to study for finals? That’s ridiculous. And it took both thoughtfulness and awareness on part of the students to not melt into the cauldron of Occupy Wall Street sludge. It would have been very easy to do so, especially with an ostensibly illicit task and large group of people, the danger of devolving into a mob is real.

Rejecting a poisonous label in favor of another seems to have been key in the Reclaim CLICS resistance to the mob mentality. As the UT reports, “Several students stressed that they were “reclaiming” the library and took pains to avoid the word “occupy” or a connection to the Occupy movement.”

Impressive. Occupy CLICS even has a bit of a ring to it. But it may very well have attracted the wrong type of individual and these UCSD kids who just want to study seem to understand that.

Sophomore Eden White, via the UT explains,

“I’m here to help reclaim CLICS,” she said, working on a laptop with a blanket wrapped around her jacketed shoulders. “I think we’re trying to get away from ‘occupy.’ It’s got kind of a negative connotation.”

Perceptive. I like it. Going with the reclaim label emphasizes that this is mostly just about being able to use a giant empty building to study, as has always been done there. It looks like the goals are 1) study and 2) don’t become an unruly mob — both admirable. But there’s something wrong with the word reclaim. I’m just not feeling it.

Mostly because all those stupid light purple sprinkler heads that are all over La Jolla are accompanied by signs that say danger: do not drink — Pee pee water. Some city bureaucrats already took that word and slapped it on irrigation toilet water to make people less repulsed, but still know not to drink it. Jerks.

I like the re- prefix because it establishes that something used to belong to the students, but it was taken away, and now they’re here to take it back. Reclaim is like a down and out boxer who lost his title, but montaged his way back to the top. But it’s also sewer water, so I don’t like that. That’s the main weakness, it might be faintly saber-rattling, but the echo of reclaimed water lingers. You can almost smell the sewage. You don’t want haters saying things about drinking the reclaimed Kool-Aid.

My first recommendation would be to rebrand it Restore CLICS. It’s a brighter image. It suggests that this finals week is only the beginning of the restoration of a sacred UCSD institution. There is no claim to ownership that might be twisted by opponents, and it focuses on functionality over possession.

Secondarily, I’d suggest Reboot CLICS going with the computer theme. It suggest something that’s been dormant suddenly coming alive again. You can see the lights coming back on.

In any case, I’m impressed with the students demanding their space and distancing themselves from the Occupiers. CLICS is a cool place to study during finals, even if it’s not the most silent environment. To take back CLICS sounds too reactionary and Reload CLICS is a bit violent and kinda lame, so compared to those or occupy, Reclaim will do. I would put Restore CLICS and possibly Reboot CLICS on the table for consideration if those spineless administrators start talking about drinking the Reclaimed Kool-Aid.

Tritonthink (tentatively) endorses Reclaim CLICS. Un-tentatively it changes its name to Restore CLICS or even Reboot CLICS.

Voldemort’s power is rising and Death Eaters have taken over the Ministry of Magic! Are you ready to take on the new dangers that await at Hogwarts this year? Take Pictogram Challenge to find out!

For the muggles out there, here’s how it works:

Buck + Beak = Buckbeak

Ready for takeoff!

1.

‘

2.

‘

3.

v

4.

c

That was an easier warm up than taking on Colin Creevey in dueling class, no? If not, maybe these guys have some useful advice.

Things are about to get a little bit tougher, so don’t let your guard down!

s

5.

a

6.

‘

7.

x

8.

v

Round 2 in the books! It wasn’t Monster Book of Monsters-difficult to get through was it? Check out these tips from the experts if you had any trouble, then get ready to move on!

Now you’re ready for the second half!

d
9.

x
10.

d
11.

d
12.

g

Okay, if you’ve made it this far, you probably think you’re super seeker status, but it’s horcrux destroying-tough from here on out!

And help will always be given to those who deserve it!

Good luck–

13.

x

14.

f

15.

f
Bonus!
Kobe Bryant: There’s voices in my head.
Ron Artest: I hear it too.
Voldemort: No, Ron, that’s me — a

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Got ‘em all? Give up? The answers are posted below.

Do NOT click on “Read the rest of this entry” if you do not want to know the answers!

Revisit these George Lucas-like updates of the HP Pictogram Challenge Part I and Part II.

Once again, whole and compete answers below.

Answers:

1. Port + Key = Portkey

2. Grip + Hook  = Griphook

3. Inn + Ferry = Inferi

4. Grin + Dew + Weld = Grindewald

5. Oar + Ace + Slug + Horn = Horace Slughorn

6. Sack + Tums + Hemp + Bra = Sectumsempra

7. Gill + Door + Oil + Lock + Heart = Gilderoy Lockhart

8. Ga + Drix + Hall + Low = Godric’s Hollow

9. Kings + Leash + Shack + Coal + Boat = Kingsley Shacklebolt

10. Pitch + Traffic + Crust + Tote + Alice = Petrificus Totalis

11. Roo + Moth + Rake + Wire + Mint = Room of Requirement

12. Loop + Hen + Ant + Honks = Lupin and Tonks

13. Hermit – Mitt + M + Ion + Knee + Egg + Rain + Jar = Hermione Granger

14. Rug + Glue + Laser + Qatar + Rose + Black = Regulus Arcturus Black

15. Yak + Crow +Man + Tool + Asp + Pie + Door = Acromantula Spider

Bonus — A: Purse Salt Dung Cans Peak Two Snakes = Parseltongue can speak to snakes.

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Mischief managed!

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Disclaimer: I do not own any of the images that appear in this blog post.  I have received no permission from any of the image owners, but believe that fair use and public domain statutes lend robust protection –  don’t send an army of copyright aurors at me, please.

Are all you young witches and wizards ready for another year full of enchantment at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Make sure you picked up all your books from Flourish & Blotts, and don’t forget to take the Pictogram Challenge (Part II)!

Example:
+ = 
Fire + Bolt + Firebolt

I think you’re ready now for some first year level pictograms (2 or 3 images)
These should be easier than taking Neville’s lunch sickles. Go!

1.
+ 

2.

3.

Okay, that was a wicked warm up, no? Now let’s move onto O.W.L. level pictograms (3-4 images)
Watch out for tricks such as one image covering syllables from more than one solution word!

4.

5.
+   +  +

6.

+ + +

7.

Blimey, those O.W.L.s might have gotten a wee bit tough there at the end. And it doesn’t get any easier with the N.E.W.T.s (4-6 images)! Watch out for images that start with voiceless consonants like “y” or “h”, which may be intended as silent letters!

8.
+++++

9.
++++

10.

+++

Okay! That’s all for this round of Harry Potter and the Pictogram Challenge Part II! Hope it was fun and that you got at least a few of them. Answers are below.

Do not click on “Read the rest of this entry” if you do not want to know the answers!

Answers:

1. Mug + Gull = Muggle
2. Bur + Row = Burrow
3. Olive + Van + Door = Ollivander
4. Crab + Bang + Oil = Crabbe & Goyle
5. Tray + Comb + Alf + Ahoy = Draco Malfoy
6. Doe + Lara + Sum + Bridge = Dolores Umbridge
7. Sum + Money + Inch + Arm = Summoning Charm
8. Hun + Gary + Yen + Hoe + Urn + Tail = Hungarian Horntail
9. Sip + Bull + Tree + Lawn + Knee = Sybill Trelawney
10. Lou + Nala + Bug + Hood = Luna Lovegood

September 1st– Time for young witches and wizards to board the Hogwarts Express and embark on another magical adventure. To celebrate, we’re playing Harry Potter pictograms! How many can you figure out?

Example:

Head + Wig = Hedwig

Got it?

Go!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Bonus:

DO NOT “Read the rest of this entry” unless you WANT to know ALL the answers!

Below are the answers, read only if you give up/don’t care/want to know.

Answers:
1. Hare EPA Otter = Harry Potter
2. Pen Sea Eve = Pensieve
3. Butt Herb Ear = Butterbeer
4. Ask Cab Band = Azkaban
5. Hip Ogre IFF= Hippogriff
6. Fee Neck Steer = Phoenix Tear
7. Shh Week King Shaq = Shrieking Shack
8. Allah Storm Hoodie = Alastor Moody
9. Nemo Bus Tooth House Sand = Nimbus 2000
10. Crew Sea a Tusk Hearse = Cruciatus Curse
11. Salad Czar Slit Heron = Salazar Slytherin
12. Go Old Den Sen Itch = Golden Snitch
13. Deep Heart Mint Tub Mist Stir Reese’s = Department of Mysteries
Bonus: Seven Lily = Sev and Lily (Booo!)

Alicia — as a UCSD grad with the same poli sci degree you’re on track for, let me tell you — you’re probably right. But reach for the stars anyways. Seriously, get out there, kick some ass, ask questions later. I mean it. That’s my plan.

You can do better than the two clowns that wrote the article clumsily trying to capture your concerns. They do a terrible job of writing, from using more contractions than the stylebook surely suggests to citing “a Gallup poll this spring” to gauge optimism for our generation because presumably the summer numbers aren’t out yet and I’m AA+ sure nothing’s happened to have affected them since.

Then there’s the disjointed syntax, missing quotation marks, and perplexing presentation of information. Check out this paragraph.

Another poll, of Americans ages 18 to 29, found that three-quarters of them expect to delay a major life change or purchase because of economic factors. The survey — released last week, just before the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt — was by the nonprofit Generation Opportunity, headed by Paul Conway.

It’s strange to not mention the polling firm in the same sentence as the statistic being cited and there’s just too much damn punctuation overall. Whoever the hell Paul Conway is, we don’t find out until midway through the next paragraph. Seriously, this writing is such a mess.  It’s like a community college newspaper — is the LA Times hiring kids? I should go apply.

I can’t believe how bad the writing is. How poor the diction is, how empty the commentary. It reads like a  joke. Alicia — we should both compete for these writers’ jobs. It’s embarrassing. How these two could be employed but not so many intelligent people I know leaves me, well, vexed, just as they diagnosed.

The government plays an important role in deciding who can have sex, with whom, and for what reason. Prostitution, sex with children, and rape are bad things — it is a good thing that there are laws that punish these types of sexual behavior. If the government didn’t regulate sex at all, sexual violence, STDs, and sexual abuse of children would be even bigger problems than they already are. But when it comes to consenting adults in private space, it seems wrong for the government to decide what type of sex is good sex and what type of sex is bad sex. So goes the argument for same-sex marriage (‘marriage analogy’ if you prefer), and it makes sense.

The gay marriage debate, as far as legalization goes, seems to be ending, and that’s as sure as global warming. But the battle for human rights is endless and the next oppressed minority will quickly rise to claim what’s been unfairly denied them. Legalizing gay marriage is by no means the last hurdle for human rights. It’s up to its advocates to have the progressive vision to pursue the next human rights milestone. We can start by fulfilling the slogan “marriage equality for all.”

And wouldn’t you think legalizing LGBT marriage accomplishes that? The problem is the “all” part, which traditionally includes everyone. Because brainless mobs often continue to oppress minorities, it’s up to the Supreme Court to defend the rights of anyone who’s being discriminated against. The Supreme Court is a panel of nine judges who decide if a law is consistent with the Constitution and acceptable, or unfair and must be struck down.

When the Supreme Court makes a decision, which includes determining the best rule for a case and how that rule applies to said case, the ruling becomes precedent. Precedent means that all future Supreme Court cases have to apply the same rule in the same manner when a similar case comes up in the future. This principle is called stare decisis which is Latin for “to stand by decisions” and is pronounced just like you’d guess if you want to remember it and impress people in future conversations.

Stare decisis gives consistency to the law, preventing legal chaos and ensuring that all protections won will be upheld in the future. One of the most famous precedents is Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which found that a) “separate but equal” has no place in public education, and b) The 14th Amendment prohibits segregation in public schools. The ruling only applied to public schools in the Brown case, but set a precedent that soon applied to all society.

There’s plenty of precedent regarding sex and marriage in the Supreme Court’s history, most of which is based on the right to privacy. The right to privacy isn’t explicitly stated anywhere in the Constitution, but it has become part of the official canon and protects your right to do what you want to do in your own home with anyone that wants to do it with you. That’s a pretty important protection if you ask me — the point of having a house is to do things you can’t do safely in public.

Here’s some important Supreme Court precedents that have to do with sex and marriage:

It seems like there’s enough precedent in there to squeeze out a decision protecting the right to gay marriage. There isn’t one yet, but there could be soon and it might look something like this:
AwesomeParents v. Morons (2012)
a) Right to marry regardless of partner’s sex
b) Right to marry regardless of couple’s ability to jointly procreate

And that would really help seal “marriage equality for all.” Let’s stitch different precedents together and see who else can be included in marriage equality. Adding the Lawrence v. Texas (2003) Rights to homosexual sodomy and to privacy concerning “intimate, adult consensual conduct” to the right to not bear children that Griswold and Roe both protect, there doesn’t seem to be a good way to prohibit gay marriage. Adult couples can have any type of sex they want, and they don’t have to have kids if they don’t want to. What large swaths of society think about that behavior isn’t relevant to its legality.

“Marriage equality for all” should mean marriage equality for all, and under the precedents we’ve seen here, especially when bearing children isn’t required of any individual woman, that seems achievable. Say an 18 year old daughter is motherless and her father loves her very much. Society doesn’t approve of that, but there’s the right to privacy, isn’t there? And the chances of them having a genetically disabled child doesn’t apply if the daughter is allowed to control her own body and not have children if she doesn’t want.

But say the “retarded children” argument repulses enough powerful people to discard precedent in this case, so the father-daughter marriage is out of the question. Elsewhere, there’s a fatherless daughter who loves her mother very much. Under the precedents above, there’s no reason they can’t get married. Arguments about morality are really passé and two women can’t produce a child anyways, so there’s no worries about a higher chance of genetic disability.

Going back to the daughter and her father, say they didn’t get married because that would be gross and illegal, but they still had two children together. One is a genetically sound son, but he has a brother who is genetically disabled and requires expensive treatment. Well, their mom and dad were hauled off to jail for incest, and so normal brother and disabled brother are on their own. If gay marriage were legalized, could normal brother marry disabled brother under homosexual protections and put his brother on his health insurance as a spouse when he finds employment? There may not be another affordable way to care for his brother. But WTF is happening to marriage at this point and where did it all begin?

Definitions of words change. Happens all the time. And the process seems to more or less be democratic. But courts aren’t democratic and things get sticky when put in their hands. Clever interpretations by bright and motivated judges can have large impacts on society. Say the Eisenstadt precedent that prohibits discrimination based on marital status was broadened from access to contraceptives to an at large status. Like if the government couldn’t discriminate against a married person or unmarried person when it comes to marrying a third party — bigamy (at least) could be justified pretty easily.

The definition of marriage seems to be changing. Powerful interest groups contend that the essence of marriage is that it takes place between two people who love each other, and the number of parties involved is the essence, not their gender. Objectively, it could just as easily be the number of individuals involved that changes, and it seems no less radical. There’s historical precedent for polygamy just like there’s historical precedent for homosexuality, and, well, incest and cannibalism if you want to go there.

Marriage isn’t something that exists in nature — kind of like numbers — and whether you believe these things were created by God or by man, they still need definition and order to be useful. Some people are upset about changing the definition of “marriage,” but it’s even more astonishing that they’re changing the definition of “definition” to do it. “Definition” is something that is being dictated by courts and powerful interests, not by consensus, and the consequences of changing definitions are obscured while horrible insults are hurled at anyone who points them out. People can complain about the definition of “marriage” being changed against their own personal will, but that battle’s beginning to wind down, so it’s time to figure out what happened and strip the power of defining from the linguistic dictators who have seized it. Take back the definition of “definition” first, and be prepared for the next linguistic battle.

nar·ra·tive

-noun

A story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.

To someone who doesn't know who this is, he may look like just a normal guy from a foreign culture. But in that tuban, beard, and those soulless eyes resides the incarnation of evil.

Osama bin Laden is dead. After being on the run for nearly a decade, American special forces pinpointed his location, invaded his hideout via stealth helicopter, and shot the terrorist ringleader dead with a bullet through the eye. The coward had been living in a million dollar luxury complex guarded by state of the art security construction for years. When Navy SEAL Team 6 arrived, bin Laden hid behind one of his wives firing off shots from an automatic weapon in a display of utter cowardice. It was not until the bullet of justice tore through his left retina that bin Laden ceased to act as a coward and false crusader.

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Something profound and deeply disturbing happened on September 11, 2001. At the behest of Osama bin Laden, Islamic extremists hijacked four American airplanes and piloted them into predetermined targets. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were penetrated and collapsed by these terrorists in an act of war against freedom, igniting a counter-war on terror.

As bin Laden’s evil mad men directed those planes into the twin towers, Unites States President George W. Bush was reading a story to schoolchildren in Florida.

As President Bush was reading to the children, his men informed him of what bin Laden had done, interrupting the picture book. He had to act and could not finish the story.

A story, that from that moment forward, carried on with this image burned into the mind of America.

And we will never forget.

Nearly 3,000 innocent Americans died in bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. While brave passengers on one plane were able to wrestle it to the ground without hitting a building, courageous firefighters entered the burning towers at extreme danger to save fellow Americans. Many lost their lives on that horrible day, but America came together to support the victims and each other, and to seek justice.

President Bush promised to defend America from her enemies, at home and abroad, declaring that justice would be done. Fighting against the oppressive Taliban in Afghanistan and the murderous dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq were part of this mission and because of US military action, democratic regimes have replaced them. But many things went wrong and an important part of the mission was still to find Osama bin Laden. The best guess the military had was that he was running and hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in secret caves, continuing to plot.

President Bush became unpopular for the wars and other nations felt less positively about the United States than before. But Bush was still dedicated to defending America and fighting terrorism, though ridiculed and mocked for not being able to find bin Laden. Bush would end his presidency very unpopular, amid economic crisis, and being seen as having failed in his mission to effectively fight terror. Not finding WMDs in Iraq, having no exit strategy in Afghanistan, a deep recession, and never finding bin Laden filled the pages of President Bush’s story.

Then, with renewed hope and a promise of change, America elected Barack Obama as its new president.

President Obama was a captivating speaker who seemed to embody the hopes of anyone who saw him on TV. His charisma was undeniable and his election was historic because a person with his background had never been president before.

President Obama faced may challenges upon entering office with unpopular legislation and an economy that didn’t seem to be getting any better despite his early promises. It was also unclear what President Obama’s military strategy was, including how he intended to handle the wars and terrorism. Osama bin Laden became less and less important, as the economy became the most pressing issue, but President Obama still didn’t seem to have any solutions for high unemployment or how to end America’s military conflicts.

But then, at President Obama’s direction, the heroic Navy SEAL Team 6 found Osama bin Laden’s hideout, infiltrated the complex in the dark of night, and eliminated the murderer, almost a full ten years after the September 11 attacks. When President Obama made the announcement that bin Laden had been killed, America was happy to hear such good news. The terrorist and murderer who was responsible for killing 3,000 innocent Americans was dead. The evil he represented, the military incompetence that his elusive run suggested, the injustice of him not paying for his crimes — these things were eliminated with him. He represented so many bad things, and his being found and destroyed represented a victory over these bad things. Obama got Osama, and the president proclaimed that “justice has been done.”

But President Obama didn’t tell America the whole story and didn’t share credit with everyone who helped. And even though the evil bin Laden was dead, some people didn’t believe it because they distrusted the government. Many demanded to see pictures that proved bin Laden was in fact dead, which President Obama possessed but withheld. The War on Terror by no means ended with bin Laden’s death and the doubts and questions about the affair only confirmed that the story was not over. America waited ten years to have its military meet bin Laden. Ten years since President Bush was reading to schoolchildren and the attack by bin Laden’s men interrupted that picture book.

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Show us the pictures, President Obama.

We deserve to see the last page of the story.