Tag Archives: opinion

“Kingdom Coming”

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A book excerpt at Salon.com.

Salon.com has published an excerpt from Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. (You may have to watch a brief ad to read the excerpt; it’s worth it.) The book covers a topic that has been worrying me for some time now: the religious right’s efforts to base the American government on pure Christian beliefs.

Some of you reading this might say, “What’s wrong with that?” Let me tell you.

  • Some of the first people to come to this country — remember the pilgrims? — came so they could have religious freedom — the freedom to practice and follow their own religious beliefs.
  • The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — which you can find near the bottom of the navigation column on most pages of this site — begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” (And yes, I am aware that more Americans can name the five members of the Simpsons cartoon family than can name the rights granted in the First Amendment.)
  • The establishment of laws that are based on a belief system could restrict the freedoms of people who don’t share those beliefs — for example, the country’s homosexual population. This country was built on freedom.
  • Setting school curriculums based on theology could prevent students from learning and building on generally accepted scientific theories — like evolution. Over time, that could severely curtail America’s scientific advances — students that aren’t taught real science can’t be real scientists.
  • A government theocracy could use religion as a reason to wage war against groups of a different religion as a matter of policy.

These are just a few reasons that come to mind as I sit here typing this.

I don’t want to read this book. I don’t want to know what’s inside it. Just knowing that this situation exists scares me. I can’t believe that in the year 2006, there are still people who’d like to force others to teach creationism in school or make homosexuality illegal. It’s as if we’re taking a giant step backwards, into the Dark Ages. I’d like to take the ostrich approach and just stick my head in the sand.

But when it comes time to vote, I’ll be at the polls. And any candidate that uses religion as any part of his/her campaign will not get my vote.

Keep religion out of government.

More Plagiarism in the News

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Now this is plagiarism!

The Dan Brown plagiarism case is now history. He won — I thought he should in that particular case — and the plaintiffs will be using all their future royalties to pay legal fees.

But now there’s a new case in the news. I just read about it on Slate in an article by Jack Shafer titled “Why Plagiarists Do It.” Mr. Shafer’s article was written in response to news that 19-year-old Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan (don’t ask me to prounouce that), who had gotten a $500,000 two-book contract while still in high school, had completed her first novel — with a little help from another author. It appears that Miss Viswanathan borrowed at least 29 bits and pieces from two similar novels by Megan F. McCafferty. Although she claimed it was accidental, Mr. Shafer sums up his opinion (and mine) on that as follows:

Please! Pinching one or two phrases from another book in the course of writing a 320-page novel might be accidental. But by the time a novelist does it 29 times, the effort is transparently intentional and conscious. Unless, of course, Viswanathan composed her entire novel during Ambien-induced sleep-writing episodes.

(It’s wit like that that keeps me coming back to Slate again and again.)

I read articles in the Harvard Crimson and the New York Times that provide plenty of examples of the borrowed phrases. This is a pretty clear-cut example of plagiarism — 29 instances of it. In fact, if this isn’t plagiarism, I don’t know what is.

Interestingly, Mr. Shafer’s article lists a bunch of reasons why someone might become a plagairist. None of them are flattering.

But I think that what pisses me off the most about this is that this kid got a half million bucks in advance money to write two novels and she rewards her publisher and editor and agent by stealing passages out of other books — books that probably didn’t earn a tenth of that.

I think it goes without saying that she should be ashamed of herself. Unfortunately, she probably isn’t.

I hope she loses her movie deal.

On Mailing Lists

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Talk about junk e-mail!

Whew! I just unsubscribed myself to the last e-mail list I was subscribed to.

An e-mail list, if you’re not familiar with the term, is like a topic based mailbox that list subscribers can send messages to. When you send a message to the list, it’s automatically sent in e-mail to everyone on the list. The idea is that you can use a list to get information about a topic from people who might have answers.

The operative word here is “might.” A lot of times, subscribers won’t have an answer but they won’t hestitate to say “I don’t know the answer but wish I did” or “this might be the answer” or “that question is off-topic” or “you should ask that question in this other list, too” or “I just read the answer to that in this other list” or “why the hell do you want to know that?” Then the topic starts expanding in every direction, sprouting more questions and answers, only some of which are vaguely related to the original. Arguments develop with differences of opinion sometimes getting nasty. So one question can generate dozens of e-mail messages that may or may not have any value to the questioner. And if you didn’t ask the question in the first place and don’t care about the answer, it’s even more junk to wade through.

Of course, you can always take a list in “digest” format. That’s when they put a whole day’s worth of messages into one big, fat e-mail. I think it’s worse because you can’t even use a message’s subject line to determine whether it’s something you want to read (or delete).

One of the mail lists I was subscribed to didn’t have a specific topic. It was a strangely quiet list, with no messages for days on end. Once, I thought I’d unsubscribed to it — it was that dead. Then, suddenly, someone would send a message and twenty people would respond to it. Like they were all lurking out there, waiting for someone to make the first move so they could join in the fray.

The really weird thing to me is the amount of time that passes between the original message and the responses. Sometimes it’s as litle as a few minutes! Even in the middle of the night! Like people are sitting at their computer, watching every e-mail delivery, ready to dive in with a response when a message appears. Egads! Get a life!

Another list I belonged to briefly prevented me from posting questions or answers. Even though I was a subscriber, my messages were considered spam. Wow. Hard not to take that personally. I think I lasted about a week. Very frustrating when every time you try to chip in with a little assistance your message gets bounced back at you with a spammer accusation.

Why did I join these lists in the first place? Well, for a while I was feeling a bit isolated. I live in my own little world here in Wickenburg, one that’s very light on high-tech people. Very light. Lighter than the hot air the local “computer experts” spout while they’re pretending to their customers that they know what they’re talking about. I started feeling as if I were missing out on new developments in computer technology. That I lacked a reliable forum for getting answers to computer-related questions. That I had no place to turn to when I needed help.

I heard about a list from a friend and got mildly interested. When one of my editors praised it, I thought I was missing out on something really valuable. I jumped in. With both feet. And the barrage of e-mail began.

I’ve made worse mistakes. But not many lately.

So now I’m off the lists. All of them. My mailboxes are feeling much lighter these days.

I’m back to doing what I’ve been doing for the past few years. When I have a question, I hop on the Web and Google to get the answer.

Stand Up for Your Principles

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I’m baffled by people who can’t.

I consider myself a person with principles. My principles might not match yours and you might not even think they’re any good. But that’s not the point. I have principles and I stand by them.

For example, I believe that if a man and a woman are in a relationship, they should be faithful to each other. That’s one of my principles.

I believe that people should not lie, cheat, or steal. That’s another principle.

I believe that people should be tolerant of other people’s religion, political beliefs, and sexual orientation. More principles.

These basic principles — and lots more where they came from — are what guide me in my daily activities.

I stand up for what I think is right. That’s why I write so many opinion pieces on this site and wickenburg-az.com. I see something I don’t think is right and I want people to know it. I want them to see — even for a moment — why the thing is wrong. Or at least why I think it’s wrong. I want them to look into it for themselves, think about it with their own brains, and make a decision. Then I want them to act on that decision.

One of the biggest complaints I hear these days is that a single person can’t make a difference. I think that’s a cop-out, an excuse not to try. The trouble is, too many people believe it. Too many people are willing to ignore their principles because it’s the easy thing to do.

Everyone can make a difference. If you believe in something, let it guide you. Don’t settle for less.

And don’t give up, just because it’s easier than trying.