Thursday, May 31, 2012

Is your information up to date?


It was late one night and I was killing time after deadline reading the many newspaper websites that are part of my daily reading.
Some nights I go off on these tangents, reading articles and commentaries that are far removed from that day’s events. It was on one of these meandering searches I ran across a discussion about the importance of encyclopedias.

The New York Times had a roundtable discussion about the fact Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer publish a print edition after 244 years. Titled “Britannica: Define Outdated” it featured researchers, novelists and others to discuss whether the announcement, which was made earlier this year, was some substantial loss to our collective knowledge.

I was hooked. Not because the lower two levels of my bookshelf are filled with a complete Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia from 1993, but because I occasionally get lost on a website, or Wikipedia or that complete encyclopedia set at my apartment.

Admittedly, I am a nerd. Owning an encyclopedia set should have been enough to charge me of that. Admitting to opening it is sufficient evidence for a conviction.

One of the arguments of the discussion is that knowledge and information has become more democratic in the information age. It is easier for people to disseminate or receive information.

That is undeniable.

However, the reason I never trashed my archaic collection of books was because there was something permanent about the words being collated into books. Once something is printed it’s tougher to confiscate than words written electronically.

Maybe that is the newspaper man in me thinking.

The elimination of the Britannica came to mind this week when I heard about the origins of Memorial Day.

Two different people told me the holiday to honor the millions of American soldiers that gave their lives fighting in wars — under real and perceived threats — began in 1865 in Charleston, S.C. … by black people.

The first person to tell me is a decorated American veteran who has seen time in combat. The other is a colleague. The former was even invited to speak about Memorial Day at a church over the weekend.

After digging through the democratic wellspring of information called the Internet I found an article by David W. Blight, a Yale history professor who is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the Civil War.

Blight writes “thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865.”

Funnily enough, my Funk & Wagnalls omitted the dark origins of the most somber of American holidays.

“The holiday, originally called Decoration Day, is traditionally marked by parades, memorial speeches and ceremonies and the decoration of graves with flowers and flags, hence the original name. Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, 1868, on the order of Gen. John Alexander Logan for the purpose of decorating the graves of the American Civil War dead.”
It’s possible, even probable; this information was not available in 19 years ago. Or maybe the omission was as honest as the 19th century argument among Southerners that the war was about state’s rights.

This weekend once again reaffirmed my belief that “he who wins writes the history, whether it’s true or not.” Perhaps its best that line of thinking becomes outdated.
Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Police reports are public records, right?

I don’t hide my annoyance well.

When someone or something has irked me my mannerisms and body language completely changes. Apparently, expletives explode from me more frequently. Few things bother me more than having to suspend the writing process when I am in the middle of a groove.

Yet, that is what happened Tuesday night when a random Austin number called me. I figured it was a source trying to get in contact with me about something.

Nope. It was a friend of a friend of a friend of the man who burglarized my home 15 months ago. Apparently, this gentleman is facing a few decades in prison because he is a habitual offender.

 Among other charges he’s faced in his life: aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, cocaine possession, possession of meth with intent to sell and a few more. There were others, but I couldn’t write them down nearly as fast as the prosecutor reeled them off to me.

Upon receiving the call, I felt a bit bad for the guy who burglarized me. His friend of a friend of a friend told me he was facing “25 to life.” As a 27 year old man, serving 25 years in a cell just seemed so excessive to me. (Of course that was before I found out this man’s rap sheet was longer than Warren Buffett’s resume.)

I even contemplated calling someone in Florida to ensure the alleged party only served 10 years. But colleagues, friends and others all reminded me that if someone was dumb enough to break into my home, they deserve whatever comes their way. (Of course that was before I found out this man’s rap sheet was deeper than Kim Kardashian’s To-Do list.)

Throughout Tuesday night, I wondered whether I am too nice a person. The supposed bribe of “money or whatever you need” from the friend of a friend of a friend didn’t sway me as much as the prospect of someone being a permanent resident of Raiford, Florida. (Of course that was before I found out this man’s rap sheet was bigger than Osama bin Laden’s porn collection.)

My fiancĂ© likes to tell people I have a strong moral compass, which only serves to convict me when I’m not doing the right thing. But, I could just imagine what she would say as I waffled on calling district attorney asking them to find a way to stop the annoying phone calls in mid-sentence.

I was tempted to take the easy way out. Of course that was before I found out this man’s rap sheet was so extensive he knows how to find victim’s telephone number in the police report.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Sunday, May 13, 2012

What's the difference between Eve and Steve?

I must have been in elementary school the first time I heard the word faggot.

There wasn’t a seminal moment where a light came on or anything like that. But to my curious mind it was such an interesting word. When my mom refused to spell it for me, I broke out the dictionary to find out it meant a bundle of twigs or sticks.
For the better part of the last two decades if someone says the word faggot, I instantly think of a bundle of sticks.

Maybe that makes me odd, but I thought about my original interaction with the word, which in American English, has been derisively used to label homosexuals Wednesday afternoon. Six months before he hopes to be reelected Barack Obama indicated his support for same-sex marriage in an interview with ABC News.
Some people found Obama’s support of the issue truly groundbreaking. A part of me instantly considered it cowardly, or a ploy to win voters this fall.

It is possible one’s position on an issue evolves over time. Then again, it’s more likely that the president had a slew of fund raisers planned in the next six weeks where important members of the LGBT community will be courted for their dollars, influence and votes.
History always smiles on those who favor justice and equality, even if the timing is curious. Or as Obama once said:  “The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States.”

Whatever may have been Obama’s motivation Wednesday, the man deserves credit for taking a stand on a divisive issue. This is the same man who introduced himself to us by reminding America that “e pluribus unum” means “out of many, one.”
In high school I used to say “I don’t hate gay people, I hate annoying gay people.” The point then, as it is now, is that I could care less what someone does in their bedroom.

If you are going to be a jerk I don’t care who you sleep with, I don’t want to be around you. Of course, it would be hypocritical to write about tolerance, and my disdain for annoying gay people, yet not admit to laughing at a well-time gay joke with just as much zest as I would a laugh about anything else that straddled the fence of polite speech. But, the point remains the same.
In 2001 I was a pudgy junior in high school who likely would have been turned down for a date by a blow-up doll. Girls were in no rush to hang out with me. For crying out loud I was six weeks away from my 17th birthday when I kissed someone for the first time.

A boy in my English class once said I looked like Steve Urkel. When I quipped I could wear a pink button-down — as I was that day — without people questioning my sexuality he got offended. People said I was mean for picking on him. However, I reminded everyone that I wouldn’t have said a word if her friend hadn’t tried to be funny in the first place.
It’s the same with public displays of affection. If two men, or two women, are walking somewhere holding hands or kissing, I might look for a count longer just to ensure my eyes are not playing tricks on me. But after that, I get just as disgusted as I would were a man and woman groping each other for the entire world to see.

A half-decade after the Urkel incident a college friend of mine tried to tell me a “friend” of hers was dating a woman. Quickly, I interjected that I figured that “friend” was her. Before she could even finish her sentence asking my thoughts on her sexual situation, I reminded her that I didn’t care who she slept with since she wasn’t sleeping with me.
Wednesday’s announcement from Obama doesn’t change any laws. The bigger news on the gay marriage front arguably came Tuesday night in North Carolina. Regardless of where one resides on this steamy issue, we should all agree that discrimination or the intentional mistreatment of anyone has no place in society.

Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb