Link: Newsweek: High School & Trayvon
All of this focus on Trayvon Martin’s character after his getting suspended in high school—for an empty bag of weed, no less—is disconcerting. Anyone can get suspended for the silliest of offenses. Your tumblr was threatened with an in-school suspension in middle school for throwing a pencil…
Amen!
thedailywhat: Infographic of the Day: Of course the MPAA doesn’t want people to see Bully. If people
The death of Trayvon Martin is probably one of those things that will be hashed and rehashed for generations. It’s sad all around, but one thing that’s not come up is that George Zimmerman went out with a tool that’s good for only one thing: killing someone:
This isn’t your standard liberal “let’s take away all the guns!” post. I’m prepared to agree that the possession of a firearm has value as a political statement, and that, further, it’s important that we live in a world in which the government knows it’s dependent on the non-guaranteed assent of its citizens. (Although: good luck taking on the US military with your handgun!) Second Amendment? Whether it means we should have guns in the closet or a people in arms or just a shotgun here and there to protect against Indian raids, it’s an important part of our Constitution.
But there’s a difference between guns as a political statement and guns as something you carry around on a day-to-day basis. Face it: a gun has one mode of operation, and that’s to propel a small piece of metal into something at a very high rate of speed. There’s no stun mode, shoot-to-wound is only a myth, and the value of a gun as a threat only lies in its potential use to kill. So, when Zimmerman went out, he went out with a tool designed specifically and only to kill. He might not have planned to kill that day, but that strikes me more as a misunderstanding of the tool than anything else.
Now, Trayvon didn’t have a gun. Which apparently means that he wasn’t, in the legal sense, standing his ground: Zimmerman was. But a reasonable interpretation of events seems to me to be that Trayvon felt threatened, turned to confront his assailant — I presume that he had no legal requirement to avoid the conflict — and the two ended up in a physical altercation. Perhaps Trayvon went for Zimmerman’s gun and Zimmerman shot him. Apparently, because Zimmerman was packing, he was defending himself: Trayvon was the attacker.
This comes back to the issue of the purpose of a gun: in this altercation there was a tool that had no purpose but to kill. If Trayvon knew that there was a gun there, then he of course went for it, because he knew there could be no purpose to it but to kill him. If Trayvon went for the gun, Zimmerman had to shoot him, because there could be no purpose to Trayvon taking the weapon but to kill Zimmerman. Someone was ending up dead.
(Although I suppose there’s an argument for everyone having a gun in this conflict: perhaps if Trayvon had drawn down, there would’ve been a stand-off and the police would’ve arrived in time for everyone to live. Perhaps there’s an issue in the disparity of force that itself drove the situation.)
Being a good liberal, I probably sound like I’m blaming Zimmerman here; but really I’m not. It’s common to think that carrying a gun adds to security, but really all it does is give you a threat, and then one additional level of response that really you must use if you’re called on that threat. Most people don’t appreciate that part of the reality.
No, what I think we have here is a poor man — probably mentally ill, actually, based on the descriptions I’ve read of him — who tried to find some level of authority and meaning in that threat and promise of security that a gun can provide; and a second poor boy who perceived that threat and responded aggressively.
Sure, I sympathize because I used to live in a bad neighborhood and I’d walk to the Jack in the Box at midnight wearing my USC hoodie. We all look scary in hoodies, I guess. But more than that I sympathize because I’ve been confronted with force before (although not a gun pointed at me) and I’ve responded with aggression myself, pretty consistently, and I can see myself attacking a guy with a gun who threatened me. I’d perceive that as my best self-defense, and I’m pretty sure that everyone reading this would, if I did defend myself this way, compliment me for having stood up to the other guy. I mean, it’s the modern ethos of self-reliance and self-defense, right?
So there’s the thing: if you pointed a gun at me, I’d try to take it away from you. (And I know how.) And then you’d have to shoot me, because otherwise I’d shoot you. That’s why I sympathize with Trayvon: he didn’t start the situation, but he responded the way I think I would have, and he paid with his life because someone else had chosen beforehand, for no good reason, to bring a tool to the tussle that required someone die once combat ensued.
To not carry a gun around, silly. I’m not saying don’t own a gun, just don’t carry it around unless you intend to shoot someone with it. That’s a simple rule, no? You can’t really threaten with a gun unless you intend to use it, and you shouldn’t intend to use it unless in self-defense, and almost nobody is going to walk down the street and be able to effectively use a firearm against an attacker. (That mugger will have a gun to your head before you can draw down.)
So don’t carry a gun. And, if for some reason you do, take responsibility for whatever it is you do with that gun. Make sure that shooting the person you shoot is important enough that the consequences are worth it.
Is that a casually-initiated tech project less than 100% done is most often much, much less than 0% done.
That chest of drawers you were half built? Useless, probabaly, but only an obstacle in the garage. The half-knit sweater? The dog dragged it out from under the chair and he loves it. Your novel you never got around to the second draft of? Just takes up a few bytes on your computer.
Almost done migrating your e-mail to a new host? Sorry, messages sent to you disappear into the aether until you flip that last switch. Most of the way through setting up an OpenID server? Can’t log into anything at all. A quarter of the way through migrating your blog to WordPress? Well, have you clicked on the archive links to the right?
Oh technology, you’re such a tease!
I know the moment I shook off the stomach flu: 12:30am, Tuesday, March 20. That was when my eyes – eyes that had been sound asleep for more than two hours, now – popped open. And my brain said: “let’s get at it!”
We’d had big St. Patrick’s Day plans; that’s what happens when you marry an Irish woman. But I was excited about them: we were going fun places, eating delicious and indulgent food, and who cares if I’m not a beer guy? green makes everything funner!
But, oh, then my stomach. I won’t inflict the details upon you – by “you” I mean ” co-worker who’s only vaguely familiar with me but has tracked down this blog – but I’m sure you can project a story from your own experiences that was only somewhat worse and far, far funnier to you and your direct acquaintances.
Anyway, this stomach flu kept me napping all Sunday, and quiet all today, and I came home threatening early bedtimes until the realities of life – working late, feeding the dogs, keeping the parrot entertained, cultivating my Pinboard – intervened.
Ok, so I didn’t make it to bed by 9, but my eyes were closed by 10:30. So imagine my shock when I woke up at 12:30 and my brain said, clearly, to my disbelieving body: time to do all those things we planned to do this weekend.
At 1am? On a school night? Said my body, as it tried to roll over and go back to sleep.
Yes, said my brain, affecting a proper British headmaster’s accent, to get it’s point over.
And that’s why I’m up at 1:30 working on a writing project, of which this blog is only a side effect. But at least I know when I beat that darned flu!
So I usually think of myself as a good cook, but — I think I might’ve mentioned — I’m slow. Glacial. Weeknight meal? Sure, I’ll have that up for you in four hours, straight away.
Yeah, doesn’t work. So, I think I mentioned in my New Year’s Resolutions that I was going to take a cooking class. After a bunch of research I decided on a local school’s intro to cooking class.
Right. Intro. Time to suck up my pride. I learned back in tae kwon do that you only get to be fast by being perfect to start, so I figured, hey, let’s make unfounded generalizations. So far it’s been fun. I’ve been playing the role of super-nerd, asking every possible question (yes, it’s a role! don’t look at me like that!) and getting tons of perspective. And tons of chances to cut things up. And, best of all, tons of chances for the instructors to tell me what to do or not.
The first class was on salads. We paired up and my team ended up with the caesar salad. It was a little easier than I’d hoped but, hey, we took some care and it ended up real nice.
Today was harder: we made a red snapper green curry.
I was really excited for this week, because, despite all my foodie pretensions, I’m as scared of cooking fish as the next guy. I always choose slow, moist fish-cooking techniques that leave me with no risk of burning or sticking; but here I had to cook the snapper fast, over very high heat, to get nice browning. And, as the instructor said, “expect it to stick.”
Well, we got compliments on the doneness and texture of the fish. I have to say, it turned out everything I could hope. And everyone else deserved compliments too, with dishes like these:
And, best of all, my team finished quickly enough that we had time to practice various techniques and to just jaw a bunch. A little speed? Yes please!
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