02.07.12
Posted in 2¢ at 16:36 by RjZ
Disappointed in a federal appeals court ruling against California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal foundation said:
“No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people.”
Wrong. That is exactly what appeals courts and especially the supreme court are supposed to do. The democratic process of the Alliance Defense Fund goes by another name: mob rule. Fortunately the democratic process we have here in the United States protects minorities, ensuring that they receive equal protection even when the legislative process has denied them those rights.
The populace can vote to restrict the rights of citizens as they have done many times in the past. Japanese can be interned in prison camps, suspected communists can be prosecuted and smeared, and African American citizens can even be denied a space on a park bench. All of these things can happen through a part of the democratic process. Fortunately, the courts can step in to undo those harms. They go against the prevailing view of the majority and, in doing so, protect the minority who, too, are full citizens in our society and deserve all the same rights and privileges. And when judges “undercut the democratic process” they are actually performing the final and critical step in the democratic process. They are protecting our constitutional rights even if the mob thinks (usually only in retrospect) it was right to do so.
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01.09.12
Posted in 2¢ at 17:30 by RjZ
In junior high I decorated my text book covers with hand drawn letters and designs strongly influenced by Manchester designer Peter Saville. Don’t know him? He created iconic album covers for bands like Ultravox and the famous Joy Division Unknown Pleasures which I still see on t-shirts today. (Isn’t that an oldie? Get on with it kids, that (great) album was released in 1979!)
I remember playing with my dot-matrix ImageWriter II and being impressed with a new found array of fonts. Logical favorite then was “Ransom” designed by Susan Kare (she also designed the original mac icons!)
When the LaserWriter came out I wound up printing whole binders full of font samples. I took them oddly, naturally, and had an uncanny ability to identify font from samples. With so much proliferation of fonts, ugly and amazing, copies and variations, I no longer can just look at a font and tell its name. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about them.
So, have a look, I’m trying out Google Web Fonts. Did they make this page too long to download? Can you see the difference and do you like it? Let me know what you think. Bonus if you can name the fonts….
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12.29.11
Posted in 2¢ at 14:11 by RjZ
Go have a look at this article about Catholic charities pulling out of Illinois because they feel their religious freedom is being trampled. Before you go, do this one thing for me, would you? Replace “same-sex” with “black” (and, to make the point more clearly, replace “gay” with “negro”) and read on.
That this is really a civil-rights issue and not one of religious freedom becomes painfully obvious in this light and makes such arguments thin and perhaps a bit embarrassing. Should Catholic bishops (and everyone else) be entitled to religious freedom? Of course, but civil-rights, the rights of citizens in our democracy, must always trump religious freedom. It is through this simple test that we’re not entitled, for example, to permit ritual sacrifice of virgins, in the name of religious freedom. It is with this logic that we were finally able to shake off the shackles of religious tolerance for slavery, even when religion was incapable of doing so alone.
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12.13.11
Posted in 2¢ at 17:00 by RjZ
During President Obama’s April 2009 visit to Turkey he denied that the United States is a Christian nation saying: “One of the great strengths of the United States is…we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
Christian conservatives vehemently disagree.
Saudi Arabia is once again out to prove just how dangerous state sactioned religion can be, by beheading a person who’s religious beliefs are not aligned with those of the state. Of course, that’s an Islamic state, but the victim of this human rights offense, an alleged witch, would be at odds with a Christian nation as well.
The response to those claiming the United States of America is founded on Christian ideals shouldn’t be examples of agnostic or deist founding fathers and quotes from Thomas Jefferson’s letters, but rather a question. How we can ensure we won’t end up like Saudi Arabia, with religion police and executions for blasphemy, if we really did have a state-sponsored religion?
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12.09.11
Posted in 2¢ at 14:05 by RjZ
In the post “No Half Measures I suggested that Europe must choose to break apart or come closer together, but that, regardless, there was no middle ground. World markets seemed to agree, punishing stocks and currencies from Hong Kong to NASDAQ until they got their act together. Today, Europe, with the exception of the United Kingdom (which isn’t part of the monetary union in any event) have chosen, like the states of the U.S.A., to come closer together, sacrificing another big chunk of soveriengty to save the Euro.
Europe has much more to lose from a cultural perspective than did those 13 colonies of the United States. Even if the markets are happy at the news, it remains to be seen just what the impact of this move will be.
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11.18.11
Posted in 2¢ at 7:11 by RjZ
I haven’t been at a computer long enough to post anything, but I have managed regular updates on Google +. Follow me there to see pictures of Argentine hotels and hostels that happen to have free WiFi.
(can’t post a link right now from my phone but “R. J. Zimmerman” should be me)
I’m back, so here’s me. I post links to my other blog and a few other comments too short to even warrant a blog posting, if you’d like to follow.
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10.06.11
Posted in 2¢, Society at 9:16 by RjZ
The exception proves the rule. On 5 October, Steve Jobs, one of the exceptional died.
I’ve written about the CEO club on more than one occasion. The CEO club is my name for the concept that we give extra credit to CEOs for the work they do at companies when, in fact, correlating their success with the company’s turns out to be difficult to prove, and worse, being a CEO guarantees that, regardless of how poor past performance is, another company will welcome you aboard to destroy their value as well.
Steve Jobs, so the evidence suggests, was an exception.
He co-founded Apple and they did amazing things. He was forced out and they floundered. While away he invested in Pixar, a struggling company and they went on to make computer animated cartoons that make grown men cry. He rejoined Apple and they became one of the world’s most valuable brands. Listing the rest of his accompishments will be done over and over again around the web today. They should be read with awe not only for the acheivements, but for the force of will and ability to succeed they suggest: he got the music industry to agree to an entirely new (to them) model of business!
Steve Jobs can’t take credit alone. At nearly every developer conference or product announcement he took a moment to thank the tireless engineers and staff of Apple who do the real work of changing the world. John Lasseter is a creative genius, but he too describes Jobs as the “guiding light of the Pixar family.” Yet, while Jobs didn’t do it alone, he was, over and over again, the common denominator driving companies to simply “make it great.”
I have used Macintosh computers and operating systems since 1986. (If it weren’t for my Commodore 64 being so great, I might have had an Apple sooner. The Commodore had a Pi key, for heaven’s sake!) I’ve used the much maligned Newton (best OS ever. no, really) and heard the news of Jobs’ passing on my iPhone. I’ve watched friends and family change their minds about Apple and come to appreciate the “it just works” philosophy (my brother now owns more macs than I, even if he was a bitter anti-mac for years), and the reaction to this college drop-out’s passing around the world is another proof of his exceptional talent.
It may be difficult to truly identify just what a company leader brings to the organization and most will go on taking more credit than they rightfully deserve, but decades of actual evidence points to Steve Jobs talent for success. Apple will go on to make great products. Pixar will make great movies without Jobs’ inspiration. But the CEO club has lost one of its few members who actually deserved to be there and around the world many mourn the loss of a true inspriration.
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08.09.11
Posted in 2¢ at 10:46 by RjZ
I read the following in the first few pages of a book I am reading (a review should come later). During an impassioned argument that science may have a place in describing the human experience in ways heretofore considered outside the realm of science, came this:
There are still some people who will reject any description of human nature that was not first communicated in iambic pentameter.
I see a clear opportunity for a poet friend of mine! His humorous, clever, and sometimes metered, poetry is just the thing! He could collect the theories of Newton, Einstein, and Darwin, and rewrite them in metered verse! If this humorous quote is really true, he’d be solving a great social problem for us all!
I hope you’re reading LunarHalo.
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06.28.11
Posted in 2¢ at 9:28 by RjZ
David Frum, CNN columnist and soon-to-be-rejected-conservative has retracted his objection to same-sex marriages. Why? A decade ago he made the same argument that is still being made today, that same-sex marriages would damage the moral fabric of society. Thing is, they’ve been around now for quite some time and there is demonstrably no disintegration of the family, at least no greater disintegration than the previous decade.
I’ve made a similar case about health-care, and even marriage: look at other countries and if all hell didn’t break loose when they passed some highly controversial law, then, of course, you can still respectfully disagree with that law being passed where you live, but you can hardly claim gloom and doom is the likely outcome.
Put another way, this whole fear of gay marriage? Much ado about nothing! I suggest the current crop of conservative presidential candidates look somewhere else for some really divisive issues.
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06.17.11
Posted in 2¢ at 9:12 by RjZ
So sorry for the delay my dear (seven) readers. There were some technical difficulties that prohibited me from posting, but I am back, and I’ll get some stuff up here again soon. Tell your friends, start reading again, and above all, say something! comment!
More in a bit.
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