Bad analogy

One thing that will very quickly make me start to dismiss a speaker or a writer is bad metaphors. It is so often a sign of lazy thinking or a desperate need to spice a sentence up that you can generally be sure that a metaphor botcher probably has little of value to say.

I turned on the TV the other night and watched some World's Strongest Man competition while tidying up the living room. They had TWO PEOPLE announcing an event that literally entailed just tying a bus to a guys waist and having him pull it up an incline. Yes, it's an impressive feat, but hearing the commentators struggle for things to say was so painful- "Yep. There he goes. Still at it. Almost there. Done!" over and over again. At one point one of them said, "they is call him the professor of power, because he is first in his class when it comes to strength." Because we all live in some bizarre academia where tenure is granted to the smartest kid in every grade.

Of course this wasn't the fault of the announcers; they just had severely uninspiring subject matter. One of the most I have ever been entertained by sports was this past Olympics when they had a guy who obviously knew nothing about volleyball cast a whole day of the 2v2 matches. Also

"It's like the Brazilian version of the Great Wall of China"
"...the kind up spike that would bring about world peace if it landed." 
"But those feathers have not been ruffled, the beautiful Brazilian bird of paradise that is Cerruti and Rego"
"I have no idea what the Latvian national animal it, but I hope it's a brave, noble, and tenacious one." (It's the white wagtail, so not really. Brazil's is the macaw and rufous-bellied thrush btw)
"Like their (US) ancestors fought for independence so many years ago, their descendants now fight for beach volleyball points."
"That woman is half flesh and bone *long, pensive pause* with a skeleton... forged in the fires of Mordor"
"palm struck that in like a headmaster with a cane. Won't find that these days though. Far too Victorian."
"That was insane! That woman should be committed for how insane that was!"

The time I accidentally marched with Nazis

Back story:
My Functional Analysis professor is extremely political and, I have recently heard, a somewhat controversial figure in Budapest politics. He likes to keep us updated on the hilarious political happenings of the city, which sometimes includes telling us places to "avoid" on certain days. So far I have not been let down by studiously "avoiding" these places. Long story short, a bunch of neo-Nazis firebombed a Jewish store, then got the shit kicked out of them by a bunch of middle-aged anti-Nazis who grew up hearing stories about actual Nazis. The neo-Nazis were angry and embarrassed and tried to start a flash riot in the square outside the Jewish store. In a response to the response the President of Hungary personally went to the store, promised police-protection there, and called on people to anti-protest the neo-Nazis. And then the Prime Minister himself said he would appear to make a speech. For those who don't know, my professor sums it up pretty well: "Now, Hungarians -hate- Nazis. But they are also not so fond of the PM." Hungarians it, turns out, are also very fond of rioting. Apparently during the previous year's semester classes would sometimes be canceled on account of teargas. 

Story:
So I'm trying to decide whether or not to go, since my professor made it clear that there would be a definite possibility of violence. I figure: the worst that can happen is grievous bodily harm inflicted by a Nazi, which would in fact be pretty cool. I called it a push, and off I went.

Ok, here's the setting (not drawn to scale)

Notice the 'H' shape, this will be important later.

The pink dot is the store in question. The black lines are barriers. The smiley faces are friendly police officers who are calmly trying to turn people away. The frowny faces are large, angry-looking riot squad guys in full armor.

When I arrive on the scene, I am on the 2 side, which has a moderate number of people yelling and shouting. But I can perceive though the wall of riot police in the center that there is a much larger crowd of people gathered on the opposite (1) side of the 'H' holding big protesty-looking signs (which I can't read). There are also politicians on a stage in the middle of the 'H' with their backs to us addressing the people on the 1 side, who are all cheering and chanting in response. Since the fences and riot police are almost completely blocking my view, I decide to make my way over to side 2 via the road to the south to see what is going on. 

Passing by the park, I peripherally notice that there are a lot of people just milling around in it. Odd, but I don't really think anything of it at the time.

By the time I get the corner the pink bus is on, the crowd on the 1 side has grown so large that I can barely see the stage anymore, and my view is just a bunch of backs of signs and people. BUT, I notice that the 2 side of the square side has now pretty much completely emptied out. Oh, they must have had the same thought as me, so now that whole side is up for grabs. So, feeling clever about outwitting the crowds, I walk back along the southern street to return to 2. 

On my way there, I notice that the crowd of people from the park have started walking towards the protest sight. I think "Hey, crowds generally walk towards interesting things. I better get in here before this side fills up as well," so I merge into the stream of people. But, as I fall in with the mass of people and slowly get sucked into the middle,  I start to notice some things.

Now we peer in on my inner-monologue:

"Man. Hungarians sure wear a lot of leather. It's freaking hot out today. They must be miserable.

Ha, definite, they all look pretty grouchy.

...

Jeez, that angry metal music is playing really loud. I can't even hear the speeches.

...
...

Hey what's that fla-ohmygodimsurroundedbynazis."

Yep. I am smack in the middle of maybe 300-400 chanting, belligerent, drunken neo-Nazis all trying to crowd into the much-too-small side 2 of the 'H'. Somehow I hadn't put together the fact that that the protest zone was split into two with the fact that there were two protests going on: an anti-Nazi rallying of the community supported by the Hungarian President and PM themselves, and an actual Nazi rally whose leaders had promised to firebomb a Jewish music store. 

But it's too late. I am crushed in the middle of the crowd now, and trying to turn back would mean to become an Alaskan salmon, pregnant with the eggs of her next generation, following her ancient, atavistic instincts to swim up a raging river to her ancestral spawning grounds, fighting the angry currents, desperately vaulting hostile waterfalls, and avoiding the claws and teeth of ravenous beers-- except the river is made of Nazis and the current is made of Nazis and the waterfalls are Nazis and bears are most definitely also Nazis

Nonetheless, I hesitate a little, trying to do a quick risk/benefit analysis, and as soon as I do I am immediately shoved and angrily yelled at by a man with a multiple of chrome spikes both in his face and on his shoulders. I quickly decide that my only option is forward.

Now I'm stuck on the wrong side of the protest, surrounded by angry Nazis who have started singing very angry sounding songs and who look like they want nothing more than to have a go at the riot police and counter-protesters, who vastly outnumber them and are angrily chanting back. I think about how stupid I would feel if I got killed by a Nazi. I think about how much stupider I would feel if I were killed by an ANTI-Nazi who thought I was a Nazi because I was, in all fairness, on the Nazi side of a rally. I resolve that, if I am mortally wounded, I will use my last bit of strength to crawl over to the anti-Nazi side so that I will be remembered for what I really am: a martyr for the cause of morbidly curious foreigners who, lacking language skills and cultural context, get themselves killed by treating political turmoil as a tourist attraction and accidental join neo-Nazi protests.

You see, the reason I didn't realize who the Nazis were was that Hungary, like much of Europe, had banned the display of Nazi paraphernalia. So the swastikas and SS flags I had been expecting had been replaced by other nationalist symbols like the Árpád stripes. And, of course, if I could actually read/understand Hungarian, I probably would have been a bit quicker to realize that there were very clearly defined "good guy" and "bad guy" sides. 

Luckily, I manage to slowly slide my way along a wall back to the park and watch the rest of the happenings from there. The Nazis dispersed and the counter protesters cheered and there was much rejoicing.

[Note: of course, as of now the nationalists have a stranglehold on the Hungarian government. So this episode, that boiled down to a bunch of Nazis being drowned out and backing off, seems a lot more sinister now.)

Florida Physician Gag Laws

How had I not heard about this? From a Florida law, of course: "A health care practitioner ... may not discriminate against a patient based solely upon the patient’s _??????_" Take a few seconds to think about the marvelous panoply of words or phrases that could go there. All of the social good that could be achieved by even a half-way compassionate completion of that sentence. Just a few seconds more. Done?

Now remember it's Florida. This should make it easier. If you guessed "excercise of the constitutional right to own or possess firearms or ammunition" you are a winner!

In fact, "A health care practitioner ... shall RESPECT A PATIENT'S RIGHT TO PRIVACY and should refrain from making a written inquiry concerning ______."

You should get it pretty quickly this time.

That's right! "the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient, or the presence of a firearm in a private home or other domicile of the patient or a family member of the patient." Great job everyone!

That's right. Us Republicans are such champions of the right to privacy that it is worth breaching that sacrosanct bond between doctor and patient (which, by the way Obamacare trampled all over) to MAKE SURE that doctors don't ask the questions we know citizens don't want to hear unless it is absolutely necessary for the health of the child.

Forget the fact that guns are responsible for more child (5-9) deaths are than heart disease, influenza, and pnemonia. Ignore that liberal "CDC" rag that claims guns are the second leading cause of preteen deaths (10-14) besides car accidents. If parents bring their kids into a pediatrician's office, it is OFFENSIVE for them to be given gun safety pamphlets or to be asked if their guns have the newest child proof locks. I mean, unless my child is sitting there dying in your office from a gun wound, I have a RIGHT as an AMERICAN to not be asked preventative health questions about FREEDOM by my doctor.

Face it, when the wise founders were drafting the CONSTITUTION of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, they sat down and debated the question of whether or not gun owners should be given a SAFE SPACE where they don't have to talk about the dangers or repercussions of their actions with medical professionals. As we all know the British would force gun-owning colonists to look at pictures of mortally wounded gun victims, and to listen to the confessions of remorseful people who had shot others in anger or by accident- JUST to dissuade them from buying a gun. All those poor patriots could do was to close their ears and chant "My body, my arms. MY body, MY arms. MY BODY MY ARMS," until the ordeal was over and they were allowed to vindicate their God-given right.

The founders knew this, and wrote the second amendment into the constitution to prevent these horrors from ever, EVER, happening to any US citizen ever again.

Chris Christie says that he won't let Hillary get within 10 miles of the Whitehouse, which is a little harsh considering how small our city is (exactly 10 miles on each side, actually, until Virginia demanded its section back). That would mean she could only ride the Red Line between medical center and Rockville, the Orange Line between West Falls Church and Vienna, and she could board the train at Franconia as long as she didn't actually go north. She could also ride the entirety of the Silver Line proper as long as she didn't try to transfer to the Orange Line. The Green and Yellow lines are obviously right out, but what would Hillary want to see on them anyway?

She would be prevented from seeing most of the usual DC sites, but could still barely go to Mount Vernon, the very top of Rock Creek Park, and, luckily, the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

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Commonwealth v Cooke (Full text)

This case was reproduced in part in my Religion and the Constitution textbook (p 527). I tried to find other references to it, but couldn't find much in a readable format. Since it is public domain and interesting I wanted to put it here for others to find. All emphasis other than page numbers in original.

Source here (7 Am. L. Reg. 417 (Police Ct. 1859)).

In the Police Court of Boston, Massachusetts — April, 1859. COMMONWEALTH, ON COMPLAINT OF WALL VS. McLAURIN F. COOKE.

1. The regulation of the School Committee of Boston, which requires that pupils in the public schools shall, among other things, " learn the Ten Commandments, and repeat them once a week," is not a violation of the constitutional provision which secures to the citizen liberty of conscience and of worship.

2. A teacher in the public schools has a right to enforce that regulation, by the corporal chastisement of a child refusing to repeat the Ten Commandments, though that refusal proceeds from a conscientious objection on the part of the child to the particular version of the Bible used, and is made by the direction and under the authority of his father.

3. The authority of a parent cannot justify the disobedience, by a child, of the regulations of a school.

4. [418] A teacher in the public schools is not liable, criminally, for the infliction of corporal punishment in school, if in severity it does not exceed the nature and magnitude of the offence, and is not inflicted in haste or with malice.

The opinion of the court, in which the facts fully appear, was delivered by Maine, J. — The complaint in this case was made on the 16th day of March last, and charges that " McLaurin F. Cooke, teacher, on the 14th day of March, 1859, committed an assault and battery on Thomas J. Wall, son of the complainant, under circumstances of aggravation ; that Thomas was eleven years of age, a pupil in the Eliot School, and defendant a teacher, and that defendant struck, beat and wounded Thomas with a stick for the space of thirty minutes, inflicting serious wounds."

Upon this complaint a warrant was issued by order of court, the defendant Cooke arrested, and in open court pleaded not guilty to the complaint.

Upon this issue, evidence was introduced on the part of the Com monwealth to prove the assault, and by the defendant explanatory of the matter, and from the evidence so introduced, the following facts appeared:

 That the defendant was the first Assistant Teacher in the Eliot School, Samuel W. Mason, Principal ; that Thomas J. Wall was a scholar in said school, and had been for six or seven years last past. That during his attendance the Bible in the common English version was read in the school, and that the scholars sufficiently advanced were required to read or commit to memory the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments.

That by the rules and regulations of the school, the Commandments were repeated by the scholars every Monday morning, and that the boy Wall had repeated them without objection until Monday, March the 7th, when he refused, and was discharged from the school. That an interview was had between the father of the boy and the Principal of the school, and the boy returned to the school.

That on Monday, the 14th of March, he refused again to read or repeat the Commandments, giving as reasons for so doing, that his [419] father had agreed with Mr. Mason that he should not say them. That his father had told him for his life not to say them, and that his priest had also told him not to say them, and that on the Sunday previous to the 14th the priest (Father Wiget,) while addressing nine hundred children of St. Mary's Church, of whom Wall was one, told them not to be cowards to their religion, and not to read or repeat the Commandments in school, that if they did he would read their names from the altar.

That Wall came to the school on Monday with the determination not to read or repeat them.

That before the 14th, Father Wiget had promised to give him a medal, blessed, and that since the 14th he had given it to him ; that he had given them to other boys, and he knew no reason for his giving it to him ; that Father Wiget said at the time he was a good boy.

It further appeared, from the evidence, that there was a concerted plan of action on Monday, the 14th, between many of the boys to refuse to obey the orders of the school, if required to read or repeat the Lord's Prayer or the Commandments, and that two-thirds of the scholars composing the school where Wall attended, and numbering about sixty, declared their intention not to comply with the rules of the school in that particular. And from all the evidence it was manifest that Wall was one of, if not the principal actor. He refused to repeat the Commandments for the reasons given. He was told by Mr. Mason that his father had requested him to make him repeat them, and that if he did not, to punish him severely. Wall still refusing, was punished by the defendant with a rattan stick, some three feet in length, and three-eighths of an inch thick, by whipping upon his hands. From the time when the punishment commenced to the time when it ended, repeated inquiries were made of Wall if he would comply with the requirements of the school. Some thirty minutes' time was occupied in the whole. During this time there were several intervals, at two of which the defendant was absent from the room some little time. The blows were not given in quick succession, but with deliberation. During the [421] chastisement Wall was encouraged by others, who told him not to give up. This was while defendant was absent from the room. The master ceased to punish, when Wall submitted to the requirements of the school.

From the effect of the punishment Wall's hands were swollen, he was taken to the sink by the defendant twice, and his hands held in water. The physician who saw his hands in the afternoon of Monday, and prescribed for them, after describing their appearance, says that he did not think the injury very severe ; that at the time he thought he would recover from it in twenty-four hours.

Now, was the punishment so inflicted without justification, and in violation of the constitutional rights of Wall ? and was the punishment excessive ? Before considering the constitutional rights of the pupil while in school, it may be proper to see by what right or authority the schools themselves exist.

The constitution recognizes the existence of schools, and declares that " all moneys raised by taxation in the towns and cities for the support of public schools, and all moneys that may be appropriated by the State for the support of common schools, shall be applied to and expended to no other schools than those which are conducted according to law, under the order and superintendence of the authorities of the town or city in which the money is to be expended ; and such moneys shall never be appropriated to any religious sect, for the maintenance, exclusively, of its own schools." The schools recognized by the constitution are those which are to be conducted according to law, under the order and superintendence of the authorities of the town or city where the moneys are to be expended.

 The statutes by which our schools are established and governed, provide " that it shall be the duty of the President, Professors, and Tutors of the University at Cambridge, and of the several colleges, and of all preceptors and teachers of academies, and of all other instructors of youth, to exert their best endeavors to impress on the minds of children and youth, committed to their care and instruction, the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, humanity and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry, and frugality, chastity, moderation, and temperance, and those other [421] virtues which are the ornaments of human society, and the basis upon which a republican constitution is founded."

By statute it is also provided, " that the School Committee of each town and city in the Commonwealth, shall require the daily reading of some portion of the Bible in the common English version, and shall direct what other books shall be used in the public schools."

The School Committee for the city of Boston, in their published regulations, direct and recommend as follows : —
" The morning exercises of all the schools shall commence with reading a portion of the Scripture in each room by the teachers, and the Board recommend that the reading be followed with the Lord's Prayer repeated by the teacher alone, or chanted by the teacher and the children in concert, and that the afternoon session close with appropriate singing, and also that the pupils learn the Ten Commandments, and repeat them once a week."

Do these laws and regulations, when carried out, conflict with the constitutional rights of any pupil ? It is claimed that they do, and the constitution is cited, or that portion of it supposed to apply to the case, which is as follows : —

" That it is the right as well as the duty of all men in society publicly and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshiping God in the manner and seasons most agreeably to the dictates of his own conscience, or for his religious professions or sentiments, provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship."

Can the position assumed be a correct one ? Our schools are the granite foundation on which our republican form of government rests. They were created and are now sustained by our constitution and laws, and the almost unanimous voice of the people. But a pupil in one of them has religious scruples of conscience, and cannot read or repeat the Commandments, unless from that version of the Bible which his parent may approve. Now what is to be done in such a case? If he has a constitutional right to refuse to read or to repeat them from books furnished for the [422] school by statute law, then to punish him in any way would be a great wrong. He could not be expelled from school for standing upon his constitutional rights. Neither could he be punished by corporal punishment ; and if the plea of conscience and his constitutional rights would protect him from reading the Bible, is it not equally clear that he could not be compelled to hear it read ?

If, then, these are constitutional rights, secured to the children in our common schools, at any time when one pupil can be found in each public school in the Commonwealth with conscientious scruples against reading the Bible, or hearing it read, the Bible may be banished from them, and so the matter of education may be taken from the State government and placed in the hands of a few children.

Not Roman Catholic children alone. For if the plea of conscience is good for one form of sectarian religion, it is good for another. The child of a Protestant may say, "I am a conscientious believer in the doctrine of universal salvation. There are portions of the Bible read in school which it is claimed by others tend to prove a different doctrine ; my conscience will not allow me to hear it read, or to read it." Another objects as a believer in baptism by sprinkling. " There are passages in the Bible which are believed by some to teach a different doctrine. I cannot read it, conscience is in the way." Still another objects as a believer in one God. " The Bible, it is claimed by some, teaches a different doctrine ; my conscience will not allow me to read it or to hear it read." And so, every denomination may object for conscience sake, and war upon the Bible and its use in common schools.

Those who drafted and adopted our constitution, could never have intended it to meet such narrow and sectarian views. That section of the constitution was clearly intended for higher and nobler purposes. It was for the protection of all religions — the Buddhist and the Brahmin, the Pagan and the Jew, the Christian and the Turk, that all might enjoy an unrestricted liberty in their religion, and feel an assurance that for their religion alone, they should never, by legislative enactments, be subjected to fines, cast into prisons, starved in dungeons, burned at the stake, or made to feel the power of the inquisition. [423]

It was intended to prevent persecution by punishing for religious opinions. The Bible has long been in our common schools. It was placed there by our fathers, not for the purpose of teaching sectarian religion, but a knowledge of God and of his will, whose practice is religion. It was placed there as the book best adapted from which to " teach children and youth the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, humanity, and a universal benevolence, sobriety, moderation and temperance, and those other virtues which are the ornaments of human society, and the basis upon which a republican constitution is founded."

But, in doing this, no scholar is requested to believe it, none to receive it as the only true version of the laws of God. The teacher enters into no argument to prove its correctness, and gives no instructions in theology from it. To read the Bible in school for these and like purposes, or to require it to be read without sectarian explanations, is no interference with religious liberty.

If the plea of conscience is good against the reading or use of the Bible, why is it not equally good against any other book, or the language in which the book may be printed ?

 The Jew, for conscience sake, will only read the Scriptures from the Torah,1 and why may not the pupils in our schools refuse to read the Bible, until they are sufficiently learned to read it in the original Hebrew ? If tender consciences may rightfully claim such unlimited power, what constitutional injustice is daily done in our courts of law, by swearing the Protestant by the uplifted hand, the Roman Catholic upon the Evangelists, the Jew upon the Pentateuch, while facing the East, with his head covered, and refusing to admit the Infidel as a witness at all !

 There is another part of the case, which should here be considered. It is the argument, that in disobeying the commands of the school, Wall was acting under the lawful authority of his father.

 Can the authority of the parent, and that of the teacher, over the pupil, exist at the same time, in and during the hours of school ? That school approaches nearest to perfection that most resembles [424] a well governed family, where nothing is required excepting that which is believed to be for the best interests of every member, and where all requirements are obeyed, and where all are subject to one head. If "a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand;" so will it ever be with our schools, if the authority of the master and that of the parent enter the school-room together. The master is there by authority of law. He is also there by the implied authority and consent of the parent, who sends his child to him for instruction, knowing at the same time the duties of both master and pupil. By sending his child to school he surrenders so much of his parental rights over the child as would, if exercised, conflict with the reasonable rules and regulations of the school. If this is not so, why may not the parent command his child while in school to read from one book and to reject another. And what are the rights and what the authority of the master in such a case ? What becomes of the power of the School Committee, whose business it is to direct what books shall be used in the public schools ?

From the argument it is understood that in this case there are conflicting rights, the rights of conscience of the scholar, the rights of the parent over him, and the rights of the defendant as master, and that these rights are to be upheld by compromises. What the compromise is to be, the court is not informed. Can it be that those pupils whose religion teaches them that the Douay version of the Bible is the only true record of the Scriptures, shall be permitted to read and repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments from their own Bible? Giant the request, and what follows ?

 It is enacted by the statute "that the School Committee shall never direct to be purchased or used in any of the town schools any school books which are calculated to favor the tenets of any particular sect of Christians." So by such a compromise, we see the very thing would be done which is now complained of, that of favoring the tenets of a particular religion.

Is the compromise to be that of a division of the school moneys, allowing separate schools to be carried on in accordance with religious [425] views ? Our Constitution declares that no money raised by taxation for the support of schools shall ever be appropriated to any religious sect for the maintenance, exclusively, of its own schools.

 The last point for the consideration of the court is, was the offence one which required punishment? Had the master the right to inflict corporal punishment ? and, if he had, was the punishment excessive, or inflicted through malice? The apparent magnitude of the offence depends somewhat upon the stand-point from which it is viewed. From one aspect, it appears to be of the most innocent and simple nature. A child desired the privilege in school of reading the Commandments from his Bible, the only one that his religion would allow him to read. It would seem to a generous mind tyrannical, to deny so simple and innocent a request ; and it would indeed be so, were that the whole of the matter.

That most wonderful specimen of human skill and human invention, the Suspension Bridge, that spans the dark, deep waters at Niagara, with strength to support the heaviest engines with cars laden with their freight, and defying the whirlwind and the tempest, is but the perfection of strength from the most feeble beginning. A tiny thread was but safely secured across the abyss, and final success became certain. Thread after thread were interchanged, until iron cables bound opposite shores together. May not the innocent pleading of a little child for its religion in school, if granted, be used like a silken thread, to first pass that heretofore impassable gulf which lies between Church and State, and when once secured, may not stronger cords be passed over it, until cables, which human hands cannot sever, shall have bound Church and State together forever ?

As for the right of inflicting punishment in schools by the teacher, it has been conceded ever since our schools were established, if in severity it does not exceed the nature and magnitude of the offence, and it is not inflicted in haste, or with malice on the part of the teacher. The case finds that the father of Wall had requested that he should be kept in school and made to repeat the Commandments, and that he should be punished severely if he refused. It was not [426] necessary that the father should give his consent for the inflicting of reasonable punishment, neither can the teacher justify an excessive punishment by authority from the father. The parent cannot delegate a power that he does not possess, and as he could not punish his child severely without a sufficient cause, neither could the teacher do it without sufficient cause. The nature and extent of the punishment have already been considered. It now becomes necessary to look at the provocation.

The mind and the will of Wall had been prepared for insubordination and revolt by his father and the priest. His refusal to obey the commands of the school was deliberate. His offence became the more aggravated by reason of many others acting in concert with him, to put down the authority of the school. The extent of the punishment was left as it were to his own choice. From the first blow that fell upon his hands from the master's rattan, to the last that was given, it was in his power to make every one the last.

 He was punished for insubordination, and a determination to stand out against the lawful commands of the school. Every blow given was for a continued resistance and a new offence. The offence and the punishment went hand in hand together. The punishment ceased when the offence ceased.

By this the court is not to be understood as justifying the inflicting of punishment upon a scholar so long as he holds out against the commands of the school. The punishment must not be extended beyond the limits of sound discretion, and this every master must decide at his peril. In this case the punishment inflicted, when compared with the offence committed, and all the attendant circumstances as they appeared upon the trial, was neither excessive, nor inflicted through malice by the defendant.

The defendant is discharged.

Love Letter

My girlfriend gave me this great book called 642 Things to Write About. I'm going to use this blog to type up some of the more worthwhile pieces as they happen, mostly as a way to force myself to fine-tune some of them. Here is the first.

Love Letter

Mike finally pressed 'send,' and, within a second, knew he had ruined everything.

He had spent the past few months working on it, gathering his feelings and slowly composing an earnest message to the love of his life. He had spent the morning proofreading it, taken a break, given it one last look and sent it off. Everything had been perfect. He had thesaurized every adjective and massaged every clause until the note read exactly as it was meant to.

Mike had dredged the annals of love from Catullus to Twilight, searching for just the right sentiments to express how felt and just the right arguments to elicit reciprocation. From "Dearest Clara," to "Yours Truly," the email was, truly, a modern masterpiece of amorous affectioneering.

But there was one mistake. He hadn't sent the letter to Clara. He had sent it to his wife.

Fire Part 1: A Story

This ended up being way longer than I planned, so I split it up.

In the summer between Freshman and Sophomore year of high school I went on a ten-day, eight-person canoeing trip to Boundary Waters in Minnesota. It was an amazing trip, but there was one day that almost ended in disaster.

First, some back-story.

Part of going on a long canoe trip is the difficult process of portaging between lakes. This involves emptying out the canoe, loading all your gear onto to your boat-mates' backs, flipping the canoe onto your shoulders, and then slogging through the mud and rocks to get to the next lake. Ending up with the canoe on your head means you must have gotten the short end of the stick (paddle?). A three-person aluminum canoe weighs about 110 pounds, all of which is placed squarely on your shoulders via a wooden yoke that doesn't do all that much for comfort. I weighed about 150 lbs (or "a buck fifty soaking wet" as my granddaddy would say) at the time, so a hundred-pound canoe was quite a load.

Even worse than the sheer weight of the canoe was balancing it. A canoe's mass is pretty evenly distributed across its 16.5 feet in length. Balancing it while standing still is a chore in itself, but walking with it over any sort of uneven terrain is a nightmare. Add to that knee-deep (sometimes waist-deep, once armpit-deep) mud, soggy tree stumps, and little boulders you can't see because the freaking canoe is blocking your vision, and it's easy to see why avoiding portages was a major goal in our trip planning. The default measurement for a portage is the "rod," which, conveniently enough, is the length of a canoe. It makes sense because every time you get another 16.5 feet along the trail it feels like a huge accomplishment.

I only made one or two portages the entire trip without dropping the canoe. Whether it was a collision, lost footing, exhaustion, or impossible terrain, there were many things standing in the way of a clean run, and making through a whole portage without the canoe leaving your shoulders was a triumph. One of my most vivid memories is of the second longest portage on our trip, where I had the canoe and was determined to make it through in one go. There wasn't much mud, and the route was fairly straight- the only real obstacles were a series of oblong rocks jutting out all over the trail. Usually you walk behind and in front of someone carrying gear who can help you avoid protruding intruders like rocks and stumps, but this time there was some sort of problem with one of the packs that was slowing everything down. I was really bent on making it through this portage without dropping the canoe, so I hurried on ahead in a bid for a perfect run.

I hit my first rock. *gongggggggggggggggggggggggggg* Hitting a rock at high speed with your head in a metal canoe is of the loudest, most infuriating sounds in the world. You know the feeling of getting whacked in the nose, or stubbing a toe, or hitting your head on something sharp? The pain is annoying, but even worse is the sheer anger you feel at whatever caused the sleight. And there are very few things in life that aren't made significantly worse by having a 110 lb canoe on your head, and in this case it was many, many times worse because your head would ring as the initial peal faded into a minute-long metallic sigh, which made you feel like the canoe was smirking at your troubles for trying to make it fly through the air in such an unnatural way. In my mind the canoes always had a haughty French accent, which might have been due to the French Voyageur theme of the base camp. "Put me down to silly American, don't you know zat I was made to sweeeeeeem? Sweeeeeeem like the feeeeeeeshes. Let me sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemmmmmmmmmm."

Without my guides to help me avoid the rocks, I got gonged over and over again. Each time I got closer to losing my balance; each time my shoulders were burning a little bit more; and each time I hated that canoe just a little bit more. Finally, after one last collision with a rock I would have sworn wasn't tall enough to be a problem, I stumbled, regained my balance (just to assert my dominance and control over the situation), shouted "fuck you canoe," and threw the boat off of my shoulders. That act of violence and anger brought immediate relief, but it didn't last very long. Without my guides to tell me about the trail, I also had not been able to gauge how far I had left to go. I looked up, and not more than 100 feet from my discarded canoe was the shore line. My rage immediately came back, but it quickly faded into stupid numbness at how close I had been to conquering the second-longest portage of the trip, only to give up out of sheer spite. I remember all of my anger and frustration immediately sublimating into disappointment and defeat. I don't think I finished a perfect portage for the rest of the trip.

Errrrrr, I really didn't plan to write that much there, but the moral of that story is that portaging sucks... really, really hard. Anyway, one day on our trip we came to a set of long but relatively tame rapids leading from one lake to another. The portage would have been a far one and been made more difficult because a decent rain  had been building throughout the day, meaning more mud and slipperier footing. Our planned campsite was on the lake beyond the rapids, making the prospect of a tough portage seem even more painful, especially since there was an alternative. The rapids were too rough to take safely with our fully loaded canoes, but, our guide explained, we could walk our canoes through the rapids instead of portaging around them. This process is pretty much exactly how it sounds- everyone hops out of their canoes and slowly guides them through the rapids by hand. It was something new to try and obviously anything had to be better than lugging canoes through the mud in the rain, so we decided to go for it. This ended up being a mistake.

The water in Minnesota lake country, especially running water on a cloudy day, is extremely cold, even in the summer. It was cold enough that I remember my toes going numb about halfway through the rapids, which was a problem since walking through rapids is not something you want to be left-footed about. We made it through, though, and quickly got back in our canoes to reach our campsite in order to warm up and, hopefully, dry off a bit.

There were eight people on this trip sharing three 3-person canoes. This meant that at any one time two people would not be paddling. After the rapids these two people just happened to be two girls named Betsy and Kaylin (it was a co-ed Venture Crew). While the no-paddle position was usually coveted as a chance to relax and enjoy the ride, on this particular day is was not a good spot to be. After getting soaked in cold water, then battling rapids, and then having to sit still in a wet boat on a sunless, rainy day, Betsy and Kaylin ended up getting very cold. By the time we set up camp, Kaylin was visibly shivering, so we told her to sit and rest while we set up a place to dry off and warm up. But by the time we had set up camp, Kaylin had slowly gotten quiet and then stopped responding to her surroundings all together. Kaylin was a outspoken, outgoing person and not the type to sulk, so when she wouldn't even turn her head when you talked to her we knew something was very wrong.

Kaylin's body temperature had fallen enough after the rapids that she had become hypothermic, which had the potential to be a serious problem considering that we had no immediately available source of heat or dryness. It was still raining, and it is the nature of a canoeing trip for everything you own to eventually become permanently damp. The "dry socks and underwear" bags we all kept were our most prized possessions towards the end, and even those were fairly moist. The nearest medical attention of any sort was miles away, and the nearest real hospital was probably at least 25 miles as the crow flies. If the situation got more serious than our combined first aid knowledge could handle, our last resort was an emergency radio we could use to call for a helicopter medivac, and that belonged to our guide, who, by the way, was on his very first excursion.

While were assessing the situation and getting Kaylin into the handbook-prescribed dry sleeping bag with another warm body, we had overlooked the other girl who had been a no-paddler, Betsy. When we had settled down a bit from the first spell of concern about Kaylin, we noticed the Betsy was just standing out in lake. Someone shouted to her, "Betsy? What are you doing out there?" She responded, "Trying to stay warm," which should have been the first sign of trouble. However, Betsy had something of an odd sense of humor and we were all so worried about Kaylin that we brushed it off and told her to come and help start a fire. She walked into camp, came across a clothesline and just... stood there. She stood there for a good few minutes, staring at it without moving while we finished setting up camp. I asked her why she was just standing there, and she said without inflection "I.... can't figure out... how to get around... it." At this point we knew Betsy must be developing hypothermia as well.

Having 2 out of 8 people in a crew get hypothermia is a scary thing. Each sick person essentially needs another person to share body heat with, leaving four of us to start the fire, which we needed in order to get some warm fluids into the hypothemic bodies to help raise their core temperatures. Another person coming down with it would have left only two of us, not to mention the teenage awkwardness of having to have mixed-gender body heat sharing (obviously not a huge deal if it's medically necessary, but to a 15-year-old, never-been-kissed mind about as terrifying a prospect as dying of hypothermia). We decided that if anyone else even started to show symptoms, or if either of the two girls didn't start responding soon, we would immediately call for a medivac. Meanwhile, we set about building a fire.

If you've ever built a fire from scratch, you know how delicate of a process it is. Even in ideal circumstances, you want to start with the thinnest, driest, most delicate tinder, and the process of getting that to light your kindling is often gingerly and painstaking. Now imagine it's been raining for half a day and your success might determine if your crewmates will have to be airlifted to a hospital or not. It should have been an extremely stressful hour, and looking back on it - the whole situation was pretty scary. But at the time I observed that my mind was completely calm and at peace.

It is a hard thing to explain why panic seemed so easy to keep out. It has happened a handful of other times, and thing that has tied those experiences together is the fact that there was simply nothing else to do but what I was doing. The only thing I could do at that moment to have any effect on the situation was to help build the fire, so that's what I did. Our Venture leader was in charge of the fire, and luckily for us he was incredibly skillful at it. He would tell us what he needed and we would go find it. "Go find a big tree stump, rip away all the wet parts, and find me some dry bark, or maybe some fuzzy moss or lichen from the dry side of a rock." or "The tiniest, driest twigs you can find." Eventually we got to the point of "I need really green twigs, pine if you can find it." and "Some sizable branches, no wetter than moist." It took a while, but eventually he got a decent fire going and we had collected enough fuel to keep it hot for a few hours. The whole time my mind was completely calm, empty aside from whatever fuel I was looking for. When I noticed how quiet my mind was compared to how it "should" have been, I vaguely worried that I was getting hypothermia. But all my mental faculties were checking out fine. It was just some sort of zen-like state I had slipped into because it was the most useful place for my mind to be at that moment.

Once the fire was going and Kaylin was responding and drinking warm Tang sludge- that was when my brain turned back on and all of the appropriate, stored up emotions came rushing in. I suppressed them, of course, since the last thing we needed was somebody panicking or freaking out, but it was a very different thing from what I had felt (or not felt) earlier. Now I was feeling things and pushing them aside as unproductive. Before I had simply not been feeling anything at all. I felt a bit guilty later, because I realized that in some strange way I had very much enjoyed that feeling. Not the danger, or the teamwork, or the importance of my task, just that blank state of mind that seems impossible to bring about on demand.

I wish I had something more insightful or explanatory to say about that state of mind, but I don't. I just find it  strange that one of my "favorite" memories from the trip involved such a miserable set of circumstances. I bet that that state of mind is somewhat similar to one sought by practitioners of mediation and its related disciplines, but I can't say for sure, because it was such a negative (in the very literal 1a sense of the word) experience for me.

Kaylin and Betsy recovered fine. Kaylin ended up with a 2-3 hour gap in her memory, starting even before we got to camp. Betsy seemed to very hazily remember most of it. By night-fall the rain had stopped and both of them were completely healthy. We stopped walking through rapids after that, and decided to switch out no-paddlers when it was raining to keep everyone warm.

I don't have a very good ending so I'll just say it was on that trip that I saw my first moose in real life. Also, a friend from college was in a scouting troop that had stopped sending trips to Boundary Waters because two scouts had died, from separate causes, on the same trip. I had started to think I had been overestimating the danger Betsy and Kaylin were actually in until I heard that.

Part 2: A Metaphor soon.