To the Person Sitting in Darkness

Mark Twain, speaking of the actions of the US in the Philippines, suggests this honest explanation to those who might have expected more from their saviours:

"They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies; yes, but they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous; but that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in Christendom and ninety per cent. of every legislative body in Christendom, including our Congress and our fifty State Legislatures, are members not only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust. This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice, cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right."

New shoes

Went to MEC yesterday and got a new pair of light hiking shoes. I tend to wear one and only one pair of shoes, so they get a lot of wear and tear. My old ones had very very worn soles and the toe on the left shoe was blown out. Putting on a new pair of shoes was a great experience and made me realize how much I had needed them. Got a set of insoles that you heat in the oven to let them soften so they mold to your feet. It's amazing how comfortable feet make such a large difference in how one feels.

Anton Praetorius

Wikipedia has an interesting aritcl on Anton Praetorius, a German Calvinist pastor who advocated against torture, including the torture of witches. Little forward leaps of thought like this are necessary, for those whose thought is new in some ways hew close to tradition in others. This was the case with Calvin, who despite having been able to veer away from prevailing religious theology in many ways, was a fan of central control, torture, and in particular the torture of witches who he seems to have considered a seditious and insidious form of religious threat to the new one true way. On the other hand, Calvin seems to have punished men equally with women for adultery and been dead set against spousal abuse.

True comfort

CBC's Dispatches, a wonderful program giving in-depth essays on current news topics, an almost dead art, has a podcast (they used to have a lame Realaudio download). Their podcast is here. This week's podcast is on Korea's Grandmothers who were sex slaves to Japanese troops during WWII. There is very touching coverage of a young Japanese man and his devotion to these women. He learned about their story while studying with Koreans in Tokyo. Following up on this new knowledge, he went to Korea and began talking to them, breaking down their distrust by learning their local dialect of Korean and in general being a good listener. He now lives with them and is a guide at their residence, greeting visitors to the residence, including uninformed Japanese young people. This is a real tear jerker of a story.

Fun debate on the use of "they"

There's a fun archived debate in a discussion on Groklaw (the actual discussion has to do with a comparison of the formatting approaches of OpenOffice's vs. MS's document standards (the OpenOffice one was approved today, yay!). The discussion, though, dealt with the use of the word "they" as a gender neutral pronoun

Unless it is appropriate, can people please avoid using gender specific
pronouns. It doesn't matter in this article whether, or not, the developer is
female - but it keeps referring to "her", it would be better to use
"their" instead. Constant reference to "her" imply that
most developers are female.

Traditionaaly "he" has been used to indicate either gender, and it is
the greatest common string of characters in "He" and She". Also,
"she" has traditionally be associated with females only. But, I would
recommend using "their" and "they" rather than
"hers/his" and "he/she".

Also using gender neutral language avoids offending people who identify
themselves with both genders (they are rare, but I spoken with several). Note
that using "themselves" is a lot more elegant and shorter than saying
"herself or himself".

Constant inappropriate use of gender distracts from the otherwise excellent
technical article.

As the author mentioned, the article used "she" when referring to an individual programmer who might be working with the two XML formatting approaches. The replies ranged from "get over it" to nostalgic remeniscences of manuals using "she" to discussions on the latinizing movement of the 19th century to the lack of gendered pronouns in Finnish to the centuries old usage of they as a neuter singular in English. This is the sort of nit-picky, sleeves rolled up discussion that makes it fun to be a techie! Lateral thinkers of the world disperse!

I had a funny experience with the neuter use of "he" at my MA graduation ceremony. The honourary speaker at the graduation was a former Ontario Supreme Court judge and a woman. She started off her speech by saying that she would be referring to the singular person as "he", using the "neutral" usage. Fiona, my femenist co-graduand who was sitting beside me, could barely repress the urge to grind her teeth in anger. The judge was probably just acting out a well-worn habit of qualifying everything she said.

Wikipedia has a nice overview of the usage of "they" as a singular pronoun, including a section on historical usage, inluding by Shakespeare. That settles it then.

Incidentally, the Microsoft XML programming style makes me think it was designed by a bunch of people who love programming in C. It's very pointer-oriented. Normalized as well. Not readable.

Neil Young's new album "Living with War"

From Flags of Freedom

Have you seen the flags of freedom?
What color are they now?
Do you think that you believe in yours
More than they do theirs somehow?
When you see the flags of freedom flyin’

From After the Garden

we live in the garden of eden, yeah
don't know why we wanna tear the whole thing to the ground
we live in the garden of eden, yeah
don't know why we wanna tear the whole thing down

From Living with War

In the crowded streets
In the big hotels
In the mosques and the doors of the old museum
I take a holy vow
To never kill again
Try to remember peace

The rocket's red glare
Bombs bursting in air
Give proof through the night,
That Our flag is still there

From The Restless Consumer

The restless consumer flies
Around the world each day
With such an appetite for taste and grace

People from around the world
Need someone to listen
We're starving and dying from our disease
We need your medicine
How do you pay for war
And leave us dyin' ?
When you could do so much more
You're not even tryin'

I'm a bit too young to be tripped out by the library of hippie protest song. This stuff does resonate with me though. Neil, perhaps because though he's proud of the US, grew up in Canada, has a refreshingly broader view than much national protest music that either seems to blame everything on the US or can't see past the toenails of lady liberty.

What I enjoy as well about the album is that its lyrics aren't a collection of bludgeons but rather heartfelt and measured. Neil's into his sixties now. I'm well into my thirties and just beginning to see the possibility of moderation and realize rather than look for evil people under every rock it is often useful to look for the pull of greed or fear or anger. I think Neil sees all of these and more and is protesting for a return to actions led by feelings of truth and justice and love, attributes that led him to fall in love with his adopted country.