Tommyjournal  archive    July 2005

Tuesday  07.26.05

Five days ago, I wrote about two teenagers executed in Iran. Andrew Sullivan had mentioned them in his blog without discussing the (possibly trumped-up) rape charges.

Sullivan is taking a break from blogging and handed over the reins to Judith Apter Klinghoffer, who wrote again today about the same execution. She provided a link to an article at gayorbit.net that also makes no mention of the rape charges. I wrote to Michael Demmos, editor of gayorbit.net, asking whether it was fair to ignore the charges. He wrote back:
It is fair once you realize that the Iranian government is very well known for trumping up "morality" charges by including rape charges that never happened.
It's still lightweight journalism to not mention any of that in the article. Note also what Mr. Demmos didn't say: he didn't say he knows that the rape charges were trumped up in this case.

I deplore Iran's laws about homosexuality. I deplore this public execution. But to Messrs. Demmos and Sullivan, and to Ms. Klinghoffer: I urge you to be thorough in your reporting.

One more thing. Sullivan wrote
Gay Americans seem to me right now to be far too complacent. I'm amazed that we haven't seen more targeting of gay clubs or venues by Islamist fanatics. And I'm saddened that more gay organizations haven't rallied to the war against Muslim religious fanatics. This is our war too.
and from gayorbit.com
And we hope, if nothing else good comes of this, that it will get more gay people on side, realizing this is our war too.
Which war do these people want me to believe is my war too? Exactly what response to Iran's injustices do they want me to support?

It's bad enough that the Bush administration is using the notion of being at war (against terrorism, not "against Muslim religious fanatics" as Sullivan said) as a means of rallying support for a range of ambitious interventions. With how many different objectives have been conflated under the rubric of the (singular) "war", it's just dopey for a blogger to say that "this" is my war, too. In case you ever wondered why I call Sullivan boneheaded, this illustrates it.

I asked Michael Demmos about this. In my email to him, I wrote
You should be more specific. Exactly _what_ is our war too?
He didn't respond to that.



Monday  07.25.05

This came in the mail.
free
The "free" was accurate.



Thursday  07.21.05

As reported by www.iranfocus.com:
Tehran, Iran, Jul. 19 - A young man and a minor were hanged in public on Tuesday in Iran's second largest city, a government-funded news agency reported.

The two, only identified by their initials M.A and A.M., were convicted of sexual assault on a 13-year-old boy by the Islamic Tribunal of Mashad, according to ISNA news agency.

Ruhollah Rezazadeh, the lawyer for one of the two hanged men, said that his client was under the age of 18.

Each of the men was lashed 228 times before being hanged at 10 am (local time) in Edalat (Justice) Square in downtown Mashad.

Under the penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be executed.
public execution, Iran

It's unclear whether the 'crime' was just gay sex, i.e. whether the rape charges were trumped up. Other reports at www.iranian.ws and isna.ir (in Farsi).

This incident reminded me of a teenager in my town who'd been accused six years or so ago of raping three teenage boys. Although he was (slightly) under 18 at the time of the alleged crimes, he was charged as an adult and thus, although he wasn't hanged, he faced a potentially lengthy prison sentence. I don't know how his case was ultimately adjudicated, and I'm not inclined to ask the sheriff or DA now.

It's very hard to tell as an outside observer whether such charges are trumped up. I wouldn't be surprised if some parents can't accept the fact that their kids could consent to gay sex, and pressure them into testifying that they were raped.

Meanwhile, the issue of whether or not the rape charges in Iran were trumped up was ignored by one well-known (but boneheaded) blogger, who said the teenagers were hanged "for being gay". Maybe they were--but I have my doubts that said blogger knows for sure. See also this email.

Make no mistake, homosexual activity is illegal in Iran; consenting adults can be put to death.

Anent capital punishment in general--
the five countries with the most executions in 2004:

country executions % of population executed
China3400+0.000260%
Iran159+0.000230%
Vietnam64+0.000077%
USA590.000020%
Saudi Arabia33+0.000130%
source: Wikipedia



Tuesday  07.19.05

Same as yesterday, except it was 101°F today.

And...! Happy nineteenth.



Monday  07.18.05

Another 100° afternoon climbing.

If that's the worst thing the weather does, I can't complain. I mean, I'm glad hurricanes don't tool around in my neighborhood.



Saturday  07.16.05

In May, Pedro Chequer--who heads Brazil's government-sponsored anti-AIDS program--declined $40 million U.S. in aid from the U.S. government. The offer was conditional on Brazil condemning the practice of prostitution, which is legal in the South American nation. 47 per cent of American respondents believe each country should spend assistance funds at their discretion, while 32 per cent think the U.S. should have a say on which initiatives get financing.   Source: Angus Reid Global Scan.
Tommy notes:
  • Prostitution isn't illegal at the federal level in the USA.
  • In my personal life, I generally avoid giving things with strings attached. I see how different rules could apply at an international level; I see how it could be worthwhile to link foreign aid to various objectives, but I'm glad it's not my job to make such choices. (I'm not cut out to work in politics.)
  • I note that more Americans polled supported no-strings-attached AIDS prevention grants than grants with puritanical rules about how the money may be spent. Yet the US aid described above has strings attached, at least for now.



Thursday  07.14.05

From an online car ad:
fun and vers.
I've heard of web sites analyzing the habits of individual readers and selecting ads accordingly, but just how did the NY Times know I was versatile?

The "just like you" in the ad reminds me of encountering Angela Alioto on Castro Street ten years ago when she was trying to scare up enough signatures to get her name on the ballot to run for mayor of San Francisco. An aide of hers told me "she's into the kind of things you're into." (Really? Like anal sex?) "Like human rights." (Oh. As opposed to those other candidates who are against human rights.)



Everything I wrote about yesterday applied to this afternoon as well, except that it was 100° today instead of 97°.



Wednesday  07.13.05

Warmest day of the year so far here, about 97°F at Tommyjournal central. I got a call this afternoon asking if I wanted to go climbing; of course I said yes. Relative humidity below 10% rocks.



Tuesday  07.12.05

No one I know takes delight in how badly the war in Iraq is going, not even those who most strongly opposed the war in the first place. Not one of my friends is delighted by the slaughter and suffering and disorder that are now routine in Iraq.

I bring this up because some pro-war commentators talk as if there were an epidemic of unhealthy delight. In a largely thoughtful essay, Professor Eliot Cohen wrote (italics mine)
A variety of emotions wash over me as I reflect on our Iraq war: Disbelief at the length of time it took to call an insurgency by its name. Alarm at our continuing failure to promote at wartime speed the colonels and generals who have a talent for fighting it, while also failing to sweep aside those who do not. Incredulity at seeing decorations pinned on the chests and promotions on the shoulders of senior leaders -- both civilians and military -- who had the helm when things went badly wrong. Disdain for the general who thinks Job One is simply whacking the bad guys and who, ever conscious of public relations, cannot admit that American soldiers have tortured prisoners or, in panic, killed innocent civilians. Contempt for the ghoulish glee of some who think they were right in opposing the war, and for the blithe disregard of the bungles by some who think they were right in favoring it. A desire -- barely controlled -- to slap the highly educated fool who, having no soldier friends or family, once explained to me that mistakes happen in all wars, and that the casualties are not really all that high and that I really shouldn't get exercised about them.

I see people hoping that Americans understand what has happened in Iraq (and at Guantánamo Bay, and elsewhere), and understand what has happened to their country. I see people hoping that Bush and his cronies get what they deserve. But I just don't see "ghoulish glee", and it bugs me to see anti-Iraq-war sentiment so unfairly caricatured.

And--as long as I'm on the subject of Iraq--consider this Q&A with Fran Townsend, White House Homeland Security Adviser (Fox News Sunday, July 10, 2005):

interviewer...  And the argument is made as well that an astonishing and seemingly growing number of terrorists are pouring into Iraq all the time, still able to make a terror attack in London, and that the fighting in Iraq itself has become a recruiting tool, and has had the effect of enlarging the enemy. Your answer?
TownsendNo, what it has is it attracts them to Iraq where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London.  ...

"Not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London"-- in other words, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths don't count. (Thanks to Bill Montgomery for calling this revealing comment to my attention.)



Monday  07.11.05

I had a dream recently that a merchant in town offered me a job making neon signs. I said OK.

I wonder how life would be if I did manual labor for a living and programming for fun (as opposed to the other way around). Considering how easy it is to hurt oneself with power tools (and how safe a keyboard is by comparison), it's probably a good thing I've made my living in software.



Speaking of manual labor: after about 15 years and 18,000 units, the end of NSX production.



Monday  07.04.05

About 19 years ago, I interviewed a candidate for a software engineering position--a Russian gentleman who had emigrated from the Soviet Union about six months before. We spoke for most of an hour about the job that was being offered and about his experience; then at the end of the interview we chatted a little about other topics. I asked him how he liked life in the USA. He said he liked the freedom, but that there's such a thing as too much freedom. I asked for an example, and he said "Let me give you a technical example: the C programming language."

For non-programmers in the audience, a different example: we paint lines on parking lots, because the freedom to park any which way would result in less efficient use of the space and more collisions.

Many of the thorny questions in politics are, at root, the question of where to strike a balance between too little and too much freedom. But that's way too complicated to use as a slogan--thus, just the one word liberty on coins, and the monument in New York Harbor isn't called the Statue of Just the Right Amount of Liberty.

But to play in the spirit of the day: I can simply and truly say that I cherish my freedom, and I'm grateful for it.



 related pages

current journal

Tommyjournal FAQ

Tommy email

Tommy home page



archive

2003
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2004
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2005
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2006
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2007
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2008
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2009
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2010
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2011
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2012
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2013
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2014
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2015
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2016
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2017
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2018
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2019
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2020
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2021
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2022
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2023
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2024
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec

2025
jan feb mar
apr may jun
jul aug sep
oct nov dec