The Malcontent

The Malcontent just finished packing the moving truck of two close, well beloved friends who are moving 10+ hours away by car.

As one might guess, a person who goes by “The Malcontent” warms up to few people, though I recognize that I’ve been graced with an unusally deep and rewarding group of friends.

Today, however, I am overwhelmed with sorrow, and blogging simply isn’t going to happen again until Monday.

There is plenty of time for the reading and writing of blogs on those days we are chained to our desks. If you can, turn your computer off and go spend some time with someone you adore and whom you don’t get to see enough.

(Or, as I plan to, call your Grandmother. She misses you.)

Ah, the land of freedom and liberty! As long as you don’t want candy in Washington’s metro….

I ride the D.C. Metro everyday. Instead of arresting a woman for finishing a candy bar, how about arresting the guys who physically shove you to get into or off of the Metro?

For simple assault in D.C. under DC ST § 22-404, “Whoever unlawfully assaults, or threatens another in a menacing manner, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or be imprisoned not more than 180 days, or both.”

Let’s enforce that one for a while.

Yes, astute readers of The Malcontent noticed that in the preceding post on Tom Ridge, asterisks were used in place of a vowel and a consonant in the f-word.

It was a quote, folks. The faithful reader quoted is a man of sensitivity and breeding (though not so cultured as to avoid the use of “ass”), and we reflect his comments accurately.

As for The Malcontent, well, we love the f-word. We drop the f-bomb in conversations with 3-year-olds, even while recognizing that we are teaching them a form of conversational laziness that avoids more complex descriptive or emotive language.

But, that’s how we roll at The Malcontent. We don’t give a poo.

Tom Ridge has announced that he may step down after the November election. (You know, when his boss will get defeated. Again.)

Why? According to the AP wire stories, “he needs to earn money in the private sector to put his teenage children through college.”

Homeland Security Secretary pays 175,700 dollars a year.

As one faithful reader of The Malcontent put it:

Where the f**k are they going that you can’t afford it on $175k a

year? Presumably his family did some financial planning?

Seriously though, I’m concerned that we have someone in charge of

keeping my ass safe from terrorists that couldn’t even figure out how

to put away money for his children’s education. He’s had 18 years!

It’s not like they popped out and said “Dude, I’m going to Harvard next

week.”

Well said.

Seriously, Mr. Ridge, couldn’t you have just used the tried and true “I need to spend more time with my family”?

(For those of you fortunate enough to live outside of the Capitol Beltway, “I need to spend more time with my family” is generally seen as high-ranking federal governmental appointee shorthand for “I need to quit because I suck at my job” or for “I made my boss mad, but he won’t fire me, because that looks bad.”)

Hey, The Malcontent was just listed on Blogarama! In appreciation, we added a Blogarama button to the site–because here at The Malcontent, we are shameless publicity whores.

Alternate headline? “Stupid Law Upheld by 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.”

And shame on them.

The law in question is Alabama’s statute which prohibits the sale of “sex toys” as part of their “Anti-Obscenity Enforcement Act” (see Section 13A-12-200.1 et seq. of the Code of Alabama, where it says, more exactly, it is “unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute any….device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value”).

The law prevents the sale of such devices entirely. That’s right. Not to minors, but to legal consenting adults in full possesion of the faculties, rights and privileges accorded them by law. No vibrators for you, Alabamanians. (Bizarrely, the Court asserts–despite there not being any specific statutory exemption–that the sale of “ordinary vibrators or body massagers” is allowed, as they are not “designed or marketed” primarily for the “stimulation of human genital organs.” Sure they aren’t. Sore muscles, you know.)

The ludicrous idea that the adult people of Alabama need to be protected from the sale of sex toys is laughable. I say this because the court itself noted that the “use, possession or gratuitous distribution” of sex toys is not proscribed. So, you can give out all the dildoes you like, just don’t sell one.

Maybe it is the association of filthy money with the beautiful expression of human sexuality that the Alabama legislators find objectionable. It’s Mammon, not Priapus, that they fear. Soon they will ban all commerce! (Note the deft application of reductio ad absurdum argumentation. Or is it?)

A law that seeks to prevent legal adults from engaging in non-harmful, consentual, private sexual behavior is patently offensive to freedom-loving civil libertarians like myself.

The Court’s ridiculous opinion can be downloaded from their site. Law.com’s reporting of the decision can be found here. The friends of liberty and the constitution? Here.

For those of you wondering more about the free expression, reproductive rights, and rights of sexual privacy issues that this case raises, don’t worry–we’ll be coming back to this case, I’m sure.

I came in fired up in general this morning, ready to rip into government generally and some branches in particular. Then, in my morning reading, Dahlia Lithwick really hits the mark about this election when she says:

Man, if that wasn’t exactly what was on my mind. Read the rest of her excellent article, which is more generally about the issue of the Federal Bench, on Slate.

Given the spate of blogging at the Convention, I have ceded the field for the day.

Go ahead, you know you want to.

Kicking Ass

BostonDparty

Smart Ass

OxBlog

Talking Points Memo

Not Geniuses

Dowbrigade News

And the big list at CyberJournalist, if you just can’t get enough.

For my job, I spend a lot of my time reading and thinking about “human enhancement technologies.” The brilliant Carl Elliott has written a thoughtful essay on the transhumanism movement that is a terrific read, even if you don’t expect to live forever.