RFRA Why?

I don’t often write about politics, religion or current events.  I promised that at the beginning, and while I think of it as more of a guideline than a rule, I do try to stick to it for the most part.  There’re a few reasons for that.  First, I don’t get posts up frequently enough to really address current events while they’re, well, current.  Second, I don’t really want to alienate half my (potential) readerbase, or I’d at least like to get you hooked before I start with stuff you might vehemently disagree with.  (Although getting you hooked probably requires more frequent posting, too.)

The third reason, though (and some of you just thought I’d used “a few” for two things, didn’t you?), is that every time I try, I start experiencing massive scope creep, because of course things like that aren’t isolated, they’re part of a more systemic whole, and if I want to be thorough, then of course I have to address all of the connections, except you can’t really do that because all the things.

And I have tried.  I have two partially completed drafts (one that I started over half a year ago) sitting in my list of posts that may just never see the light of day because it’s impossible to say everything I want to say on certain topics in a reasonably sized post.  Or, if they do, it’ll be as part of a massive posting of about 25 entries, where I just go on Facebook and say, “Here, go read this book I wrote.  It’s called ‘How the World Should Be’, by me.”

But of course, having not been granted powers by Morgan Freeman, gained absolute control over the spice supply, or escaped the closure of the universe, I don’t have the ability to make people do what I tell them to.  (Heck, it’s hit-or-miss with my four-year-old.)  So writing all that much on how I think things should be, while perhaps cathartic, would be a bit pointless.  (Even though I’d be right, natch.)

But I think I’ve finally found a topic that I can keep contained and write about in a semi-timely fashion!  So be warned, politics and religion lie ahead!  (And long reads, but that should pretty much go without saying at this point…)

Can someone please explain to me why “religious liberty” is a thing?

Seriously, why should your (often conveniently buffet-style) religious beliefs let you be a dick?

What prompts this, of course, is the recent hullabaloo in Indiana (and Arkansas, although they fixed things in time to avoid Indiana's fate) regarding their passage of the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  In case you’ve been living under a rock, this act would prohibit government from “substantially burdening” citizens from expressing their religious convictions, barring a compelling state interest or a lack of less-restrictive solutions.  (The federal version of this law is what allowed the Hobby Lobby decision, incidentally.) 

The fear, of course, is that this act will be used to discriminate against gays, lesbians and other people of questionable character and morals (he says tongue-firmly-in-cheek).  Despite protests by the bill’s proponents, the ability of for-profit businesses to take advantage of this law, as well as the law’s provision to apply to situations where the government is not involved (i.e., in situations involving just people and/or businesses), sure make it look appear as though discrimination was the actual intent of the bill.  The Onion, as usual, is on it.

But why is this even a question?  Why should religious convictions get you exemptions from civilized behavior in a way that other things don’t?

Let’s start with some history.  One of America’s founding principles was that of religious liberty; after all, the Pilgrims came here to escape religious oppression, right?  And then there’s always the First Amendment.

Of course, all rights are subject to limits.  For example, “free exercise of religion” wouldn’t allow you to freely exercise a religion involving human sacrifice.  Once everyone agrees on that general principle (which I think most people do), then we’re just, as the expression goes, haggling over the price.  “Your rights end where mine begin” (or, more graphically, “Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose”) is fine as a slogan and general descriptor, but actual scenarios require an examination of the rights in question, the relative importance of each, etc.  Healthy debate on such a topic is good.

Also, this is probably a good place for me to note that my general philosophy doesn't look kindly on "personal liberty" as a valuable end unto itself.  It's nice work if you can get it, and it's worth trying for as one of many goals, but it often seems as though "personal liberty" is used as an excuse to take advantage of society's benefits without having to alter your own behavior to actually make society work.  Hey, did I just make "personal liberty" sound a big like "religious liberty"?  Look at that.

In 1993, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which, while acknowledging that government might have some interest in restricting certain expressions of religion (like, say, human sacrifice), instructs the government to try to find the least-burdensome way to enforce that interest.  The Act was originally (at least superficially) intended to actually protect minority religions, driven by examples like Native Americans using peyote as part of their religious rituals and then getting fired for illegal drug use.

The Act wasn’t really intended to protect Christians from the dreaded Social Justice Warriors, but we Christians are really good at appropriating things intended for other people and making them our own (just look at the history of the holiday we just celebrated a few weeks ago!).  So, it should come as no surprise that many public-figure Christians, feeling as oppressed as if the early Roman days had returned, have seized on state-level versions of the RFRA as a way to continue allowing bigotry in the name of religion.  (Sorry, I started editorializing earlier than I meant to.)

The vast majority of people clamoring for these sorts of laws are Christian.  One of the most famous stories about Christ ends in the line “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”  (Your translation may differ, of course.)  (And of course, that doesn’t actually END the story, but I’m trying to make a point here.)  This is generally accepted to mean that being religious doesn’t mean you just get to ignore legal authority; you still have to follow the law.  (Paul goes farther, to suggest there’s a religious duty to follow legal authorities, but I’m not really a fan of Paul despite him supporting my argument here, so I think we’ll all agree to brush right by that.)  So, again, why do so many Christians think that they shouldn’t be bound by non-discrimination laws?

And, for that matter, what exactly constitutes discrimination?  Let’s take a look at a few cases to make sure we’re on the same page, because there's often a remarkable amount of confusion and straw men in this area:

No shirt, no shoes, no service

Scenario: Pretty self-explanatory, as everyone’s seen this sign before.

Is this discriminatory: No

Why?:  Two reasons.  First of all, there are compelling health reasons for such a rule in a restaurant, or even other places.  Second, and more germane to our discussion here, this rule applies to everyone, and is based on a choice that they’ve made, rather than who they are.  It’s not an issue of protected classes or religious principles; it’s simply that no one gets service under those circumstances, period.

The Friendship Moving Service

Scenario: The traditional help-your-friends-move-in-exchange-for-pizza-and-beer.  However, you don’t agree to help everyone who offers you pizza and beer move.

Is this discrimination: No

Why?: You could try to argue that since you’re accepting payment for a service, you’re running a business.  It’s a (huge) stretch, but let’s accept the premise for the sake of argument.  (I like arguments.)  It’s certainly not a public business that you’re running; you’re not offering a service to everyone who walks in your front door, because your business doesn't even have a "front door".  Turning down some random person who wants you to help them move in exchange for foodstuffs is hardly discriminatory, especially if you know nothing about them.  You're not turning them down because of who they are, aside from that they're not your friend.

The Wedding Flowers

Scenario: A florist sells flowers for a variety of occasions, including weddings.  However, she refuses to provide flowers for a wedding involving two gay men, despite providing them flowers on multiple occasions in the past, based on her religious convictions.

Is this discrimination: Yes

Why?: The florist is refusing to provide a service nominally available to everyone to certain individuals, based solely on an immutable characteristic that she doesn’t approve of.  This is literally a dictionary definition of discrimination.

How could discrimination have been avoided here (aside from just providing the flowers, obviously)?  Well, not providing wedding flowers at all, to anyone, means that it’s no longer discrimination, just a service that you don’t provide.  (This might go for wedding pizzas, too, on a variety of levels…)  This is the same reason why you couldn’t go to, say, Cupcake Royale and demand they make you a tiered wedding cake on pain of being sued for discrimination.  They don’t make that for anyone (I’m assuming), so it’s not discriminatory if they don’t make it for you.

The Hate Speech Cake

Scenario: Someone orders a cake in the shape of a Bible, and requests anti-gay decorations (Bible verses, “God hates gays”, X’ed out groomsmen, etc.) on the cake.  The baker refuses to decorate the cake in such a fashion, but offers to make a blank cake and provide frosting to decorate the cake later.

Is this discrimination: No

Why?:  As you can see, this was an actual case tpo, and the link above explains why this is not discrimination: As the baker would have refused to put such derogatory decorations on cakes for anyone, it’s not discriminatory.  When you treat everyone the same, there’s no possibility for discrimination.

How might this apply to, say, wedding cakes?  There’s perhaps an argument to be made that forcing the baker to write “Congratulations [gender-matching names]”, put two groomsmen on a cake, etc., might be an infringement on free speech.  However, refusing to make even a generic wedding cake is clearly out.

Okay, so now that we’re (hopefully) on the same page, let’s get back to the original topic.

I don’t think there’s actually any disagreement that the third case is actually discrimination.  The question is whether or not it should be allowable just because of religious convictions.

First of all, let’s agree that no one really wants the government to get into the business of deciding what true religious convictions are, let alone if they’re consistent with the supposed driving faith.  I honestly don’t believe that refusing to provide services to marriages between gay people is in line with Christianity, but plenty of other people do, and either way, I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the government arbitrate that.

Second, are there justifiable reasons for the government to prohibit discrimination?  This is where the usual argument of “Do you really want someone to bake your wedding cake under protest?” comes in.  But in general, of course the government has justifiable reasons to prohibit discrimination, and that question is rather beside the point.

As a starting point, imagine a small town, where there’s one gas station, one grocery store, etc.  If the owners of those stores were allowed to discriminate, sorry, “refuse to provide services based on religious convictions”, what happens to those they refuse to serve?  Do they have to drive 30 miles to the next town to get gas and groceries?  Do they have to move?  Why should religious convictions be allowed to significantly disrupt someone else’s life in such a manner?  It’s a simplistic case, sure, but that’s the general idea.  For a straightforward extension on this idea, look up “sundown towns”.

Third, there’s a difference between personal actions and business actions.  Well, maybe not entirely, according to Hobby Lobby, but I’ve got the Notorious R.B.G. on my side on this one, so I’m feeling pretty good about my position.  (Plus, allowing a company to be an extension of the stockholders’ personal beliefs could have some nasty side effects down the road; Hobby Lobby could wind up, on a number of fronts, being a case of “Be careful what you wish for”.)

If you want to be a jerk and refuse to be friends with, or even interact with, certain kinds of people in your personal life, then whatever, that’s on you.

But if you’re running a business, that’s not “you” any more, that’s a legal entity, subject to laws and regulations, and with certain advantages, such as decreased personal liability should the business fail.  Unless you’re an explicitly religious organization, then “your” religious convictions only matter insofar as how you decide to run your business within the applicable laws and regulations.  If you choose to run your business as an extension of your religious values, that’s your call, and who am I to say no?  But your legally-not-you legal construct still has to follow the laws governing its creation.

Ultimately, though, this is all beside the point.  What gain comes to people attempting to assert their religious convictions through their business?  What’s the argument for doing this?  Why would you even go into a business where you might be expected to do things you find morally distasteful?  (As you might guess, I don’t think much of moral objections by pharmacists, either.)

So you don’t want to provide flowers for two guys getting married, because you think “non-traditional marriage” is a sin.  There’s a theological argument to be made, sure, that participating in the ceremony, even to the limited extent of making and delivering a cake, means that you are participating in the sin, as well.  Two problems with this, though:

First, from a legal standpoint, your business is not you, and your business is subject to restrictions.  You may not agree with them personally, but a business has no opinion.  You may think that’s semantics, but it can also fall under the “render unto Caesar” argument I mentioned (way, way) above.  You may not like Caesar’s law, but if you’re part of his system, then you live by them.

And second, the ceremony itself isn’t the sin.  Odds are it’s only legal, not religious (although that’s slowly changing), and the real issue is the relationship itself, anyways.  If you’re truly concerned about the sin involved, have you done anything to try to fix that underlying issue?  Or have you just refused to “take part” in the ceremony and washed your hands of the whole deal?  Does that really absolve you of everything?

I really don’t have much else to say on this, I guess.  (Roughly 2500 words will do that.)  At this point, my emotional intensity on this topic is spent.  I’m just honestly baffled by the concept, because I really don’t understand why people feel they’re justified in using their business to inflict their religious views on others.  And no, other people aren’t inflicting their religious views on the business; when you open up a business to the public, you offer a service and don’t generally get to make distinctions like that.

I’m especially fed up with the Christians who would use these laws to their advantage, but scream bloody murder if some other religion (say, oh, I don’t know, Islam) tried to use them too.  If you’ll pardon the pun, this whole thing reeks of trying have their cake and eat it too.

So, in conclusion, I have two parting thoughts.  The first is how my “How the World Should Be” posts always seem to wind up, which is: “Being part of a society means you don’t always get your way.  Deal with it.”  And the second is the immortal words of Wil Wheaton: “Don’t be a dick.”

Times That JBrad Ignored the Clarinets: Vignettes of Neglect

All marching band sections have their own personality.  (Actually, I'm pretty sure all sections of any ensemble have their own personalities, but this is about marching band, so… yeah.)  Does the section make the personality?  Or are certain personalities attracted to certain instruments?  It's sort of the old "nature or nurture" debate, and as with every other such discussion, it's probably a bit of both.

We don't need to go into every section here (and I'm sure the personalities of a particular section often change between bands), but in general, clarinets are quiet, reliable, and responsible.  We're sort of the oldest child of the band: not necessarily a lot of fun, but dependable.  We're not likely to host many of the post-game parties (in fact, in my rookie year, most clarinets didn't even participate in the post-game parties!  We’re better now), but we're usually pretty well represented in student-staff positions.

Mix that sort of personality with an instrument that's pretty quiet out on the marching field and usually on the outside of the formations (because we're an instrument that's pretty quiet out on the marching field), and it can be awfully easy to forget about us sometimes.  However, there's just your common neglect, and then there's egregious neglect.  Here are a few stories about the more outrageous times we've been ignored.

(Reminder: Brad = JBrad = Director of Husky Marching Band)

1.  Can You Hear Us Now?

During music rehearsals, the band gathers in a series of concentric semicircles around the director's podium.  (Although "concentric semicircles" makes them sound a lot neater than they really are.  They're really wobbly, discontinuous arcs.)  This helps everyone to be able to hear and minimizes phasing across the band (where you hear the parts from one section earlier than those from another, due to sound not being instantaneous).  The clarinets are usually up front to the director's left.

One day, we'd just gotten a new set of sheet music for "Battle Hymn of the Republic".  I don't even remember what the theme was for the show, aside from it being a bit random.  Band day, maybe?  It was early in the year.)  Anyways, as we played through it, we clarinets started giving each other odd looks, stopping playing and looking closely at the music, and just generally giving off indications of bewilderment.  The reason?  This particular version of "Battle Hymn" sounded an awful lot like an up-beat dirge.  (Kind of like it was done by the guy who does changes songs from major keys to minor keys.  If you haven't listened to any of those, do yourself a favor and do so immediately.  You'll be glad you did; they’re really cool.)

This wasn't completely bizarre; we get some strange arrangements of songs sometimes.  (Or downright lousy arrangements at times.  There was one arrangement of Moon River (itself already a pretty bad song) that was so terrible that, in an uncustomary display of emotional demonstrativeness, I, in the middle of practice, tore it from my lyre, flung it to the ground, stomped on it, ripped it to tiny pieces, and then, when I got home, burned them.  Emily, the librarian at the time, was not pleased with me, but of course I had spare copies.  I still maintain that it deserved it.)  And it wasn't wrong, just different.

We played through it again, with the same result.  After the second play-through, Brad looks down at his score, then announces, "Make sure you have the right copy, because we changed the key.  You should all have green copies of the music."  And then, completely missing the clarinets (again, right in the front!) giving each other revelatory looks and taking the lavender sheets of music off of our lyres, he points somewhere off behind us and to our left, and says, "Something in that area doesn't sound right."

He hadn't even noticed that our entire section was off by a minor third.

2.  "I dunno.  I say do what you wanna do."

As I've already mentioned, Brad tends to forget that the clarinets exist out on the field, and sometimes gets a little focused between the 35-yard lines or so.  It's understandable, but it does mean that sometimes, if we're struggling with a particular move, whether because it's a long move, or the charts aren't clear, or whatever, he's moving on while we're still trying to puzzle it out.  This is common enough that I can't possibly recount every incidence of this.

However, there's one incident that occurs every year that deserves mention, just for being so spectacularly bad and, y’know, happening every year, regularly, without fail.

The very first part of the pregame show has the band starting in a block, and pulling out into a Logo W across the field.  For most people, this isn't that difficult: perhaps a small adjustment, and then just waiting for your turn to start marching downfield.  However, for those in the back, near the top of the W, this is a nightmare.

The drill for these positions (which were usually mostly pics and clarinets) is a nightmare of unclear charts, finicky and sometimes overlapping positioning, and odd counts and steps.  Combine this with the fact that you're learning it the first week of the marching season, so rookies are trying to absorb this with everything else, and it's routinely a disaster.  And since Brad is focused on the people simply marching at 8-to-5 down the field, he doesn't give us long between each move.

The generally accepted solution?  Ignore Brad right back.

Every year, the marchers in these unenviable positions* spend the first few run-throughs actually trying to keep up, only to realize (or remember) that this is completely, hopelessly, utterly futile.  Then we all look at each other, collectively say "Screw it", and huddle up to figure out where exactly everyone is supposed to be when, including all those times where that involves people simultaneously inhabiting the same small parcel of space-time (and not in the fun way).  It usually takes a couple days to figure everything out, and every year the solution is slightly different, but we get there in the end.

* Not that the other clarinet positions during pregame were particularly enviable, either (although it’s gotten much better recently).  Back when I was marching, we were still doing what we called the long run-on, which is where the band came running onto the field single-file to fill in the pregame block.  The clarinet spots are typically the first ones onto the field from either side.  In fact, my rookie year, I was the first one on the field after the drum majors.

This is less exciting than it sounds.

See, to get 200+ people onto the field and in their spots, one at a time, takes a couple minutes.  And once you get to your spot, you don’t just stop.  Oh, no, no, no.  You get to run in place, high-stepping the whole time, at a very uptempo pace, until everyone is in place.  And that’s after running (not just jogging) 50+ yards just to get to your spot (~26 yards into the center of the field, 20 yards upfield, plus the distance from back next to the stands).  As you can imagine, this leaves you a bit tired.  It’s also rather high-visibility, being right in front of the block and one of the only ones on the field at first, so you can’t slack.

After the run-on ends, you get roughly 7-10 seconds (depending on how quickly the PA announcer speaks) to stand at attention before proceeding to march (and play, don’t forget the playing) roughly 80 yards downfield, mark time while finishing the first song, and launch directly into the second song.  It’s… a workout, especially for your lung capacity.  And especially when you get to rehearse it several times in a row.

Fortunately for the marchers now, the long run-on is apparently gone, there’s a fanfare thing that starts the positioning for the pull-out Logo W (and probably helps the folks in the back with the finicky positioning, too), and there’s a break between the first and second songs.  They don’t know how easy they have it.

3.  Manus Celer Dei

My rookie year in band, Husky Stadium was also playing host to the Seahawks while (then) Seahawks Stadium was being built.  One benefit of this was brand-new FieldTurf to replace the old Astroturf.  (Another benefit was both college and pro markings on the field, which is a HUGE boon for marching.)

However, rather than do what any sensible organization would do and getting rid of the vile, abrasive stuff as quickly as possible (heck, I’d have a bonfire, never mind the fumes), someone decided that it would be a good idea to put strips of it down around the field, partially covering the track surrounding the field.  These strips were dozens of yards long and maybe ten yards wide.  It looked pretty tacky, and I’m not sure what purpose it served, but we all just kind of shrugged and went on with our lives.

Until one fateful November day.

I can’t tell you the exact day, but I do remember that we were rehearsing our Broadway show.  We were playing either Mean Green Mother from Outer Space or Oklahoma.  The day wasn’t actually too cold, as I recall, but it was insanely windy.  And the way Husky Stadium is built, with one open end and one closed end, wind tends to swirl a bit.

So there we were, struggling to march through the wind, in a very wide-set formation.  I was out past the 10-yard line in the closed end, and there were people outside of me, although I don’t think we quite got all the way out to the end zone, and of course the formation was symmetrical, so there are marchers out that far on the other end of the field, too.  We’re in the middle of a move, which has me pointed in more or less in the direction of the podium, when I catch a strange motion out of the corner of my eye.

I turn to look (I know, bad discipline), and realize that what I’m seeing is a bench from off the sideline, flying through the air down at the open end of the stadium.  My gaze turns a bit farther, and I see that what has provided the propulsive power to the airborne bench is a strip of the turf, which the wind has picked up off the ground, and which is now crashing like a giant (remember, the strips are ten yards wide, and at least parts of the strip are nearly vertical) green wave over the far end of the field near the sideline, swallowing everyone in its path.

And Brad doesn’t notice.  He just keeps on conducting.

I’m not sure if it was the vanishing of a sousa into the devouring turf or the people running from it that finally got his attention, but Brad calls a halt just as the last of the Astroturf smashes to the ground, and we all run over and start trying to pull the turf off of our fallen comrades.
 
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, but the sousaphone itself was nearly flattened. 

And the strips of Astroturf vanished from the sidelines shortly thereafter.


So there you have it.  Three of the most egregious times I can remember when the clarinet section was ignored.  I’m sure there are plenty of other good stories out there, whether you’re a clarinet or not.  Anyone else want to share?

Scathing Critiques of Children's Literature: Little Blue Truck Leads the Way

(Warning: Although I normally restrict my swearing to the Poor Driving series so that it's easy to avoid, this post will also contain swearing.  But then again, it's at least in part about poor driving, so it seems thematically appropriate.)

So I normally have my next few blog posts planned out.  I've actually got a couple planned posts in this series that I haven't gotten around to doing yet.  This wasn't one of them.  But I read this one to my son at bedtime the other day because he asked for it, and it's been a while, and we needed a short book to finish up storytime.

And then I recalled why I hate this book, and this new post was born.

I've actually hated this book since shortly after the first time I read it.  I have nothing against Blue personally; I enjoy Little Blue Truck quite a bit.  How can you not?  It's about the Golden Rule and the power of friendship, with a little bit of schadenfreude and karma thrown in.  And if there are other Little Blue Truck books, I haven't read them, which means I don't hate them either.

But this book, man.  This fuckin' book.

I complained to my wife about this book back when it was a near-daily staple in the storytime routine.  I may have slipped an editorial or two into storytime.  It's possible that I was told to knock it off and just read the damn book already.  (It's also possible I'm grossly paraphrasing here...)  And reading this book again brought back all of those feelings of rage as if they'd never left.

So you know what?  I've got my own blog, where I can write about whatever the hell I want, and no one can stop me!  So I'm going to write about this damn book.

For those of you not familiar, the Little Blue Truck is a simple country pickup who is friend to animals and rude bulldozers alike.  This particular story sees Blue on an adventure to the big city.

As you can imagine, simple country pickups and the big city don't mix very well.

After a brief time enjoying the sights of the city, Blue is overwhelmed by rude vehicles demanding that he get his ass in gear and stop blocking the damn road because they've got places they need to be and can't wait all day for a motherfucking n00b to finish gawking and get the hell out of the way.

Now, could these vehicles (including a tour bus, grocery truck, a police car (seriously, Blue is impeding a police car WITH ITS LIGHTS FLASHING.  Do they not have these out in the country?  Like, at all?  Are flashing lights that hard to understand?), a street sweeper, the fucking Mayor's limo, and the last straw, a taxi, behaving as obnoxiously as taxis usually do) be more polite in expressing their frustration with Blue's leisurely pace and their desire to be about their business?  Of course they could.  Do they still have a valid point?  Abso-fucking-lutely, and as you can probably guess from my Poor Driving posts, I'm way more sympathetic to them than I'm probably supposed to be.

So Blue winds up creating gridlock throughout the entire city core, and is trapped in the middle of an intersection, surrounded by hostile cars fed up with his fucking dipshit balderdashery, when he finally snaps (genteely, of course), and offers possibly THE WORST ADVICE IN THE HISTORY OF CITY TRANSPORTATION:

"You might be fast, and I might be slow, but one at a time is the way to go!"

Oooooooo-kay then.

Of course, then the Mayor's limo dies, and Blue offers him a ride, whereupon the Mayor seizes his chance to bloviate and pander ("the way mayors do"), and doubles down on Blue's folksy bullshit.  "How lucky we are to have this little blue truck here to educate us on the error of our ways," he says.  "Let's absolutely take advice from the truck that's NEVER BEEN IN THE CITY BEFORE AND CAUSED THE GODDAMN TRAFFIC JAM TO BEGIN WITH."

(I may be paraphrasing again.)

So, of course, all the good collectivist vehicles follow their glorious leader's instructions and fall into a single file line behind Blue, having seen the light and mended their asshole-y ways.  And "it all went fine", we're told.

OH, FUCK NO.

What would actually happen, of course, is a clusterfuck of epic proportions that would shut down the city core for hours.  How do I know?  Just look at what happens around here when one lane gets shut down on any given street.  It's like goddamn Kralizec, and you need a fucking Guild Navigator to get anywhere.

Fittingly, a marching band joins the line of cars, because what's going on now isn't any semblance of reasonable traffic flow, but a full-blown, honest to God parade.  And do parades enhance traffic flow and allow the smooth and rapid transport of goods and people?  Of course they fucking well don't; they're a fucking disaster.  And of course people spontaneously line the parade route and cheer Blue all the way out of town, rather than running him out chased by threats of physical bodily harm.  Seriously, it's like this book takes place in North Korea or Crimea.

Anyways, it's probably clear that, despite the anti-peripatetic fuckmuppetry going on here, that's not the only thing bothering me about this book.  Most people don't get this worked up over a children's book, I'm told.  (Of course, I'm told this by someone who was read Beowulf for storytime when she was 5, so I've got a boulder of salt here with me...)  No, there's something much more insidious going on here.

Let's go take another look at the key passage in the story here:

"You might be fast, and I might be slow, but one at a time is the way to go!"

What's Blue really saying here?  Basically, he's saying, "I know you guys are all smart and fancy, and I'm just a simple country pickup truck here for the first time, but my simple folksy wisdom will obviously recognize and easily solve problems in a way your ivory tower methods can't."

It's the exact same anti-elite, anti-intellectual, "small towns are the pinnacle of American culture" truthiness bullshit that's infecting America today.

Look, as I've mentioned before, I grew up in Eastern Washington.  I've got nothing against small towns.  I like small towns just as much as I like big cities.  They've each got their own problems and charms; there's a lot they can learn from each other; and sometimes what works for one just won't work for the other, and both sides need to do a better job of recognizing that.  I'm not taking sides here, just arguing against the promotion of one over the other.

Seeing crap like this in a kid's book just pisses me off.

Did the authors do this deliberately?  Honestly, I doubt it.  This isn't Melanie's Marvelous Measles.  But if anything, that just makes it worse.  A deliberate bias like that is easy to explain away, brush off for what it is.  I think the authors simply took a character they established in a perfectly nice first book (except for that bulldozer which is probably off to demolish precious wilderness to build some soulless McMansion suburban sprawl), and put him in a new situation.

But a book that simply assumes that naturally Blue's way is best, despite being completely out of his element and his solution being a terrible one, is far more treacherous.  It starts planting that seed that them there city folks are not just rude, but they don't even have the common sense to figure out how to drive down a road!  It's a good thing we have these plain-spoken, clear-thinking country folks to show people how things should really be done.  And it's all so natural that it's hard to argue against or even recognize that it's happening.

And no, I would equally not want to see a book where a city car goes out to Blue's farmland and starts giving advice, either.  Just so we're clear.

For what it's worth, my characterization two paragraphs above is not necessarily how I think of non-city dwellers, but it is, in my experience (in person, online, and with more public figures in the media), how many of them seem to think of themselves.  For a particularly egregious example, consider Sarah Palin.

So yeah, I know.  It's just a kids' book.  It seems a little silly to get so worked up about it.  But dammit, this is an attitude that is seriously fucking up America right now, and it pisses me off that it's in a goddamn kids' book, of all things.  He's got his whole life to deal with this; why start now?  Why start instilling that sort of attitude before he's even old enough to understand it?

Fuck that shit.  And fuck Blue's craniorectal advice, too.  "One at a time" is the motherfucking Blue Screen of Death of traffic management.  Here's a better idea: Go with the goddamn traffic flow and stop getting in everyone's way, please and thank you.

Fin.

Poor Driving: 4-Way Stops Edition

Alright, Seattle drivers, it's time for another installment of the series wherein I make fun of your goddamn miserable driving and do my best to teach you how to not be lameass shitheels who fuck things up for everyone who does know how to drive.

Given that, on my commutes this past week, I have literally experienced drivers doing EVERY SINGLE MOTHERFUCKING THING I've bitched about in the last two installments (plus an addendum!), I don't know why I bother.  It's like talking to a fucking wall.  Well, yelling, really.  But given how you're apparently scared shitless of walls (seriously, learn to drive through a fucking tunnel, PLEASE), I'm probably just frightening you even more.  Poor babies.

Anyways, our topic of violent frustration and hopeful fucking enlightenment today is 4-way stops.  These are a fundamental element of driving, and everyone should have encountered these literally hundreds of times by now, so there's no fucking excuse for not having a goddamn clue what the hell you're doing when you get to one.  Seriously, it's not that fucking hard.  Here's what you do:

(Just so we're crystal fucking clear, these instructions dispense with the part where you're waiting in line to get up to the stop sign.  If you can't handle that part without instructions, you need to abandon your fucking car on the fucking side of the road and never ever drive again.  And yes, I have seen asshats that this actually applies to.  Anyways.)

1)  Pull up to the stop line and STOP.

Pretty self-explanatory, right?  Yeah, not so much apparently.  See that big white strip across your lane even with the stop sign?  Well, maybe you don't, given how SDOT keeps up with maintenance... or doesn't.  Anyways, STOP THERE.  A complete stop!  Do not keep rolling.  Yes, you may observe others continuing to roll under certain circumstances.  If you need these instructions, you have not earned the right to do this.  You've earned the goddamn right to do what I fucking tell you to do, which is to stop your motherfucking car.

2)  Check for traffic in the other directions.

Are there cars waiting at the other stop signs?  Did they stop before you?  Then they get to go first!  A stop sign isn't just a fucking speed bump; you don't just stop and then go again.  It's a traffic control device, which means it's designed to control how traffic goes through the intersection.  Isn't it clever how the name sort of describes what it does?

3) Actually navigate the intersection.

This is so fucking simple, I'm not even sure I can describe it adequately, but let's try:

- Cars across from each other go at the SAME FUCKING TIME.  Do not fucking wait to go until the car across from you has cleared the intersection.  When they pull out, YOU PULL OUT, TOO.  Don't be the fucking teenager who doesn't have a condom and no self-control.  In both situations, you're going to seriously fuck things up and ruin lots of people's days.

- If you're turning left, turn BEHIND the car going straight.  It's a simple enough idea.  If you turn in front of someone going straight, they have to wait for you to clear the intersection before they can go, and you're forcing them to either violate the bullet above, or wait for their next turn.  Either way, people are going to be fucking pissed at your failure as a human being.

- Once this is done in one direction, the cars in the other direction go.  Wait your fucking turn.

Seriously, it's that fucking easy.  Three goddamn steps.  This could be a motherfucking PowerPoint; it's not like I'm writing a huge-ass manual here. 

Keeping all of this in mind, here are some things to not do:

- DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE CAR ACROSS FROM YOU CLEARS THE FUCKING INTERSECTION.  Yes, I said that already.  It's that important, and you miserable motherfuckers manage to screw this up ALL THE FUCKING TIME.  You do this, and you should count yourself lucky if someone doesn't slash your tires as you drive past, dipshit.

- DO NOT TURN LEFT IN FRONT OF A CAR GOING STRAIGHT.  Yes, I said that already, too.  Still important, and still screwed up ALL THE GODDAMN TIME.  You do this, and you've essentially added another cycle to every other car waiting at the stop sign.  This sort of shit will earn you "to the seventh generation"-type curses.  You don't do it at a fucking stoplight, because you'd get your stupid ass T-boned, so why would you do it here?

- Stop being so fucking timid!  Know when it's your turn, and then go!  If you're not sure, then promptly gesture for the other person to go, so that the lines keep moving.  Do NOT do the fucking thing where you both inch forward at the same time, see the other dipshit doing the same thing, and stop, only to repeat the same thing 10 seconds later.  This isn't a fucking middle school dance.

- If the car in front of you has just gone, DO NOT GO!  You are the most selfish excuse for a human being in the history of the world if you try to sneak through the intersection as a second car in a cycle.  You're worse than a Fortune 500 CEO, the guy who takes half the cookies in the break room and the guy who takes candy from babies all rolled up into one.  It is not your fucking turn.

(Exception: if it's two lanes going through the stop sign, you damn well better go when the car next to you does.)

The biggest indictment of Seattle drivers' fuckmuppetry, though, is that you actually handle non-standard stops better than you do 4-way stops.  5-way or 7-way stops?  Actually flow pretty well, all things considered, because you presumably take a minute to think about how to handle it.  Even the utterly bizarre intersection by the Starbucks at Green lake (which is actually only a 4-way stop, although it feels like about a 10-way), flows fairly smoothly when the pedestrians don't get in the way.

So get your shit together, Seattle drivers.  Grow the fuck up, and learn to navigate a goddamn staple of American driving.

Bonus:  This guy stole my schtick, but it's still darn good advice about another thing Seattle drivers suck at: driving in snow.  The awesome thing is, this actually works for driving in rain, too, but you don't have to be so conservative!

Mental Cartography

When I first moved to Seattle to start attending UW (14+ years ago, which is ridiculous, because I only lived in Eastern Washington for 12 years, and there’s simply no way I’ve lived here longer than I lived over there), I had only the most rudimentary understanding of the layout of the Puget Sound metro area, which was pretty much based around the I-90 corridor.  Okay, rudimentary is probably an understatement.  Tenuous?  Basic?  None of those really convey the sense of “really have no idea what is where” that I’m striving for here, but my vocabulary is failing me.

Anyways, I think it’s understandable, since I grew up in Eastern Washington, and really only came over here for Christmas, Mariners games and the occasional band trip.  Plus, I was never driving myself, and while I don’t have a problem learning how to get places from riding (although I understand this is a thing, poor unfortunate souls), this was infrequent enough that it never really sank in.  Plus, those were pretty short and focused trips, without a lot of exploring.  Makes it hard to learn an area, y’know?

I knew where the Kingdome (and later Safeco) was (because it’s right off the end of I-90), and that Snohomish and Arlington were north of Seattle (family), and I knew a few spot locations in Seattle (again, family), but not really how to get there, and that was really about it.  As I said, I’m lacking in words for just how pathetically sketchy my knowledge was.

Note that UW is not near any of these places.

Obviously, it started getting better once I moved here, although it took a while.  Driving up to 85^th seemed like going to a different town, let along going all the way across to Ballard.  In fairness, about the only time you get on the freeway in the Tri-Cities is when you actually ARE going to a different town.  Pasco’s the only one where you can really get to significantly different portions of town on a freeway with any sort of efficiency.  And I didn’t really spend much time in Pasco.

Northgate was even farther (especially when you make the mistake of taking the 75 instead of something like the 66 or 67…).  Since I didn’t have a car, I mostly learned bus routes, and a whole bunch of spot locations from band parties and the like, but I didn’t really have a sense of how they all fit together (and not because of any imbibing at the parties, I promise, Mom and Dad).  I’d have experiences where I’d take a new bus route that happened to go by several places that I knew, right in a row, and I’d had no idea that they were all so close together.

Even today, though, and despite my good sense of direction, I still have some gaping holes in my mental cartography of the Seattle metro area.  Actually, that’s not entirely the right way to put it.  Really, it’s that I have some severe misconceptions in my mental structure of the area, which remain despite multiple refutations.  This area is very different in my head than it is in the real world.

For example, in my head, Seattle ends at I-90 and the stadiums.  Sodo?  Columbia City?  Rainier Valley?  Heck, even West Seattle?  Not actually part of Seattle in my head.  What do they belong to?  Not really sure, but it’s not Seattle, I’m sure about that.  I just never (or really, really rarely) go down there (except on the freeway!), so in my head, they don’t count.

That’s not always true, though.  Capitol Hill and Magnolia, say, are both definitely part of Seattle to me, and I’ve rarely been to either of them, either.  What’s the difference?  Arbitrary geographic locations, apparently.  I’m not even sure where the southern line of Seattle is.  Somewhere around Boeing Field?

I’ve got most of North Seattle down, except that everything east of 35^th NE still confuses the heck out of me, because a lot of the street grid structure breaks down.  I will go miles out of my way all the way out to near Magnuson Park just to avoid the streets in the interior of that area.  I’m pretty sure cardinal directions break down in there.  Daedalus would have nightmares about it.  (My hobby: using more obscure portions of famous mythological stories.)  Maybe there’s a minotaur?

In my head, Bellevue is basically an area bounded by 4^th, 8^th, I-405, and Bellevue Way (plus the stuff on the west side of Bellevue Way, because Bell Square is definitely part of Bellevue).  Outside of that, Eastgate counts mostly because it’s on that I-90 corridor I mentioned earlier (although everything south of I-90, like Factoria, isn’t included).  Once you get off of Eastgate, though, or outside of that downtown core, it’s not Bellevue, it’s just, I don’t know, unincorporated forestland?  Oh, and exiting onto Bellevue Way from I-90 and 520 immediately takes you to the downtown core (which is therefore apparently simultaneously both four blocks and five miles wide).  (Sorry for butchering your town, friends from Bellevue.)

This is a perfect example of how these misconceptions persist despite the fact that I objectively know much, much better.  I’ve been to Bellevue High several times.  Taking my vanpool in for maintenance goes through Factoria.  I’ve run several errands up to the Crossroads area.  Every day, I leave work, drive down Eastgate, and then cut off on other roads through to SE 8^th.  I know that these places are all part of Bellevue, but I still don’t actually believe it.

It’s not just the Seattle area, though.  No matter how many times I look at a map, I remain unconvinced that Seattle and Spokane are at basically the same latitude, and that Wenatchee is south of them both.  That’s just not possible.  And Spokane really just consists of about a mile along the river from the dam to Gonzaga, right?

Even where I grew up, I still have trouble with certain geographic relationships.  I always know, intellectually, that my high school, Southridge, is further west than I always think it is.  There’s just a big hill between it and most of the rest of town that keeps you from being able to visually place it.  But I didn’t realize until just now, looking at a map, that it’s actually further west than Kamiakin!  (Not by a lot, but it’s true!)  That just cannot possibly be.  It’s just not physically possible.

I’m sure by now you’re expecting me to pivot to something meaningful about how facts can have a hard time overcoming preconceptions, but I’m going to mix things up and just leave this here on a light note.

And a question: What funny mental geography quirks do you have?