21. August 2008 by Ben.
If you’ve been having a good day so far and want to remember what soul crushing despair for humanity feels like, just read this Associated Press story from Ponce de Leon, Florida. You’ll want to punch someone in the face and then probably take up drinking.
When a high school senior told her principal [David Davis] that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents, and ordered her to stay away from children.
He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.
…
“Davis embarked on what can only be characterized as a witch hunt to identify students who were homosexual and their supporters, further adding fuel to the fire,” US District Judge Richard Smoak recounted in his ruling. “He went so far as to lift the shirts of female students to ensure the letters ‘GP’ or the words ‘Gay Pride’ were not written on their bodies.”
Even if we suspend all morality and humanity for a moment and suppose that a witch hunt for gay supporters were justified, how is it even then acceptable for a high school principle to start lifting up his female students’ shirts? Perhaps they should have taken to writing it under their bras so we could more easily convinct the guy as a sexual predator. More importantly, of course, school principals are not empowered to crusade against homosexuals.
Heather Gillman (in the article’s photograph) was one of the students who protested in defense of the anonymous gay student. Her mother, Ardena Gillman, got it exactly right:
“What happens when these kids get out in the real world after they leave Ponce de Leon and they have a black homosexual supervisor at their job?” she said.
Hold whatever views you want in private, but if you can’t teach tolerance to the children under your supervision in a public school, you should be kept at least a thousand meters away from any place where minors gather.
The district had to pay $325,000 to cover the ACLU’s attorney fees. The students who were sensible enough to stand up and protest should get another $325,000 to invest in improving their school in any way they want – up to and including firing the idiot that runs it.
Posted in News | No Comments »
19. August 2008 by Ben.
Marie Callender’s makes a great frozen chicken pot pie. When you cook it in a conventional oven, as I do, the instructions demand wrapping the edge of the crust in a strip of aluminum foil.
This is easy to do, and I’ve always followed the directions before. On the other hand, it takes two strips of aluminum foil to achieve, given the circumference of the pie and the width of my aluminum foil.
I decided to run a controlled experiment: what would happen if I wrapped only half the crust in foil? Would the two sides be indistinguishable, rendering the extra 20 seconds of foil-wrapping effort unnecessary?
Yeah… that step turns out to be rather important. Half the edge of my freshly baked chicken pot pie is now deliciously flaky. The other half is in my garbage can.
Posted in Anecdotes | 2 Comments »
18. August 2008 by Ben.
The downside of flying through Atlanta is that I had to fly through Atlanta. This is an experience that everyone who’s ever flown will find familiar. I remember doing it at least as young as 13 or 14 on the now defunct Trans World Airlines. I was flying from Denver to Boston then too, but living in the other city. (Life is oddly circular that way.)
Sorkin’s West Wing even wove it in:
Josh: Did you get me a flight?
Donna: Yes.
Josh: One that gets me there in time for dinner?
Donna: Yes.
Josh: And I don’t have to change planes in Atlanta?Donna: No. Even better: you do have to change plans in Atlanta.
Josh: I told you…
Donna: You have to change planes in Atlanta. Deal with it.(later)
Donna: You don’t know any special, secret flights to Palm Beach today, do you?
Sam: Yeah, but you gotta change planes in Atlanta.
The upside is that the flight from Atlanta to Boston offers a gorgeous view of New York City. At night in particular, it’s clear that Brooklyn has some very orderly-looking streets. Oh, and Manhattan looks pretty good too.
Posted in Journies | No Comments »
18. August 2008 by Ben.
Denver International Airport has a distinctive way of paging passengers on its concourses:
Mr. Smith, Mr. Charles Smith; Mr. Atkins, Mr. Derek Atkins; Mr. Sorkin, Mr. Aaron Sorkin – please dial zero on an airport courtesy telephone.
The familiar rhythm is oddly comforting.
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport also demonstrated a distinctive way of paging passengers during my layover there:
Charles Smith, please go to the nearest phone and dial 911 for a very important message.
I’m not sure how Charles Smith reacted, but I sure didn’t find it comforting.
Posted in Aaron Sorkin, Anecdotes, Journies | 1 Comment »
17. August 2008 by Ben.
Which of the following seems stranger?
(Yes, there was really a copy on board. No, the airline had not just generously provided it.)
Posted in Quips, Journies | 1 Comment »
17. August 2008 by Ben.
Sophie has started planning a lot lately. After we told her we were going to Chili’s for lunch, for example, she announced that she’d be getting soup. Then she began checking up on our dining plans periodically during the car ride there:
“Sophie get soup?” Yep! “Ben get soup?” No, I want to get chicken.
Then a little later:
“Sophie get soup?” Yep! “Ben get chicken?” Yep!
This tactic apparently lets her formulate her own plans based on ours. At bedtime on Friday night, for instance, she checked up on our evening plans:
Sophie: Mommy go night night?
Mommy: Yep! Mommy’s going night night.
Sophie: Ben go night night?
Ben: Yep! Ben’s going night night.
Sophie: (decisively) Sophie watch Pooh!
At least now we know what she does after everyone else is asleep.
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17. August 2008 by Ben.
On August 15th, at 6:18 pm, I stepped off the escalator into the terminal building at Denver International Airport. The moment I turned the corner I saw a pink Sophie-shaped blur streaking toward me at her fastest possible speed carrying a gleeful grin and delivering an enormous hug. That alone would have been worth the trip.
Then at 6:39 pm, as we sped down Peña Boulevard out of the airport, Sophie asked from the back seat, “Ben goes back home now?”
Apparently, even after all the excitement in advance of my visit, she would have been perfectly happy with a 21 minute appearance.
Of course, this did nothing to lessen her reaction as we sped back down Peña Boulevard on the return trip. The moment the terminal drifted into view she adopted the same facial expression one would use after being slapped hard in the face and then kicked repeatedly in the shin.
An obviously fake yet earnest attempt at crying then lasted until we pulled up to the curb. That’s when she changed tactics. She just refused all offers of a hug goodbye, and to ward off any possibility of a goodbye kiss she even covered her mouth with her hand.
It turns out 21 minutes isn’t long enough after all, but I definitely feel appreciated
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15. August 2008 by Ben.
On my way out of work yesterday two people walked near me on the street.
What I heard:
I’m getting to know JSON pretty well.
What was actually said:
I’m getting to know Jason pretty well.
I really need to stop doing that.
Posted in Programming | 1 Comment »
14. August 2008 by Ben.
Sophie walks into the kitchen to see a mop out – evidence that the floors were cleaned earlier.
Sophie: (excited) My turn to clean!
Mommy: Hmm… do you want to help mommy clean your room?
Sophie: (indignant) No!
Posted in Kids' Quotes | No Comments »
14. August 2008 by Ben.
It’s great fun watching the IT department during a network outage. Suddenly all these people normally holed up in their offices start to poke their heads timidly out into the hallway, and then begin to roam the halls in uncertain groups, as if exploring their environment for the first time.
It makes it easy to separate the whole of IT into its component groups. The network engineers aren’t anywhere in sight – they’re busily at work troubleshooting the outage. The support staff are also working frantically to answer calls from users who are convinced it’s just their office that’s been cut off. The systems programmers have less to do, but can still talk amongst themselves about what systems might be affected, and what possible contributions they could make toward solving the problem.
And then there are the application developers. We just gather in a group, as if surrounding a campfire, acknowledge that we cannot perform any useful function at the moment, and tell stories of outages gone by.
(My favorite story was from a couple years ago when we had a power outage. The machine room was well protected, but our desktop PCs switched off like lights. As did the lights. Just as an ominous silence blanketed the building, it was instantly cut off by the brief but loud swearing from an unknown person down the hall who had clearly not hit the Save button in a little while.)
Posted in Anecdotes | 1 Comment »