Ian On The Red Dot

I just came across this letter by a librarian via Metafilter. Read it here. I’m going to put the whole letter here because it is just so awesome. But please, please, go over there and read it – the comments alone are worth the extra click. Note – the letter is written by a guy. Oh, and I can’t say this enough times – librarians and curators are the most underrated important people in our society. They aren’t just people who tell us to keep quiet, or shelf books or look after art pieces. They are custodians of knowledge and ideas. In case you are wondering, we have our own sexy librarian here in Singapore.

The reason for the letter:

Recently, a library patron challenged (urged a reconsideration of the ownership or placement of) a book called “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding.” Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of it until that complaint. But I did read the book, and responded to the patron, who challenged the item through email and requested that I respond online (not via snail-mail) about her concerns.

The letter:

Uncle Bobby’s wedding
June 27, 2008

Dear Ms. Patron:

Thank you for working with my assistant to allow me to fit your concerns about “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” by Sarah S. Brannen, into our “reconsideration” process. I have been assured that you have received and viewed our relevant policies: the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, the Freedom to View, and our Reconsideration Policy.

The intent of providing all that isn’t just to occupy your time. It’s to demonstrate that our lay Board of Trustees –- which has reviewed and adopted these policies on behalf of our library — has spent time thinking about the context in which the library operates, and thoughtfully considered the occasional discomfort (with our culture or constituents) that might result. There’s a lot to consider.

Here’s what I understand to be your concern, based on your writings. First, you believe that “the book is specifically designed to normalize gay marriage and is targeted toward the 2-7 year old age group.” Your second key concern is that you “find it inappropriate that this type of literature is available to this age group.” You cite your discussion with your daughter, and commented, “This was not the type of conversation I thought I would be having with my seven year old in the nightly bedtime routine.”

Finally, you state your strong belief, first, “in America and the beliefs of our founding fathers,” and second, that “marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman as stated in the Webster’s dictionary and also in the Bible.”

You directed me to the SarahBrannen.com site, which I also reviewed. I got a copy of “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” today, and read it. I even hauled out my favorite Webster’s (the college edition, copyright 1960).

First, I think you’re right that the purpose of the book is to show a central event, the wedding of two male characters, as no big thing. The emotional center of the story, of course, is Chloe’s fear that she’s losing a favorite uncle to another relationship. That fear, I think, is real enough to be an issue for a lot of young children. But yes, Sarah Brannen clearly was trying to portray gay marriage as normal, as not nearly so important as the changing relationship between a young person and her favorite uncle.

Your second issue is a little trickier. You say that the book is inappropriate, and I infer that your reason is the topic itself: gay marriage. I think a lot of adults imagine that what defines a children’s book is the subject. But that’s not the case. Children’s books deal with anything and everything. There are children’s books about death (even suicide), adult alcoholism, family violence, and more. Even the most common fairy tales have their grim side: the father and stepmother of Hansel and Gretel, facing hunger and poverty, take the children into the woods, and abandon them to die! Little Red Riding Hood (in the original version, anyhow) was eaten by the wolf along with granny. There’s a fascinating book about this, by the bye, called “The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales,” by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. His thesis is that both the purpose and power of children’s literature is to help young people begin to make sense of the world. There is a lot out there that is confusing, or faintly threatening, and even dangerous in the world. Stories help children name their fears, understand them, work out strategies for dealing with life. In Hansel and Gretel, children learn that cleverness and mutual support might help you to escape bad situations. In Little Red Riding Hood, they learn not to talk to big bad strangers. Of course, not all children’s books deal with “difficult issues,” maybe not even most of them. But it’s not unusual.

So what defines a children’s book is the treatment, not the topic. “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” is 27-28 pages long (if you count the dedication page). Generally, there are about 30 words per page, and each page is illustrated. The main character, and the key perspective, is that of a young girl. The book is published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, “a division of Penguin Young Readers Group.” The Cataloging in Publication information (on the back side of the title page) shows that the catalogers of the Library of Congress identified it as an “E” book – easy or beginning reader. Bottom line: It’s hard for me to see it as anything but a children’s book.

You suggested that the book could be “placed in an area designating the subject matter,” or “labeled for parental guidance” by stating that “some material may be inappropriate for young children.” I have two responses. First, we tried the “parenting collection” approach a couple of times in my history here. And here’s what we found: nobody uses them. They constitute a barrier to discovery and use. The books there – and some very fine ones — just got lost. In the second case, I believe that every book in the children’s area, particularly in the area where usually the parent is reading the book aloud, involves parental guidance. The labeling issue is tricky, too: is the topic just homosexuality? Where babies come from? Authority figures that can’t be trusted? Stepmothers who abandon their children to die?

Ultimately, such labels make up a governmental determination of the moral value of the story. It seems to me – as a father who has done a lot of reading to his kids over the years – that that kind of decision is up to the parents, not the library. Because here’s the truth of the matter: not every parent has the same value system.

You feel that a book about gay marriage is inappropriate for young children. But another book in our collection, “Daddy’s Roommate,” was requested by a mother whose husband left her, and their young son, for another man. She was looking for a way to begin talking about this with son. Another book, “Alfie’s Home,” was purchased at the request of another mother looking for a way to talk about the suspected homosexuality of her young son from a Christian perspective. There are gay parents in Douglas County, right now, who also pay taxes, and also look for materials to support their views. We don’t have very many books on this topic, but we do have a handful.

In short, most of the books we have are designed not to interfere with parents’ notions of how to raise their children, but to support them. But not every parent is looking for the same thing.

Your third point, about the founders’ vision of America, is something that has been a matter of keen interest to me most of my adult life. In fact, I even wrote a book about it, where I went back and read the founders’ early writings about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What a fascinating time to be alive! What astonishing minds! Here’s what I learned: our whole system of government was based on the idea that the purpose of the state was to preserve individual liberties, not to dictate them. The founders uniformly despised many practices in England that compromised matters of individual conscience by restricting freedom of speech. Freedom of speech – the right to talk, write, publish, discuss – was so important to the founders that it was the first amendment to the Constitution – and without it, the Constitution never would have been ratified.

How then, can we claim that the founders would support the restriction of access to a book that really is just about an idea, to be accepted or rejected as you choose? What harm has this book done to anyone? Your seven year old told you, “Boys are not supposed to marry.” In other words, you have taught her your values, and those values have taken hold. That’s what parents are supposed to do, and clearly, exposure to this book, or several, doesn’t just overthrow that parental influence. It does, of course, provide evidence that not everybody agrees with each other; but that’s true, isn’t it?

The second part of your third point was your belief that marriage was between a man and a woman. My Webster’s actually gives several definitions of marriage: “1. the state of being married; relation between husband and wife…; 2. the act of marrying, wedding; 3. the rite or form used in marrying; 4. any close or intimate union.” Definitions 2-4, even as far back as 1960, could be stretched to include a wedding between two men. Word definitions change; legal rights change. In some parts of America, at least today, gay marriage is legal. If it’s legal, then how could writing a book about it be inappropriate?

Finally, then, I conclude that “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” is a children’s book, appropriately categorized and shelved in our children’s picture book area. I fully appreciate that you, and some of your friends, strongly disagree with its viewpoint. But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won’t agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don’t imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life.

As noted in our policies, you do have the right to appeal my decision to the Board of Trustees. If you’d like to do that, let me know, and I can schedule a meeting. Meanwhile, I’m more than happy to discuss this further with you. I do appreciate many things: your obvious value of reading, your frank and loving relationship with your child, your willingness to raise issues of importance to you in the public square, and more. Thank you, very much, for taking the time to raise your concerns with me. Although I suspect you may not agree with my decision, I hope it’s clear that I’ve given it a great deal of thought, and believe it is in accordance with both our guiding principles, and those, incidentally, of the founders of our nation.

Best wishes to you and your family,

Nocturne has another great post. Read this. And if you only know he has great posts when I talk about them, errr…subscribe to his feed lah.

A comment I made expressing an idea my sis shared:

Great post. But I think it is a cycle. We actually do want them to let us down. To let us know they are human after all, not so perfect, just like us. Then we want them to redeem themselves, because we want to believe, that we too can be like them. Anyway, yeah..she may have lied…but like I said, that’s why it is called mercy.

Updated: Nocturne’s comment:

@Ian The Mercy Argument can be used for anyone and everyone; to pinpoint Dawn with it is to imply she’s more deserving than, say, Deathrow Inmate #17. Once “deserving” comes in, you move away from Mercy towards Justice. The idea that we want them to fail implies that we want ALL STARS to fail, but we clearly don’t. We hold different stars to different standards – when Paris Hilton does something, nobody really cares; when Miley Cyrus does the same, everybody cares. They have roles. The Redemption narrative may hold true for Chris Lee (local, not Dracula), but it does not for Dawn Yang – you yourself said that she cannot not lose. Her narrative is that we want her to fail because we enjoy watching her fail – “how the mighty have fallen”, the “comeuppance”, the Karmic Retribution. It is not “not so perfect, just like us”, it is “Now, finally, I am better than you” – we don’t want them to be “just like us”, we want to be better than they are, in spite of their fame and their fortune; it’s the same urge that make stupid people turn racist. Scandals, to stars, are like scandals to normal folk; accidents. Something that just happens, and, likely, could have been avoided. It’s who it hits that really matters.

Updated 2:

Me:

I concede the point that not all stars/famous people have the same narrative and that we do hold them to different standards based on their own actions. Regarding the mercy argument, you are right, it can be used for anyone and everyone. Everyone is deserving of mercy – everyone deserves to get kindness even though they may not deserve the kindness. When we decide how much mercy to accord or rather how much of the full weight of justice not to inflict, we aren’t moving away from mercy to justice because they are both linked. They don’t exist on extreme ends of the same line in isolation. You can’t talk about mercy without talking about justice. So, the question is then, how much mercy and yes, that question does involve some consideration of whether sufficient justice has been served in the context of the actions done. errr..on a side note..damn hard to type long stuff in your comment box…

Nocturne:

Once you accept that Mercy is not isolated from Justice, you have given up the position of “unconditional mercy”. In Dawn Yang’s case, unconditional mercy is pretty much the only mercy that can be given. Once you move to the sliding slope that is Mercy-Justice, everything becomes subjective, and it becomes difficult for people to agree on how much mercy she deserves (or how much justice she should avoid). For ease of use, we try to avoid slopes, where we have to draw lines (good post on the desire lines, btw, it’s nice to have a name to put on a concept). Virtue is always black and white. Your argument would carry more weight if your position is that she has “paid enough”, rather than that she is deserving of mercy (or that no one deserves the retribution being meted out to her). The idea that Justice has been served is more appealing than that of Mercy and forgiveness. I agree with the comment box; I type into a txt file and cutpaste. I’m not fond of long pages.

Guys are really easy to understand. The great Ctrl + Alt + Del has been explaining it for years:

We like beer:

We like boobs:

You can make us do anything with boobs:

We like games (especially those with boobs):

And we like food:

If you enjoyed these examples, please go to the main site to check out more.

Recently, I started forcing myself to work without using the mouse. This meant that I needed to learn the shortcuts for a few key pieces of software I use at work.

One of them is Eclipse (from here):

[CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[K]
Finds the previous occurrence of the highlight text.

[CTRL]+[H]
Brings up the Search & Replace dialog.

[CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[R]
Open up any file.

[CTRL]+[Page Up]
[CTRL}+[Page Down]
Navigation between tabs.

[CTRL]+[M]
Maximize/Minimize Current View or Editor

[ALT]+[SHIFT]+[X],T
Run class as JUnit Test.

Going to fire a quick one before I start the day. Today is going to be busy what with SIT coming up. Anyway, I just want to say a quick thing about men not getting it. It is oft lamented by Singaporean women that Singapore men just don’t get it, or more specifically don’t understand them.

When is this comment usually made? When a man fails to meet the expectations of the woman. Are the expectations always unreasonable? I wouldn’t know. But from my experience with Singapore gals, I think Singaporean women have a tendency to have rather high (and unreasonable) expectations. I won’t talk about these expectations here today.

Now, why would women want men to get it? If the reason is so that their expectations can be made, then they are dumb.

Why?

Cos once a man gets a women, he is never going to meet those expectations.

He is going to manage it.

And when a man goes into manage expectations mode, more often than not he plays the gal like a fiddle.

Think about it. Who are the players?

The only way a man can be a player is if he gets women.

Now, you might say, why can’t a man get women and not be a player. Many reasons. But one reason I wager is that once a man gets women, he realizes women aren’t just worth it. Or rather, he realizes that it just ain’t worth it to meet all the expectations of a women just so his own needs can be met.

Yes. Men don’t just live for women. We live for ourselves too. A lot of time our interactions with women is to meet our own needs. Actually, let’s say all the time.

We (man included) like to believe that there is someone who will dedicate and devote their lives to us. We are selfish like that. And stupid like that.

So women, be glad that there are men who don’t get it. Doesn’t mean we won’t be earnest in meeting your expectations. Doesn’t mean we won’t try to be everything you want us to be.

Just don’t lament we don’t get it.

You honestly won’t like it once every man gets it.

Update:Of course, women might say that there are men who really don’t get it. You know what…if you are dating such a man. Loving such a man. Wanting him to change. Accommodating him till he changes. Guess what. He actually gets it. You don’t.

Just learned that nocturne has a bunch of short stories on his blog. If you write short stories too, do leave a comment.

Here is something that I just thought of. Why did God create Adam with a dick if Eve was an afterthought? No seriously, think about it. Below are two relevant passages from the Bible.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 22 and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

I don’t know how you want to interpret the second passage, but it sure looks like women were an afterthought or in this case, Eve was. Which means, Adam had a penis even before there was a women to use it with or even before God anticipated that there would be a women to use it with. Remember, God’s first option was to find a helper for Adam from among the ranks of existing animals even before considering creating Eve.

So, what use would a penis be to Adam before Eve was created? Unless of course God only gave a penis to Adam after Eve was created but the Bible makes no mention of that. Maybe the Bible didn’t want a R-rating but we know that can’t possibly be the case….so… If the penis in its current form was supposed to come only after Eve was created, the Bible sure didn’t mention anything about Adam being surprised with a new instrument so…. But God is supposed to be omniscient, right? So the penis in its current form only after Eve was created doesn’t sound like a God who knows everything, past, present and future.

I mean, seriously. What’s the use? Ok … Maybe Adam needed the penis to piss. After all, the penis isn’t just a pleasure device but also a waste disposal device. But it is also a reproductive device, which meant well, Adam was supposed to use it for reproduction. Somehow.

Further thinking about this question breeds some disturbing thoughts.

Let’s say the penis was to be used for normal reproductive, pleasure and waste disposal purposes right from the start. Since Eve was an afterthought, Adam had to use it with someone or something.

Maybe in the first relevant passage, the reference to ‘male and female’ meant that God created Adam with someone else at the same time. Which means, well, Adam basically going to get it on with his sister. Sounds pretty incestuous.

Or maybe, Adam was supposed to be both male and female – a hermaphrodite. So basically, Adam could just go screw himself. Or maybe if Adam was supposed to be a metaphor for Men in general, then, ahem, homosexuality might have been intended by God, because well, there were male and female among the Men.

But let’s say Adam was really just one person. That ‘male and female’ referred to both Adam and Eve. Then even though Eve was an afterthought, she was still created as an afterthought on the sixth day.

But wait! apparently, a day to God is different from a day to man. So, Adam was walking around for some time with an organ that was basically unable to be used for two out of three purposes – pleasure and reproducing. Sounds pretty wasteful and doesn’t sound like the work of an omniscient God.

Unless..

Unless of course masturbation isn’t really such a sin that Christians say it is.

Or, well, bestality isn’t as unnatural as it is.

Hmmmm…..

Damn a lot of problems with this story.

I refrained from Googling about this until I wrote this post.

Not surprisingly, I’m not the first one to think about this. Read here and here.

Updated: Let’s say that Eve and the penis was an afterthought – that God only thought about us going forth to be fruitful and multiply only after Eve was created along with a new organ being added to Adam. You know what. It does seem God didn’t think out this human experiment very well. He went with the flow….

It’s like God got lonely. Created Adam. Realized Adam was lonely. Created Eve. Thought what the heck, these two look so cute. God became lazy to make more – he believes in a six day work life (as opposed to a six day work week). Told Adam and Eve to make more themselves. Got bored. Decided to go play golf with Gabriel and then head over to Valhalla to party with the Asgardians.

I have been following the recent spat between Xiaxue and Dawn Yang. I have been following the backlash against DY here, here and here. Even when I didn’t want to follow it, the Straits Times somehow saw it fit to cover this spat. This spat was one of the many reasons I decided to put a pet project on hold until I figured out how to do things different and better. But I digress.

I read the initial post by Xiaxue that triggered the recent saga. I’m not sure if everything Xiaxue said is true, it probably is, but was there a need for Xiaxue to say it. One of the reasons why I do love reading Xiaxue (it is one of my guilty pleasures) is that she is a no holds barred writer. She is the kind of person who doesn’t leave any injured in a fight, only dead bodies. And not just dead bodies, but dead bodies with squashed balls.

But the thing is, Xiaxue is no longer a street urchin. She has fought her way to the top. She is now royalty. She, is to me, the undisputed princess of Singapore blogging. I wanted to call her queen, but I realized she is too young to be a queen. Besides, if Mr Brown is the king, then the queen has to be around that age. But, as usual, I digress.

The thing about royalty, or rather, the thing about royalty to me, is that I think grace is something they should exhibit. After all, they are already in the upper echelon of society.

Xiaxue did not show grace when she wrote that post. She unleashed the dogs of war when, to be honest, it was an issue beneath her position. Maybe Xiaxue isn’t just any sort of princess. She is a warrior princess. Which could be true. But even Xena knew how to show grace and be merciful ( Damn it, I’m ashamed I even know that, but seriously, there was nothing good on TV at that time. A time of myth and legend..When the ancient gods were petty and cruel and plagued mankind with suffering …)

Anyway, so DY reacted in probably the worse possible way in Singapore society. She sued.

And the backlash occurred.

It is like a school yard fight where the unpopular kid has been knocked down. All the cowards around now rush in just to land a kick for the fucking awesome sensation of just causing hurt on someone else.

Here is the thing – so what if she has been lying about the plastic surgery she has had. So what if she has been saying things about other people behind their backs. Fine, it doesn’t say much about her character if all those dirt dig up is true but let’s take pause and think about some stuff.

Plastic surgery. What’s wrong with that? Frankly, I would like a girl to be natural, but in an age where we idolize beauty, do you not think it is funny we attack her for possibly having had surgery.

Of course, the righteous among us may say, well, we aren’t against surgery. We are against her hypocrisy for not admitting to it. OH COME ON! Some of the stars who did have surgery and admitted it are still being bitched about. I’ve seen the forums. Admitting it does not help stay the dogs.

Oh, but we are against her criticizing other celebs who have had surgery. Has anyone ever stopped to wonder that maybe that’s just her defense mechanism kicking in? Sure, it is a flawed defense mechanism but think about it. It isn’t nice to feel your back against a wall.

There was no way for DY to win or at least no way not to lose.

Yes, yes, Xiaxue did surgery and everyone seems to be fine with her for doing it because she is so open about it. SERIOUSLY? I’ve read stuff where people still do bitch about Xiaxue and that nose job and whatever shit they saw fit to bitch about.

The difference between DY and XX is that XX has thicker skin – metaphorically speaking of course.

There was no way for DY to win or at least no way not to lose.

We are all so quick to attack her as some sort of defense for those she has attacked. But are those individuals really that innocent? Just because they don’t blog about it doesn’t mean they didn’t attack first behind the scenes or aren’t any more vicious.

The thing is we don’t know.

But I do know this – human beings have always been cruel. ALWAYS. If there is anything that is consistent about us is that our capacity to be cruel is only matched by the infiniteness of space.

Let’s take pause.

Someone said this on one of the comments thread:

And add that AC guys allegedly described her as “Cover the face, bang the base”

Think about it. Sure, there are a lot of girls who have gone through life relatively unscathed because
they have managed to address esteem issues or whatever shit they might have. But not everyone is so lucky.

And wanting to be popular, hell, wanting just to fit in, is something almost all of us want. Some of us are lucky enough to find a group that eventually accepts us for who we are. Some of us may be unlucky and never find such a group.

And some of us are damned by God to be preyed upon when we search for a place to call home.

Let’s put it simply. Men are sharks. We can smell blood and know who to attack.

The truth is, at least to me, people who are against DY aren’t really against her because of some righteous cause to right her wrongs and protect those she has hurt.

No. We are against her because we are indignant for what she has because we think she doesn’t deserve it. But who are we to say that someone does not deserve whatever good fortune (or in this case bad fortune) they may have.

Even us. The ‘poor’ in Singapore. Do we deserve the relative good fortune to be born here?

The temerity of those who dare rise about their station. The audacity of those who don’t know their place. They belong either with us or at least not with them.

There are those who try to rise above whatever it seems destiny has given them.

Those below despise them. Those above mock them. They are ‘pretenders’.

And if anyone of you for a moment think Xiaxue is not being bitched about by the old rich, you don’t know humans. I’m sure some of them are.

Sure, you say, go on ahead and rise up. Just do it the right way. Just don’t deny your heritage, your past. Wait a minute. We all sound like we all have always been honest about our lives. Let’s face it. None of us ever have. We all tell ourselves our own version of our life stories. She just probably took it one step further.

Take using Photoshop to edit photos. It isn’t just bloggers who do it. Hell, even professional magazines do it. Because we all have some weird consciousness of the sort of lie we all want to believe in.

Now, I’m not saying DY is innocent or what…I think she has a self-righteous streak to her. Just like all of us. I’m saying we are all complicit. It is so easy to be self-righteous, to think ourselves better than someone. I do this, but I don’t do it until like her.

What arrogance we have.

I can’t remember which Chinese philosopher said it, but I vaguely remember a saying about virtue – the virtuous person is one that even after spreading a net to trap animals will leave at least one opening for them to escape. We are not doing that for DY to do so with any shred of dignity left.

In the end, Dawn Yang must die. If not her, then someone, to satisfy all of us.

In case you are wondering, the title is homage to this South Park episode. Below is a clip from that episode.

Anyway, I’m calling this on my blog. If we are all not careful, Singapore will very soon see the first blogosphere related suicide. I hope it never happens. But sadly, I think it will.

Updated: Some people might say DY doesn’t deserve mercy. Errr..That’s the whole point of mercy – giving kindness to someone who might not deserve it.

I’ll say this. I hate the new University Hall in NUS. I think it was a waste of money. Ok. Now that is out of the way, let’s talk about one aspect of building a university campus – the sidewalks. How do you plan the sidewalks? Apparently, you don’t.

Apparently, this is how the Campus of Michigan State University got their sidewalks:

The original campus did not contain many sidewalks at all; the designers instead opted to pave desire lines after they appeared in the grass.

A desire line:

A desire line is a path developed by erosion caused by animal or human footfall. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. The width and amount of erosion of the line represents the amount of demand. Desire lines were used in early transportation planning, prior to the advent of computerized models.

Check out the photos of desire lines on Flickr.

Nocturne has written another post which I really like and part of it speaks to why I love Batman. The recent movie “The Dark Knight” also talks about this point, a point made very well in some of the story arcs for the Justice League where Batman has to put up with all the have-your-cake-eat-your-cake Boy Scouts like Superman.

Say a cashier undercharges me, I get away with $10 that is wrongfully mine. I bring it home happily as if I’d found it on the street. That makes me the kind of person that would, given the chance, steal. The only reason I don’t, say, redistribute 200 million dollars from my company by forging invoices to gullible foreign banks is because the penalty is harsher. It is fear, not morality, which decides my actions.

Someone has to draw the line.

Lines never satisfy everyone.

But someone has to make the Choice.

In an Esmeralda Weatherwax story, Esme, a witch, was called in by a midwife for a case the latter could not handle. It had come to this, Esme said, save the child or save the wife. The midwife said, “I’ll go find the father.”

Esme caught hold of the midwife’s arm. Esme’s grip, as her eyes, like steel.

And Esme said, “What has he ever done to me, that I should force him to make that choice?”

There is great difficulty, at least on my part, in being consistent. There is always the tension between the man you want to be and the man you must be.

In the end, we loathe the person we become.

Sidenote: Recent serious posts by Nocturne has just meant less boobs. We need a balance.