Starbucks & the First Amendment

In honor of my deeply felt hesitation over a no-brainer. *

I wrote this 11 years ago when I was living in Mountain View. But I feel even more strongly today about the issue, so I'm reposting it.

My local Starbucks is a small shop in a suburban mall. For those with a few minutes to sit and sip their coffee, there are only 15 seats. I love to sit and read. 

But a few months ago, the same three people always seemed to arrive just before I got there, and, in very insistent, self-assured voices, took up the letters of St. Paul: here’s what the Greek really says in this passage of his letter to the Romans; what is justification by faith alone; what was with those women in Ephesus? The three became four, and then five. They took my favorite chair in the corner, and sectioned off the whole comfortable corner for their dialectic. The noise level of their conversation rose as they read, translated, discussed, or even, G_d forbid, sometimes voiced a slight objection. And they did all this with one frothy latte.

At the time, ironically, I was rereading one of my college professor’s books on religious culture in the first century of the Common Era, First Century Judaism in Crisis by Jacob Neusner. He introduced me to the towering figure of Yohanan ben Zakkai, and the flowering of rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the second Temple. This was a great place to get another perspective on Paul, or Rabbi Saul. And as it turns out, the latest unpacking of Paul's letters, reveals a rather unyielding portrait of the apostle who had a nasty rivalry with the disciples who knew the Jesus who lived and preached his gospel, the Paul who pulled the message of Jesus out of the confines of the Temple in Jerusalem and introduced it to a far-flung audience in the Greco-Roman world, perhaps even setting up his soap box in the coffee houses of Corinth and Rome!

After about a month of trying to be as tolerant as I could of Paul’s disciples, responding politely to their overtures and kind hellos, pondering the extent of the First Amendment, I had had enough. I asked for the manager and complained. She said that it was a very difficult and sensitive situation but that I was not alone and she would see what could be done. (Nothing was done, but that is another issue. I am not the only chicken).

I could have just stayed away. I could have just cut short my malicious thoughts about the evangelical highjacking of the Jesus record. I could have stopped my inner commentary about the idiocy of their suppositions. I might not have been vocal to almost everyone about the inappropriate use of a coffee shop - what are church halls for anyway? – when out of the offenders’ ear shot. But I did not. I just complained, not quite anonymously, but quietly when their backs were turned. 

Perhaps just this post is again some confirmation of my guilt at having breached someone’s First Amendment rights. 

Nah, I don’t need too hard on myself. They may have the right to speak, but I have the right not to be forced to listen.

Re-examiination time -- again

Among today's version of the Republican Party, there is not much support for any of the programs that helped the United States, particularly after the end of the Second World War, become the world's economic super power. These include FDR's New Deal which was in place but became a stable part of American life when there was enough money to fund its programs; Medicare and Medical, without which I would be dead; student tuition programs like the GI bill that gave us the largest well educated work force in history; and more particularly the huge infusion of money into infrastructure, e.g. the huge interstate highways system that Ike sold as essential for national defense.

Republican attacks on the bailout rely on an underclass handout image for these programs. Wall Street tycoons are the new welfare mothers in Cadillac’s. I liked this article because it helped me see that the way I personally view both the programs themselves and the way that we view them as skewed.

Read it. I think Mr. Wolff has a point, or even several!

Does Welfare Work? If social welfare programs work, then countries with more extensive programs should report a smaller percent of their population living in poverty. And that is exactly what we find. According to UNICEF, the percentage of children living in poverty in 2005 was: Denmark, 2.4%; France, 7.5%, Norway, 13.4%; Canada, 14.9%; United Kingdom, 15.4%; United States, 21.9%. (Thank goodness for Mexico — 27.7%.) The Human Development Index (HDI) measures general well-being, with special emphasis on child welfare. Ratings released in 2009, covering the period up to 2007, reveal the following: the U.S. ranks 13th, in a virtual tie with Austria, Spain, and Denmark, surpassed by some countries noted for extensive welfare programs: Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Finland.

Hey Harry, your sentences are a total mess!

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada said in ”remarks prepared for delivery” to note the passing Senator Edward Kennedy:

"The impact he etched into our history will long endure. The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall on deaf ears, but his dream shall never die."

 

Hey Harry, these sentences are a total mess! I think I am beginning to see why health care reform is getting so jumbled in the Senate debate. You guys can’t think straight.

I hate to be a nitpicker—no that’s a lie—I enjoy it more than you can imagine. I have a pet theory, hatched in the Geo W Bush years: totally mashed up semantics, weird modifiers and misdirected metaphors that paint a dreadful picture reflect mashed up, weird, misdirected and dreadful thinking. QED.

Here we go. Not to leave poor Geo way ahead in the war of malapropisms, the Democrats, with Harry at bat, have scored some whopping points!

"The impact he etched into our history will long endure.” Harry gets off to a slow start. Though “etching an impact” is a bit hard for me to get visually, “to etch in memory” is a common way to say “unforgettable.” Etching is a process in the visual arts that requires the application of acid, mordant or abrasive of some sort to the unprotected areas on a metal to create the negative of an image for reproduction. Doesn’t he just mean that it will be hard to forget Teddy and that his legacy will be equally hard to erase. The use of the word “history” might be trying to sound the sad note that Teddy is no longer with us, but his body is barely cold. But I will give “etched impact” 4 points, but take 2 away for the introduction of Teddy’s death with an weak nuance for “history”–if that is even his meaning.

“The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall on deaf ears, but his dream shall never die." But here’s where the real fun begins, and Harry racks up real points. These are two great images, the roaring lion and the “I have a dream” rhetoric of any visionary. But in the same sentence? Both images are diminished plus it makes no sense. Minus 10 points for each infraction. The middle phrase, “deaf ears,” must mean that the Republicans in the Senate, those in power, those in the opposition, are so stupid that they cannot hear or understand his strong cogent, articulate arguments. But did this just happen now that Teddy is dead—now that he is no longer around to twist arms in the Senate cloakroom? Hardly. They were deaf long before. So I am going to deduct 40 points for nonsense. I have also heard that one can dream with all the organs, but the ears are not usually regarded as the instrument of dreams in ordinary speech, but then again, people who dream do hear voices, usually ominous warnings of danger. But if this is the meaning, it is very obtuse. I will deduct another 30 points. That leaves Harry with a score of 8 out of a possible 100. George scored 0 on multiple occasions. Keep it up Harry, you can still give him a run for his money.

Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

"Give up. The War is lost!"

Down in the Dumps about your 401 K? Read this.

Myth or something other?

I am not an apostle of Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman or the forever chair of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, but this is worth reading and thinking about.

"The choice--the dedication to one's highest potential--is made by accepting the fact that the noblest act you have ever performed is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four." AR. How did this effect Mr. Greenspan's rhetoric? Here she is pretty close to showing what an idiot she was, or am I being too harsh?