Month: March 2013

A reader quotes me:

“I find the opportunism of the Clintons – who did more substantive harm to gay people in eight years than any other administration – more disgusting than the fundamentalist hostility.” OK, I can go along with “more disgusting than fundamentalist hostility,” but I would describe Bill Clinton’s behavior in 1996 as cowardice more than opportunism.  It was an eternity ago in terms of public opinion, and DOMA passed the House 342 to 67 and the Senate 85 to 14.  To buck that would have required great courage. (Hillary’s more recent statements when a senator are far worse.)

But worst of all was 2004, where Rove, the GOP, and the right-wing propaganda machine aggressively targeted gay people to get out the vote in state after state.  What makes their behavior so much worse was that cowardice was NOT a factor; on this issue, the GOP was not threatened with a challenge from the left. They maliciously ginned up fear and hatred solely to get a few more voters to the polls.

Another:

You keep repeating this assertion about Clinton, and I have to say it doesn’t ring true. I’d argue Reagan, in his disregard for AIDS, was clearly more responsible for not just “harm” but a quantifiable number of deaths. DADT happened because Clinton overreached, in his first months in office, on trying to fully lift the restrictions on gays in the military. DOMA was considered to be a sop to homophobes in an area (gay marriage) that was inconceivably distant.

Did his Justice Department have to ringingly announce it had no constitutional objections to DOMA during the actual hearings? Did his 1996 campaign have to run ads in the South bragging of defending marriage? And it was not inconceivably distant: Hawaii was pushing the envelope. And even if it were inconsistently distant, why wouldn’t that be an argument for his vetoing it – or just letting it pass into law without his signature? Another adds that “in 1996, not only were about 80% of Americans opposed to marriage equality, but roughly half supported outlawing gay sex.” Another:

The whole idea of Lent is repentance and the search for forgiveness, isn’t it? And isn’t Easter about renewal? Which is why your comments on the Clintons, I feel, are wholly out-of-whack with what you’ve said about folks like Rob Portman.

You are falling victim to the vitriol you felt about Clinton’s presidency back in the ’90s and his own blatant opportunism, neither of which I fault you for. I do, however, fault you for castigating the Clintons’ “change of heart.” You recently told a reader:

Even if they are pure opportunists, as a civil rights cause, it shouldn’t matter. What matters is support for marriage equality. Period. Late-comers should be as welcome as the pioneers.

Now granted, you said this about Rob Portman, who suddenly did an about-face on gay marriage strictly because opposition to it harmed his son (he didn’t give a shit when it was other people’s sons and daughters, apparently), but how does this not apply to the Clintons as well?

Let’s say for the sake of argument that the Clintons are nothing but glaring opportunists who did everything they could to keep gays out of normalizing institutions that would allow them to feel like full human beings. I’m willing to buy that argument, because I think DOMA and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” showed President Clinton to be at best callous and at worst a political eunuch. But just look at Rob Portman’s voting record. He voted YES on an amendment to the United States Constitution banning gay marriage, something the Clintons never did. He voted YES on banning gays from adopting in Washington, D.C. – which the Clintons vehemently opposed.

Here are two recent posts on the Clintons:

I welcome president Clinton’s change of heart, just as I welcomed Barack Obama’s and Bob Barr’s. But I am not going to white-wash his or Richard Socarides’ records.

And again:

It’s churlish to cavil. If we can forgive Ken Mehlman, we can surely forgive Bill Clinton. And welcome him to the civil rights cause of our time.

But here’s the legacy that Clinton wielded as a Democratic Party president – cited now by countless Foxbots. Clinton didn’t just sign DOMA, he signed the law banning HIV-positive tourists and immigrants, legitimizing the rank bigotry and anti-scientific posture of Jesse Helms. He had plenty of time to prep for the military ban, but his first few months were among the most disorganized and chaotic of any president in recent times. He didn’t just enact DADT, his own Pentagon subsequently doubled the rate of gay discharges from the military.

I’ve praised Hillary Clinton for her breakthrough for gay human rights at State. I’m happy about Bill Clinton’s recent op-ed. But I cannot accept an apology Bill Clinton still refuses to offer. I’m not whitewashing the GOP either (is that the impression you’ve got from the blog on gays and the GOP over the years?). They bear by far the largest share of the blame – especially Rove and Bush and Mehlman who knew better and used our lives and loves as tools for the maintenance of their own power. The Clintons were just cold opportunists – the Frank and Clare Underwood of their time. I’m just not going to pretend they were allies of the gay community, when they weren’t. They like to think they are; but they weren’t. The record is patently clear. I lived through it. And had a front row seat in Washington.

A reader writes:

Comparing the budgets of a public defenders’ office to a prosecutors’ office is a false equivalence. I work as a state-level prosecutor in a small county. Public defenders only get involved in a case after someone gets charged with a crime. Prosecutors spend a good part of their day involved in investigations that never lead to charges (things like reviewing search warrants, interviewing witnesses, and discussing cases with officers where we decline to prosecute). The State has substantial discovery obligations in each case, which means the production of hundreds of pages of documents and a support staff to handle those requirements. In only a fraction of cases does the defense disclose anything through the discovery process. Keep in mind that the State has both the burden of proof and production in criminal cases while the defense has none. It’s not uncommon for the State to arrange for and call dozens of witnesses in a case and for the defense to call none. It’s a lot more expensive to build a house than tear one down.

Another agrees that the comparison is “grossly misleading”:

As that final sentence in that post shows, there are private defense attorneys where there is no private prosecutorial function. By definition all criminal prosecution is handled by the government. So even if you have some form of functional parity, you would naturally have more headcount and funding for public prosecutors than for public defenders, because a great deal of total criminal defense work is handled by private attorneys.

I’m not disagreeing that there are serious concerns with staffing and resourcing in criminal justice. In fact, as the husband of a prosecutor, I strongly support increased funding on both sides, and of the court system itself, in the interest of speedy trials and fair justice. Far from favoring prosecution (and here is where my bias may interject), budget and staffing cuts means that prosecutors are constantly walking away from cases they don’t feel as confident about or don’t have the time anymore to pursue. That’s an automatic win for the defense. So to think that lousy budgets only helps prosecution is wrong. Budget cuts means a lot of criminals just don’t go to trial.

That’s just my humble dissent on an issue that hits close to home. I sometimes rankle when people get anti-prosecutor because of the ridiculous implication that they spend all day locking up minorities out of malice or careerism. These are attorneys who are making far less money than their private sector peers to engage in public service. I wish people knew the number of domestic battery, rape, poaching, child porn, child abuse, human trafficking etc. work that these bright attorneys take on. Seeing this evidence is not easy on the prosecutors or the families who support them. But someone has to stand and represent the People, and fight for justice and for the victims. When prosecutors are underfunded, the defense is underfunded, and the courts are underfunded, that doesn’t always happen.

A reader writes:

I think “blood phobia” is a misnomer.  As described, it seems to be an autonomic neurophysiologic reaction involving activation of the vagus nerve, which slows the pulse and drops the blood pressure resulting in syncope (fainting or passing out).  In my youth, I passed out having blood drawn, during dental work and while looking at a photograph of an automobile accident.  Fortunately by the time I became a physician, these episodes had stopped. There was never any associated fear, panic or avoidance behavior.

My arachnophobia, on the other hand, is an entirely different kettle of emotions.  The very mention of the S-word or visualization of such a creature in life or image produces an intense, screaming panic and avoidance.  I once jumped into the back seat from the driver’s seat of a car I was driving when one scurried (ugh!) across the windshield.  That’s a phobia.

Another reader:

I’ve done a lot of thinking and researching this topic and thought I’d share my experience with bloody squeemishness.

When I was younger I was always okay with blood. I wanted to be a doctor. I worked as a phlebotomist in college and my mom assured me this was a marketable skill to have. After college I started a research assistantship that involved taking blood from children. One day something changed. I’m sure it was a culmination of factors but seeing children fainting from their experiences sent me in to a panic attack. I thought I too would faint and it wasn’t just about the blood; asthenophobia is the fear of fainting. Soon it became an overwhelming fear, so much so I couldn’t go to work. I always had to be well-hydrated and make sure my blood sugar was up. I started therapy, some medication for anxiety and I have been managing it ever since, 8 years later. I have a great job in the medical field but behind a desk and I couldn’t be happier with it. However, I’ve often thought about what would’ve happened if I couldn’t just give up that dream of being a doctor.

Another:

I have never seen blood phobia described before, but my father has it. Good to see he is not unique. In addition to passing out at the sight of blood – even on screen – he sometimes has convulsions. But it has to be REAL on-screen blood – he can watch a Western or an old James Bond movie, for example, and not react. A documentary or science show, though – watch out!

He can’t give blood. He used to try once in a while, like when one of his students was seriously ill and needed donations. But he passed out every time and caused the doctors too much trouble. And even talking about anything to do with blood or cutting makes him feel faint.

In high school, he once convulsed during a science class movie, kicking over an entire row of bolted-together seats and their occupants. Excused from gory classes after that! As an adult, he was a frequent guest lecturer to archaeological societies. At one pre-speech dinner he sat (unknowingly) between an undertaker and a surgeon. They started talking shop, and he quietly lost consciousness and slid under the table. They had to revive him, so he could give his talk. When one of us scraped our knees in childhood, the refrain was always, “Don’t show it to Daddy! Don’t show it to Daddy!”

(Photo by Flickr user numberstumper, who captions: “The scene: Toby ices Gabe’s finger in the kitchen while Mom and Dad watch All About Eve in the living room, blissfully unaware that their daughter’s fingernail just lost a fight with a paring knife.”)

@smarx @x3rames clearly.I made comment on HN I didn’t agree with his employer firing him.
— Adria Richards (@adriarichards) March 19, 2013

Many more readers continue to debate the Adria Richards incident and the broader topic at hand:

Why would Richards have chosen to contact the conference organizers publicly rather than privately?  I’m guessing it’s because she wanted to hold them to their word.  Was she justified in worrying that the code of conduct wouldn’t be enforced?  Yes, if other tech conferences are an indication.  So I can understand why she did it.  Hopefully, PyCon will justify their new ban on tweeting photos of people without permission by continuing to enforce their code of conduct even when complaints are made that don’t identify the rule-breakers publicly.

Another reader:

Why is everyone talking about how Adria Richards got a guy fired? She didn’t. Richards wasn’t his employer or boss; she had no power to fire him or get him fired. His employer did that. She posted a picture and expressed an opinion online. That’s all. Andrew, you do that every single day! Her action may have made people angry or upset but she didn’t do anything wrong. I can’t believe she’s being vilified for this.

Full disclosure: I have worked in tech for more than two decades and I’ve heard more than a few infantile sexual jokes and have always shrugged them off. I’ve never imagined that a joke could get someone fired. I wonder if she was as surprised as I am.

Another makes a connection with the big story of the week:

I just want to point out that decades before Edie Windsor became a pioneer for gay rights, she was also one of the very first female programmers IBM hired. And we know she faced a lot of sexism/sexual harassment there because she said so herself. For example, I’ve seen in various publications the story about her being featured in multiple IBM brochures because the men there liked her rear end. Not really sure where I’m going with this, other than to reiterate that Edie Windsor is a BAMF.

Another circles back to the Richards row:

I don’t know what else there is to be said about this, but one of the things that bothered me most about her conduct is that, although she professes to want to be accepted in this male-dominated field, she took the most hostile way possible to deal with the situation.

I don’t see how some geeky tech guys making a geeky tech joke that was sexual, and not directed at her or any woman, could really be construed as “sexist,” unless any mention of sex is inherently sexist, which, in my opinion, would be a sad state of affairs.  But be that as it may, if she really found it offensive, couldn’t she have just leaned over and asked them, politely, or even not-so-politely, to knock it off?  If they had persisted in making their juvenile jokes at that point, then perhaps their behavior would actually have become an act of hostility toward her, or toward women, if she somehow represents all women.  Then she could have escalated if necessary.

I work a lot with men.  The people I work with most are men.  It has been this way for my entire career.  I am not easily offended, at least not by sexual, even arguably “sexist” jokes.  (I am probably fairly easily offended by criticism of my work, I don’t have a very thick skin.)  But even as someone who is not easily offended, there are times when the guys cross the line, or where I know their comments or conduct would cross the line for most women, and they should know so.  It has become kind of a running joke that I will say “that one’s going in my book,” meaning the book of evidence for my potential sexual harassment or hostile workplace lawsuit.  They know when I say that to back off.  And honestly, after so many years working together, I am usually more direct than that.  Last week, I had sent an e-mail to two men I was working with explaining a case that was helpful.  Less than 24 hours later, one of them sent an e-mail back, attaching the same case, with the same explanation, with no acknowledgment of my prior e-mail.  One man replied to the other’s e-mail and said “wow, that’s really helpful.  Can you send a copy of that?”  I was probably being petty, but I marched into his office, and asked “so do you just ignore my e-mails, or do you ignore all e-mails written by people without penises?  Was the case more helpful when pointed out by someone with a penis?”  He laughed, but more importantly was embarrassed.

We still work in a very sexist world.   But haven’t we come far enough that we can talk to each other about the things that bother us?  Sure, sometimes the power differential between a man and a woman is such that a woman is afraid to speak up directly to the man.  But there is nothing about Adria Richard’s conduct to suggest she was afraid to speak to those men.  She just couldn’t be bothered to give them a chance to do the right thing.

Another recommends that men take action too:

I work for a large organization that was conducting a government-sponsored test of some hardware, with participation by several other large organizations and government representation.  (I’m being deliberately vague about an event that happened several years ago.) Late one day one of the participants representing another organization made some sexist remark in a group of 15 or 20 men. I don’t even remember what it was but it wasn’t the type of thing i was accustomed to hearing in the workplace.  He actually made this remark in the presence of a young female engineer on his own technical team. Except for a couple of our technicians not present during this incident, she was the only woman on the project with perhaps 40 or 50 men, mostly middle-aged or older engineers, scientists, software jocks, and managers.  I was working at a desk, not participating in the conversation, but I turned around, glanced at the young woman to see if she was going to say anything, and seeing that she was silent I said a few words to the effect of “We don’t make comments like that around here. We can get fired if we do.”   Then I went back to my work, and conversation went on.  No fuss, no hassle, no more sexist comments.

The next morning the young lady approached me. Apparently my words had given her the courage to report the sexist remark to her management and the offender had been fired overnight.  She asked if her management could phone me and apologize to me directly, but I politely declined the opportunity.  I don’t know any more about what happened, but I suspect that she used me as an excuse, i.e. “he was offended; we should apologize” was an easier position for her to take than “I was offended; he should apologize”.

I was glad to help her achieve a harassment-free workplace.  And I was offended by the comment, too, although my remark was made in a mild tone and I’m not sure that it was blatantly evident that I was offended.  I was offended not because I’m a woman; I’m a 60-ish man with three children including a young-adult daughter and grandchildren.  I ask myself “what if she were my daughter or grand-daughter, would i want her to have to endure that?” I’m not sorry this jerk got fired but I would have flipped out if the young woman got fired for making a complaint.

It’s the responsibility of every person present to object to sexist remarks, especially those made in the presence of someone likely to take offense.  No woman, no person should be forced to defend herself or to suffer in silence.  No more than we should tolerate racist comments or homophobic comments, or heaven forbid “ageist” comments.  It will stop only if someone speaks up EVERY time it happens.  Furthermore, knowing that someone is on your side can be very important to the victim of that kind of remark.   And if speaking out gets sexist/racist/whatever people fired, “pour encourager les autres” – so be it.

Update from another regarding the second-to-last reader above:

Her anecdote immediately brought to mind a greeting card my wife once received from a friend that pictured a board of directors (with one woman) sitting at the boardroom table with the CEO stating, “That’s an excellent suggestion Ms. Windsor, perhaps one of the men at the table would like to make it?”

(Image sent by a reader, who adds: “I saw variants of this ad running in the old Byte and PC Magazine back in the ’90s. It’s a rather obvious joke.”)