Freespace

"My Way" by Los Lonely Boys

Will this be prosecuted as a hate crime?

White family savagely beaten because of their race. Perpetrator only charged with “second degree battery.”

Swaziland witch ceilings--or chauvinistic assumptions of ignorance?

Several sources are reporting that the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority has "banned" witches from flying their broomsticks above a certain altitude. An amusing idea, to be sure, but I suspect there's more, and less, to this story than we may assume.

I haven't been able to find the original report online, but a few of the second-hand reports note that the Swaziland media was unclear whether the quoted official was joking. Moreover, as this and other stories acknowledge, the whole incident began when a man was charged with illegally operating a camera-equipped remote-control helicopter above a certain altitude. When a reporter asked an official, Sabelo Dlamini, to explain the charge, Dlamini said that witches on broomsticks would have to stay below the limit--which sounds to me like a cute rhetorical exaggeration. If I were taking about U.S. civil rights laws, and said it was illegal to discriminate against "black, white, brown, or even polka-dotted people," nobody would assume that I was saying that I actually believe there are polka-dotted people. If I were explaining fire-prevention rules, and said "The Human Torch himself would have to obey these restrictions," nobody would think I believed the Torch really existed.

Why, then, the immediate assumption that this African gentleman must so backward as to believe in witchcraft--let alone the exaggerated claim in many sources that Swaziland has "banned" high-flying witches? True, many in Swaziland actually do believe in witchcraft...but that's also true of the U.S.

I could be wrong; the country may indeed have prohibited high-altitude broom-flying. But I doubt it. I suspect there's some other explanation for the media's smug assumption that Mr. Dlamini believes in black magic. Well? Any suggestions?

Cool freedom-themed T-shirts

I ordered this shirt from Declaration Clothing the other day. It's great, and the customer service was very nice, too. They allowed me to return the one I'd ordered that was too small. And items come with some nice little freebies, too. Check them out.

Help rebuild the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival

...which was damaged by thieves last year.

A villanelle on Freedom Tower

A million pages flashed in midday light,
hovering above that ghastly space
like wings of countless angels taking flight.
 
Your heart seemed to shatter at the sight
of all those tiny stars falling from space:
a million pages flashing midday light

against the boiling smoke. You couldn’t quite
believe, above that death, the paper’s grace,
like wings of countless angels taking flight

from hell, or snowflakes on a summer night;
each a precious life now burnt to waste.
Then the papers splashed the morning light

on grief, on hate, and on our darkest fright:
well-deserved distrust of the human race.
But like the wings of an angel taking flight,
  
today a spire reaches again the height
that cruelty could not with all its death disgrace.
Fifty thousand panes now gleam with light,
like wings of countless angels taking flight.

Freedom Tower tops out

They've put the spire on Freedom Tower, bringing the building to 1,776 feet in height. Sorta.

"Mankind will never destroy itself. Nor should it think of itself as destroyed. Not so long as it does such things as this." -Ayn Rand

Star Trek's irrelevance

It's worthwhile to revisit Abigail Nussbaum's fantastic review of Star Trek (2009).

No, it's not art...

...but I like it. Heck, I've felt that way about some books, myself.

They should have someone read Cummings. So to speak.

Surfing orcas

A very cool video. One of Earth's most terrifying predators is so cute!