A history of ranting

The very first persuasive piece I wrote, that wasn't for classwork, was around 6th or 7th grade. I had done plenty before then, all for class. I didn't realize what this particular piece meant until much later.

What managed to get my ire up enough to do a bit of unsolicited creative writing? It was in a Gifted and Talented class, and we were told that we were going to be doing journals this quarter. Journal writing had been the subject of my ire for some time, as I had done units with them in 4th, 5th, and maybe as early as 3rd grade.

Journals were a tool used by teachers to inspire their students to write more. They catalyzed this by giving writing assignments. Sometimes it was, "give me four paragraphs on this topic," and other times it was, "copy these two paragraphs." They always introduced the Journal section with words to the effect of:

This is a journal in your own words. Put anything you want in there. These are yours.

Um. Riiiiiight. What raised the ire of my 6th or 7th grade self was the hypocrisy of the whole set up. And this gifted and talented class started the unit true to form with two paragraphs about Martin Luther King to copy down in our journals. The text was written with lots of "I" statements, such as "I believe that", and "I think that." Text we were supposed to copy down into our journals, which were "in our words", mind, and turn in for grading.

I copied down the required text but I made an addendum. Four paragraphs on why the Journal exercise was fundamentally flawed. I no longer remember what I wrote, but I do remember the main points.

• If these are 'in our words' then why do we have to copy in required text and submit it for grading?
• The text we are required to copy always was written as if a student wrote it. Are you trying to put words in my mouth?

I'm not sure, but I suspect I made an impact with this particular teacher. This was the last time I went through the Journal exercise, so I don't have a lot of data. The rest of the unit contained much less 'copy this text' and a lot more 'give me four paragraphs on this topic'. I still resented the exercise, but at least the later style of assignment was more palatable.

The prejudice against journaling stayed with me for some time. This is unfortunate, as I'm something of a natural diarist. What was the nail in the coffin was the problems a certain senator from Oregon had with his own diaries in the early 1990's.

Bob Packwood got into trouble for the age old problem of boinking interns. During his fall attempts were made to subpoena his diaries. The fight over whether or not the diaries were a form of protected speech was made, and eventually, if I remember right, the Supreme Court opined that the diaries were admissible.

The lesson I took home from this particular event was:

Anything written down, anything at all, can be held against you in a court of law.

As I said, that made an impression on me. It was at that point that I resolved to never keep a diary. This was several years before the advent of blogging, HTML as a language was JUST being standardized for the first time when Packwood imploded, so it was an easy decision to make. This was why I steered clear of social networking sites like Livejournal, and made the early connection between posting "I was sooooooo stoned last night," in a blog, prospective employers using a search engine to find it, and dropping the resume from consideration.

At the time I was thinking of political futures, where writing things down like that could be held against me even 30 years in the future. Unlike most of my peers I did not consider politicians icky, I knew too many of them for that. I eventually came to the realization that I'd never hold elective office, but the habits were well ingrained by then.

This very blog is a purposeful relaxing of my earlier stance. This represents opinion, and is not a daily log of what I did today. Opinion is something it is somewhat safe to share, though even now I have qualms about 20 years from now and these posts being held against me in some way. I do not post daily doings ("Went to Arbys last night. Boy I love their roast beef."), nor do I write about potentially illegal things as well ("I was sooooooo stoned last night").

Committing stuff like that to the written word requires robust encryption. And that, my friends, is a barrier to entry that I have so far not gotten over.

A REALLY LONG tunnel

CNN posted a story today about another proposal to link Russia to Alaska.

The idea is an interesting one. "Eventually, 3 percent of the world's cargo could move along the route, organizers hope," it says. That's a lot of cargo. A purely surface transit method for shipping all of that Asian cargo that does not involve huge container ships should be attractive to shippers. China and the United States both use the same rail gauge (1435mm), which means cars that run in China can theoretically run in the US.

Unfortunately, Russia has to be difficult. Russia uses a 1520mm gauge. Shipping between the two gauge systems requires cars to undergo a 'break of gauge', which means each car's bogies are changed out for bogies for the new gauge. Talgo has a system that permits axles to change their gauges, but it is not widely used. Which gauge to build the railroad on will be a source of debate, as Russia, China, and the US all have their own interests in not having to change the gauge of their rail. The best rail efficiencies can be found by having an end-to-end network on the same gauge. Unfortunately, doing anything in Russia now requires pandering to national interests which may force the break-of-gauge to occur if the project is to go anywhere.

Considering the volume of shipping from Asia to the North American markets, it would make sense for that tunnel line to have several to many different tracks. This, of course, increases the width needed. Add in the proposal to run fibreoptic and natural gas pipelines along this route and you have a whonking big tube under the ocean.

68 miles long, more than twice the length of the Chunnel.

This is mega-engineering. Paying for it will be a battle for the generations. I don't think it'll happen, but it still is a nice idea.

Reducing abortion access

This morning the Supreme Court upheld the "partial birth" abortion ban passed by Congress in 2003. This is legislation that has been struck down in the past by the Supreme Court due to lack of exemptions for the health of the mother. This time around it seems that same argument didn't hold in light of the new members of the Court.

This is a disappointing in a big way. This is a federal abortion ban, something that hasn't happened since Roe v. Wade struck down earlier bans. Congress has restricted access to abortion a number of ways over the years, chiefly financially and more recently through notification requirements, but had yet to ban the act itself in some key way. There are several cases wending their way through the court system relating to State action in opposition to abortion that now have better prospects than they did yesterday.

That said, the Roe v. Wade decision itself lined out a limit for when abortions could be banned. It affirmed the right to an abortion up to the point of viability. Medical science has pushed the boundary of viability quite a ways back from where it was in 1973. As with so much medical wizardry it is exceedingly expensive, but it can be done. I expect arguments relating to the viability of very premature babies to be used in support of further bans on abortions. Which will lead to pregnant mothers unable to pay for the medical care needed for a 4 month premature baby carrying to term instead, which is what abortion opponents wanted all along.

We're heading into an area of even more mixed access to abortion. Access is already very different, even among 'blue' states. The number of abortion providers in Minnesota is under ten and all in the Twin Cities, yet in Washington State the number of providers is much higher and available outside the Seattle metro area. In some southern states there are also less than five providers. If further restrictions on access are enacted into law it will deepen access differences.

Even blue states are having a hard time maintaining access to abortion. In light of this Supreme Court decision, drives to enact more stringent restrictions will increase. The prospect of being shot down by the Supreme Court now looks less likely. Things such as the outright ban on abortion enacted by South Dakota are still going to get challenged, and likely get overturned, but less extreme measures are another thing entirely.