"Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain."

What does a terrorist eat?

Does he prefer the chicken or the fish? Does he require a low-sodium meal? Does he ask for orange juice, diet soda or a bloody mary? Does he ask for a second bag of nuts? Does he like to sit in a window seat to watch the mountains go by beneath him? Does he try to engage his neighbor, who is obviously trying to read, in conversation? Does he read a Grisham novel or the in-flight magazine? Does he ask the flight attendant for aspirin because of the screaming kid in the row behind him who won't stop kicking his chair? Does he use the air sickness bag? Does he giggle at the stupid Jim Belushi sitcom rerun they show in flight? Does he try to convince his girlfriend to meet him in the lavatory so they can join the "mile-high club"?

The fightening thing is that Homeland Security thinks that questions like these have answers. Worse, they believe they know the answers. They are so confident in their expertise that think they can assign you a score based on, among many other things, which meal you order on the flight and this score tells them whether or not you are a terrorist. Your score is so useful that Homeland Security intends to keep it on file for forty years and so accurate that there is no need to let you know it has ever been assigned to you or to let you challenge it in a courtroom.

Of course, we all know that the middle-aged Caucasian Southern Baptist from Arkansas will never be given a high score, despite his connections with a group responsible for shooting a doctor in Houston because she has performed abortions and burning down a gay bar in Atlanta with many patrons still inside. Instead, an Iranian man, a physician who has been honored for his volunteer work at a pediatric burn unit in his community, a married father of four with pro-Western sympathies, will switch seats on a flight from Paris to Boston because another passenger has had four cocktails and has become obnoxious. This innocent move will cause his arrest and detention by Homeland Security upon arrival at his destination because he just happened to move to a seat above the wing. He will never see an attorney or a judge. He will never know why he is being detained or tortured. He will never see his family again because he thinks the only way to end the torture is to confess to something he never did. They will never know what happened to him. All because he committed the crime of FWM - Flying While Muslim.

I would laugh at the irony of this, except it isn't funny. The real story here isn't the arrogance of federal officials who think they can apply a mathematical formula to expose terrorists; it's the fact that Americans have remained complacent while their nation gradually turned into a fascist state. We were all taught it could never happen here because of our precious Constitution. We have now learned the hard way that our civil rights are like potted plants: they shrivel up and die if they aren't nurtured. After 9/11, we were duped into believing that we needed to temporarily give up some rights so our government could protect us. Then, they said it wasn't enough; we needed to give them more power to protect us. By the time we got wise to the ruse, we had already allowed the passage of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. These two laws, more than any other, have gutted the Constitution.

It seems, though, that we may have stopped it in time. We still have the right to vote and we exercised that right a few weeks ago by affecting regime change at home. Had voter turnout been much lower, perhaps we would have lost the power to elect our representatives in government, too. There but for the grace of God, indeed.

Now we, as Americans, have the responsibility of keeping the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate on their toes. We must remind them frequently that we want our civil rights back. We mustn't get complacent and trust someone blindly just because he or she has a 'D' by their name. After all, many Democrats have been complicit in the attacks on our Constitution over the past five years. Many are already working to reverse the erosion on our civil liberties, but they will need all the help the can get. Help them by writing to commend them when they defend the Constitution and criticize them when they fail to protect it. Help them by calling for the resignation of any Democrat found to be corrupt, even when you have supported them in the past. Help them by making them work for you. Otherwise, the Democratic Party won't be able to improve anything. I don't want to see the country's power divided between two parties that aren't different at all, because that would by the last nail in the coffin.

Another reason to abolish HOAs

A Denver HOA has ordered a resident to take down a Christmas wreath in the shape of a peace sign because some of her neighbors have taken offense to it.

Now, how could a reasonable human being object to a universal symbol of peace, one of the central values of their own religion? Well, a reasonable person wouldn't. Only a stupid person would.

Their stupidity is confirmed by their reasons for taking offense to it. Some neighbors have confused it with a pentagram, which they have confused with a pentacle, which they erroneously believe is a symbol of Satanism.

If you are under this pernicious delusion, please take a note of the differences between the three symbols in this handy diagram:

As you can see, there are pronounced differences between the symbols. So there goes that argument.

Of course, if you want to get technical, even if she had displayed a pentacle or pentagram, it couldn't be considered an explicitly Satanic symbol because both symbols have been used by many cultures to represent God or some concept associated with God. The star of David is an example of a pentacle (the etymology of which has nothing to do with the number five, despite common misconceptions). Early Christians displayed pentagrams to respresent the wounds that Jesus suffered on the cross. It's not really necessary to go into all of this to refute the arguments of the peace sign opponents, but it does illustrate their ignorance of the history of their own religious traditions.

The other reason neighbors cited for objecting to the peace sign is that it expresses opposition to the war in Iraq, in which some of their sons and daughters are fighting. Here they are making rash assumptions about her reasons for hanging the wreath. Let's ignore the issue of whether the war is legal or morally right and focus on the meaning of the symbol. Again, a little history lesson will illuminate the matter. The peace sign was created for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958. The symbol is derived from the semaphore symbols for 'N' and 'D'. So the peace sign is nothing more than a stylized acronym for "Nuclear Disarmament." Of course, the peace sign became a symbol for the movement against the Vietnam War. Beyond that, it has become a symbol for the ideal of world peace, something that real Christians wouldn't object to. The peace sign has no explicit connection to the war in Iraq, and one would think that opposition to the Vietnam War is no longer a hot-button issue. Once again, the HOA's reasoning has been proven fallacious.

Having established that our heroine was, in fact, explicitly supporting the abstract notion of world peace and not necessarily intending to express a stance on the current war, let's turn our attention to why the concept of peace should not be controversial.

There are numerous references to the ideal of peace in the New Testament. For example, Matthew 5:9 says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." James 3:18 says, "Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." There are also numerous associations between peace and Christmas in folk tradition, especially in carols. On famous example is in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", written by Charles Wesley in 1739. "Peace on earth and mercy mild" are lauded as the consequences of the coming of the Messiah. If the offended neighbors intend on singing this particular carol this year, in public or in private, they have no leg to stand on in their objections.

However, there is reason to believe that the campaign against the peace wreath has more to do with the personal ambitions of the HOA president. The architectural control committee voted to allow the wreath in accordance with the HOA's rules. The president, however, was dissatisfied with the result of this vote and fired all five committe members.

This goes to the center of why HOAs should be abolished or, at the very least, heavily regulated. They frequently go way beyond protecting property values and abridge the civil rights of homeowners without due process. There is no way the presence of a peace sign wreath, controversial or not, can severely affect neighbors' property values. This is entirely about trying to control what fellow Americans think and say, which is the very definition of un-American. I hope that the new Democratic majorities in both houses will make limiting the power of HOAs part of the 2007 legislative agenda.

R.I.P., H. Donald Wilson

H. Donald Wilson, creator of LexisNexis, one of the most kick-ass research tools used by libraries, passed away November 12th at the age of 82.

If you have never used LexisNexis, you should definitely try it. Unfortunately, I didn't know about it for most of my undergrad. I wish I had because it would have been useful. I went to a staff training for LexisNexis last year and I really enjoyed using it.

LexisNexis provides full-text access to federal court cases, campaign finance contributions, Congressional proceedings, census statistics and many other useful data sources. If you are affiliated with a university, you probably have access to LexisNexis. If not, you can contact public libraries in your area to find out whether they subscribe. Check it out if you get a chance.

Tenants' rights in Arizona

Michael is having a dispute with his apartment complex's management. They have been renovating both pools, the clubhouse and the gym in preparation for a condo conversion for some weeks now, denying access to current tenants. The management has so far refused to discount Michael's rent in light of the unavailability of these facilities. Here is what I've found in Arizona's Residential Landlord & Tenant Act, Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 33, Chapter 10:

ARTICLE 1. GENERAL PROVISIONS

33‐1310. General definitions

10. “Premises” means a dwelling unit and the structure of which it is a part and existing facilities and appurtenances therein, including furniture and utilities where applicable, and grounds, areas and existing facilities held out for the use of tenants generally or whose use is promised to the tenant.

ARTICLE 2. LANDLORD OBLIGATIONS

33‐1324. Landlord to maintain fit premises

A. The landlord shall:

2. Make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition.

ARTICLE 4. REMEDIES

33‐1361. Noncompliance by the landlord

A. Except as provided in this chapter, if there is a material noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement, including a material falsification of the written information provided to the tenant, the tenant may deliver a written notice to the landlord specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and that the rental agreement will terminate upon a date not less than ten days after receipt of the notice if the breach is not remedied in ten days... For the purposes of this section, material falsification shall include... the condition of the premises and any current services as represented by the landlord in writing as well as any written representation.

In Arizona, landlords and property management companies use the Arizona Landlord's Deskbook and they know exactly what their obligations under the law are. However, unless you make it clear that you know, they will play dumb. Every renter should know ARS33-10 backward and forward so they can avoid getting screwed.

Burglary

I arrived home tonight to find two officers in the house. They had responded to the security alarm, which had begun to sound only minutes before. Burglars had broken two windows, moved the couch across the room, and left hastily without stealing anything. The best news is that Missy and Sugarfoot were unharmed. Missy seemed happy to have met some new people, without any suspicion of their sinister motives. I found Sugarfoot hiding under the bed, scared but safe. Minutes later, she was frolicking about the living room floor as though nothing had happened.

1. Vladislav Delay: The Four Quarters
2. Super Furry Animals: Guerrilla
3. Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs
4. Arizona Amp and Alternator: Arizona Amp and Alternator
5. DJ Shadow: Endtroducing...