"The Big One" Maybe...

Lori Lancaster | August 10, 2006
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Anna Gregoline | August 10, 2006
I know this is a U.S. media outlet, but I'm suspicious that all the reporting of what happened and what was going to happen is coming from the U.S. government - I'd like to hear more about what the British government is saying, considering they have more cause for concern (their "jurisdiction" so to speak...) It seems there is a lot of confusion right now and no definite plots - but a lot of definite statements.

Scott Horowitz | August 10, 2006
Well, I'll be flying to England tomorrow morning. This flight is going to suck, no reading material and no electronics. I'd rather be safe than sorry, but I'm a little confused why I can't bring a paperback novel on the flight.

Lori Lancaster | August 10, 2006
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Steve Dunn | August 10, 2006
I saw the British and US law enforcement press conferences this morning. The US comments were considerably more restrained than the British.

Lori Lancaster | August 10, 2006
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Anna Gregoline | August 10, 2006
I have been at work, so I haven't watched television news coverage - but that UK article is littered with more U.S. comments than British ones, just like the previous US link.

I just find it odd, that's all. I've been reading things elsewhere but still can't get a purely British perspective.

Lori Lancaster | August 10, 2006
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Scott Horowitz | August 10, 2006
For flights to/from England, no carry-on permitted at all


American Airlines Information

Anna Gregoline | August 10, 2006
Wow, there are going to be a bunch of boring and tense flights...

Scott Horowitz | August 10, 2006
They keep changing the information though, before it said it included flights from the US, now it doesn't. I need to call them agian tonight to find out for sure.

Scott Hardie | August 11, 2006
...And it has probably changed again since you called, and will change again before the flight in the morning...

Since you won't see this until your return, Scott: I hope you had a wonderful trip.

Jackie Mason | August 11, 2006
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Jackie Mason | August 11, 2006
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Aaron Shurtleff | August 11, 2006
Boy, I hope I can still take my PSP to Copenhagen in three weeks. Or at least a book of sudoku puzzles to keep my wife from killing me. The puzzles are for the wife, of course...I can't get far on sudokus... ;)

Lori Lancaster | August 11, 2006
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Jackie Mason | August 11, 2006
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Lori Lancaster | August 11, 2006
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Jackie Mason | August 11, 2006
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Amy Austin | August 11, 2006
Take lots of tranqs with you... ;-D

Scott Hardie | August 12, 2006
Good luck keeping entertained, Jackie. The only thing I seem to be able to think about on a flight is how much I hate flying, unless the guy next to me is giving me breathless updates about his discoveries in the SkyMall catalog. The worst is when you finally land after the World's Longest Flight and you still have to sit there on the tarmac for twenty minutes because the other plane at your gate hasn't left yet. I can only imagine the intensity of that feeling after an overseas flight.

Kris Weberg | August 12, 2006
Women commit acts of violence against men, but I'd argue that a little historical context tends to reshape the debate. Recall, if you will, that things like marital rape were legal into the 1970s in much of this country.

I understand the urge many people have to wash their hands of the past and to argue that once legal equality is established, the effects of past inequalities should no longer have any weight, but a glance 'round the world tends to demonstrate just how long-lasting the effects can really be. It's surely no coincidence, for instance, that the places that have been colonized within the last 200 years or so are very generally much, much worse off than the places about which that isn't true. And the major exceptions -- the United States, Australia, Canada, etc. -- tend to be the places where the original colonizers and their descendants basically replaced the "indigenous" colonized people. The recent economic success stories in spots like India and the Republic of Ireland are just that: recent.

Why we'd expect radically different results for people whose rights were withheld by various means until into the 20th century is beyond me. The sad fact is, things like "battered woman syndrome" and the predominance of man-on-woman domestic violence (and related fatalities) over the reverse have a great deal of empirical evidence behind them. Society often takes time to catch up to the implications of relatively recent laws and rights. Expecting 20 or even 50 years of equality to undo the effects of 200+ years of inequality is, frankly, a bit wrongheaded.

Scott Hardie | August 14, 2006
But that's just it: The last twenty years haven't been equal, nor will the next fifty as long as VAWA and similar hate-crime legislation is on the books. The pieces of shit who killed Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena deserve to be punished for murder, but they don't deserve to be punished extra because their victims were LGBT. How does that help LGBT people gain equality, stop violence against LGBT victims, or achieve anything else except making LGBT political activists feel better? Swapping the order of the castes doesn't eliminate a caste system in society. I care that man-on-woman violence is so predominant and I want it to stop like any other crime, but I'm of the opinion that rigid adherence to true equality now is the most effective way to reduce the effects of past inequalities over time. To do otherwise perpetuates the very differences between us we're trying to eliminate and is logically indefensible, a conclusion based on feelings of guilt, remorse, and vengefulness. But then, those are some of the very clichés I said I'd offer.

I gotta ask, Kris: Did submit your comment in the wrong discussion, or did you submit it in the right one and I have another glitch to resolve? :-)