A Paradox

 I found this while stumbling today and thought I would share it:

[A man condemned to be hanged] was sentenced on Saturday. "The hanging will take place at noon," said the judge to the prisoner, "on one of the seven days of next week. But you will not know which day it is until you are so informed on the morning of the day of the hanging."
The judge was known to be a man who always kept his word. The prisoner, accompanied by his lawyer, went back to his cell. As soon as the two men were alone, the lawyer broke into a grin. "Don't you see?" he exclaimed. "The judge's sentence cannot possibly be carried out."
"I don't see," said the prisoner.

"Let me explain. They obviously can't hang you next Saturday. Saturday is the last day of the week. On Friday afternoon you would still be alive and you would know with absolute certainty that the hanging would be on Saturday. You would know this before you were told so on Saturday morning. That would violate the judge's decree."
"True," said the prisoner.
"Saturday, then is positively ruled out," continued the lawyer. "This leaves Friday as the last day they can hang you. But they can't hang you on Friday because by Thursday only two days would remain: Friday and Saturday. Since Saturday is not a possible day, the hanging would have to be on Friday. Your knowledge of that fact would violate the judge's decree again. So Friday is out. This leaves Thursday as the last possible day. But Thursday is out because if you're alive Wednesday afternoon, you'll know that Thursday is to be the day."
"I get it," said the prisoner, who was beginning to feel much better. "In exactly the same way I can rule out Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. That leaves only tomorrow. But they can't hang me tomorrow because I know it today!"
... He is convinced, by what appears to be unimpeachable logic, that he cannot be hanged without contradicting the conditions specified in his sentence. Then on Thursday morning, to his great surprise, the hangman arrives. Clearly he did not expect him. What is more surprising, the judge's decree is now seen to be perfectly correctly. The sentence can be carried out exactly as stated.

Appointed Dictators and the Poor

Watch this video from the Rachel Maddow Show:

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There are two separate problems I'd like to address separately, beginning with Catherine Ferguson. I'm not going to lie, I teared up when I saw the video of the girls being arrested. This is one of the only schools in the country that gives a care at all if you're poor and have to support a child all while trying to graduate from High School. That school is giving them a future. But Robert Bobb is threatening to take it away to make budget cuts? That is disgusting. Of all the schools that could have been singled out to be demolished, it had to be that one. They have a future ahead of them that may be destroyed if they do not have that school. But the state of Michigan, its governor, and Robert Bobb do not care. If they want Detroit to improve as a city, destroying one of the few schools that help poor young mothers get an education is not going to do that. It not only has a 90% graduation rate, but a 90% graduation rate for teenagers with children. It's not a dysfunctional school, it is working.
The second issue is about Benton Harbor, which also was assigned a.. I don't even know the proper title, overseer?.. to replace the city's elected officials. This one decided that it was best to sell the city's public beach park to a private business to develop a golf course. A very expensive golf course, that probably nobody in the city of Benton Harbor can afford. You may so, oh well, it can provide more jobs, boost business. But you have to ask what businesses will move in, if any. It won't be a business that is developed by a citizen of Benton Harbor, it will be a chain business with a financial sector somewhere else, maybe even out of the state. So these businesses will only take money out of Benton Harbor while hiring citizens for minimum wage. This decision isn't being made for the interest of the people of Benton Harbor at all. And this seems to be a common problem with Imminent Domain, though I recognize this is different. But in both cases, the land that is meant to be for the public good is privatized. The government removes residential areas and then sells it to private business, stating that its for the common good because it will provide jobs and increase revenue for the city. But in the meantime the poor people are evicted from their homes. Homes that will be demolished to build a mall. Yet, without it urban development may be extremely difficult, and it does bring in revenue and does benefit the city. But it benefits  people disproportionately. Rich people will not be removed from their homes, only poor areas where the houses can be paid off for cheap. Houses that are often rented or under mortgage still, and even if the government pays market value people may still end up on the streets unable to afford new housing.

Iowa Under Attack Again

Last fall election Iowa voters decided to fire three of its Supreme Court Justices over the "controversial" ruling that legalized gay marriage in this state. If that wasn't enough, now the Iowa House is trying to impeach the rest of the Justices. They claim that they violated the separation of powers by legislating from the bench, a common criticism for judges who rule that the government has no right to get  involved in people's private lives.

According to the article, most Iowas are opposed to this idea. Which I find hard to believe given that Iowa voters practically did the same thing last fall. I suppose I have nothing else to add, besides I really dislike Iowa's House, but am very grateful for the Iowa Senate.

Fair Trials and Liability

I’m going to start with a brief lesson on substantive versus procedural justice. Stealing the example my professor today used when explaining the difference, imagine a teacher creates a test. The test is graded without knowing whose test is whose, all the questions are the same, each grade is worth the same points, all around it is equal. That’s procedural justice, it follows the rules and is equal. However, everyone in the class fails it. Obviously there is something wrong, the teacher’s instruction was inadequate or the questions were unfair. Maybe even everyone in the class is dumb or didn’t put enough effort into it, but either way there probably should have been more done to prevent every single student from failing it. The professor says “too bad, I followed the rules. It’s fair. Deal with it” and the students cannot do anything. Sure, it’s procedural justice. It is not Substantive Justice, however. It is not fair, equal maybe, but not fair.

The teacher in the example said “too bad, deal with it” and that is exactly what the Supreme Court said to a man who served 14 years in prison and was then found innocent. Even though it was obvious that prosecutors hid evidence, evidence that was on track to cost an innocent man his life, it was not enough to find the District Attorney’s office liable. They sentenced him to death, took 14 years of his life away from him, yet they are in no way at fault? The fact they hid evidence such as witness testimony clearly shows there was “deliberate indifference”. When my Professor discussed this case in my class, she seemed to think this was substantive injustice, but not procedural injustice. Maybe I misunderstood her. I don’t see how this wasn’t procedural injustice as well, unless they intentionally ignore evidence every time. She also said that the Supreme Court usually makes decisions based off of procedural justice, not substantive. The last time the courts really paid attention to the latter was during the civil rights era, with cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. This leads me to two questions. Should our Supreme Court focus again on substantive justice as well as procedural, or stick with the current system? Also, if prosecutors intentionally hide evidence from a jury, and the defendant is then found guilty and executed, should the prosecutors be held liable or criminally responsible in any way?

Day of One-Sided Dialogue

The Day of Silence is coming up and will be held on April 15th. I don't have classes that day anyways, so I will not be participating this year (although not being able to talk to anybody will probably help me get more work done...). What's more interesting this year is not DoS, however. It is the Day of Discussion, previously titled the Day of Truth, which is being held on the 18th.

I am under the impression that The Day of Truth is being sponsored by a different organization than previous years. A reason for the name change may be due to the recent spike in publicity of suicides committed because of anti-gay harassment. Or they simply don't want to seem as adversarial, but it's really just a sugar-coating. It is being depicted as an opportunity for christian students to "freely" engage in dialogue with others about the love of Jesus and the truth about the bible. Their site states "Focus on the Family firmly believes that the truth will rise to the surface when honest conversations are allowed to happen." The problem here is that it has the same problems that the Day of Truth has. On the surface it may seem more accepting, open for those who support DoS to also provide their viewpoints and express their beliefs. But it's not. It is meant only for those who oppose the DoS to continue attacking the DoS and gay students in the name of religion. They are not being open to hear about how gay people are born the way they are, or that they are at a much higher risk of suicide, depression, and other mental health problems due to the harassment and bullying they are much more likely to face everyday. They claim to balance out the "homosexual-themed" day by engaging in discussion instead of silence. Seems pretty adversarial to me. It's not called the day of truth, yet they are still not being open to other religious opinions or even other interpretations of the bible.

They are also trying to hide under the guise of also trying to prevent bullying, stating "His [Jesus] example calls us to stand up for those being harmed or bullied while offering the light of what God's Word says." Yet, the Day of Silence is not about acceptance of homosexuality, it is about preventing harassment of LGBT students and those perceived to be LGBT. So when a student goes to school on the 18th and gets bombarded by students participating in DoT (sorry, DoD) they don't interpret it as a loving message. The message that is being sent is "The pain you go through and the homophobia you face everyday could be avoided if you accepted Jesus into your heart and stopped being gay". That's the only message, pure and simple. And another side note, I caught a girl on their video ask "Does God really have any good advice for us in there?" in reference to relationships and marriage.Which kind of made me laugh because I know in one part of the bible one advice it gives about marriage is that you should marry your rapist, although to be fair I don't know if that's in the new or old testament. 

I also found a rather creepy part of their website "Jesus first reminded his followers that God made us in His own image, male and female. Our masculinity or femininity reflects something of God’s character. Justice and mercy. Strength and beauty. Initiative and response. These complementary qualities show us something about who God is." So their website is not only homophobic but sexist as well. It's not that I am opposed to students being able to have free speech in High School, in fact I always wished it was more open to free speech (although there is a significant different between this day being held after the Day of Silence and a similar event being held on the actual day, the latter I do have a problem with). I still retain the right to complain about the content of that speech, though.

Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family has been quoted stating "What is freedom of speech, after all, but a guarantee of the right to have dialogue?" which it is not. It takes two or more people to have a dialogue, and a dialogue is not their intention at all. They want to be allowed to preach. Which, whatever, is okay to an extent in public schools. But as soon as a student wants a student acting liek this to back off, they better back off. It's not a restriction on the fundamentalist's freedom of speech, it's a protection of the other student's right to an education and not be harassed. I also have a problem with sugar-coating things, like saying you're praying for atheists instead of saying they're going to hell. Pretty much the same thing, in fact sometimes I feel like I prefer the latter. 

*note* I'm glad that I now know what I am talking about. When my friend first brought it up to me I thought it was a post-Day of Silence event that was meant to vocally educate others about harassment to break us out of the silence, so I was kind of confused about why they were putting such a religious slant on it. How embarrassing.

In Soviet Russia, cows milk YOU

I gave into conformity recently and began using Stumbleupon. So far I love it, and thought I'd share something stumbledupon here.

• Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
• Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you all the milk you need.
• Bureaucratic Socialism: Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.
• Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
• Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
• Real World Communism: You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the most “need”. Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
• Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
• Perestroika: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the “free” market.
• Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
• Militarianism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
• Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
• Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
• Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
• British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheeps’ brains and they go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.
• Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
• Pure Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
• Pure Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
• Capitalism: You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral.
• Enviromentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
• Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently – aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
• Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

What I find interesting about these analogies is that America is a mix of Bureaucracy and Representative Democracy, and mostly Bureaucracy. Someone in the comment section also added this: 
"American Capitalism: You have two cows. Someone who has a million cows floods the market with milk. You are forced to sell your cows to a shell company secretly owned by the man who now has 2 million cows. The man with 2 million cows donates 100 cows to politicians who pass laws that make it all but impossible for you to get into the cow market. You now work for the man with 2 million cows and use your money to buy milk from him. You are thankful to have a job and you think it’s nice that he donates some milk to charity."

Someone also added "In Soviet Russia, cows milk YOU," which is perfect. Hence the title.