HAIGHT SPEECH

A friend of mine (hi, Oscar!) was wearing one of these Evil Mastermind shirts, and I just had to have one. I’m a software engineer by profession, with a somewhat acerbic personality, and ‘Your Code Is Suboptimal’ is probably going to turn into my new catch-phrase. Luckily, Eric Sink was giving them away free. Well, mostly.

The cost is that I have to have a picture taken of myself wearing the shirt and blog it (and give SourceForge permission to use the image). As an Objectivist, I try to adhere to the Trader Principle and fulfill my contracts. Herewith:

As a bonus, for the estimated three people reading this who don’t already know me personally, this is more or less what I look like. (The extent to which this does not look like me is the fault of my wife Anne and the GIMP. Figuring out which parts are me and which are her is left as an exercise to the reader.)

Today I went to an odd little store in Cupertino called the Lychee Tree. It’s best described as a Japanese version of a dollar store. Well, more exactly, it’s Japanese plus other generic China-made oddities. This particular store has an eBay presence as the seller “japan_bargain”, which I discovered purely by accident. The eBay items are a tiny fraction of the random knickknacks found on the shelves.

We will examine a small selection of items that I purchased there. We begin with:

The Flyswatter

For whatever reason, I have been totally unsuccessful at finding a flyswatter for sale in my neck of the woods (or even on the internet). It’s a simple thing designed for a simple use: swatting flying insects. In this part of California, we have seasonal problems with populations of tiny moths, and I was delighted to discover this Japanese flyswatter at the mere price of $1.75.

The Pill Case

One of the things I really like about Japan is the attention to detail and quality in even the most trivial, everyday items. This pill case is a great example. Multiple smaller boxes in rainbow colors all fitting inside a larger, clear case with a simple plastic latch on it. I love the simplicity and attractiveness of the design. Sure, I can buy pill cases here, but they usually come in some boring uniform color, like blue or white, and typically have something pre-printed on them, such as the day of the week.

I don’t want my pill case to be marked. If I want it marked, I can put little stickers on it. Apparently the Japanese maker of this pill case thought the same. Why mess it up the aesthetic of an otherwise ordinary item that can bring a bit of color into your day?

Sugar Dog

Here we start to get a bit strange (which is part of the charm of Japanese products). This box is a general-purpose thing for storing small jewelry, beads, tiny candies, or whatever else comes to mind.

It’s the Engrish on this package that I really love. “Lovery Animal World”. I can’t help but wonder if that’s supposed to say “Lovely”. The text on the box itself is hard to read in the picture, but it says “The kind hearted blue dog with a weakness for sweets”. I guess “Sugar Dog” is an appropriate name, then. I think it also implies that this box is intended for keeping small candies close at hand. I approve of this idea.

The Ear Cleaning Sticks

Japan has cotton swabs, I know for a fact. So this is presumably intended for some other purpose. I bought them because I just had to know.

These little plastic sticks come attached on a plastic tree (like plastic model kit parts), and you twist one free to use it. What I discovered is that the business end is sticky, so I suppose it’s meant to clean the outer ear canal by grabbing onto foreign particles. It doesn’t work so well for ear wax, since ear wax resists adhering to a sticky surface, so I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of this product is.

Apparently sticking it into your ear too far is contraindicated, as it is with cotton swabs. I’m not sure you could even get away with selling a product like this in the United States (the dollar store notwithstanding), because you know some moron is going to perforate their child’s eardrum with it.

The Syringe

When I first saw this item in the store, I did a double-take, because it can’t possibly be what it looks like. What is this for?

Closer examination reveals that the “needle” on this syringe is not sharp, or even pointed. It’s hollow, certainly, but you won’t be injecting any heroin with this baby.

The “needle” part screws onto the capsule firmly, which is quite a clever design since it is more water-tight than a snap-on design. I bought a blue one, but this item also was available in the store in pink.

More fabulous Engrish on the back of the package. I especially like the fact that the word “things” is hyphenated. The little diagram in the upper left looks disturbingly like a syringe pulling a dose of medication from a sealed ampoule. A closer looks, however, shows something that looks more like a fingernail polish bottle. The small text next to it says “Dropper for refilling such as perfume”.

Okay, so it’s supposed to be an eyedropper of sorts for transferring some liquid from a large container to a smaller one. The Japanese cosmetic products I saw at the store suggest that there is a big market for tiny, daily-supply containers for makeup and such, so this makes sense. I remain confused, however, about the choice of delivery vehicle for this. A syringe? Why not just an eyedropper?

Anyway, these items seemed to cry out for the “strange capitalism” tag. Japan has a product market that reflects its consumers and their culture. I’m always fascinated by the social customs revealed by products like this. I’m also fascinated by tiny containers and tiny things with moving parts, so stores like this feed some kind of personality quirk that I have. Hope you all enjoyed.

Zimbabwe continues its Mugabe-shaped implosion, this time with government-mandated price controls that are being enforced at the point of a gun.

(For simplicity’s sake, the quotes in today’s blog will be in 3 different colors, to represent 3 different sources:

In Yellow: Associated Press article dated July 14th, 2007

In Green: New York Times article dated May 2nd, 2006

In Pink: Canadian government report on Zimbabwe using data provided by STAT-USA, dated 2004

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Police impounded taxis that had not complied with government orders to cut fares, stranding commuters, state media reported, while shoppers stampeded stores as cornmeal, bread, meat and other staples vanished from groceries.

At least 100 taxis had been impounded since Wednesday, state radio said, in the latest crackdown since the government ordered price cuts of about 50 percent in response to the country’s rampant inflation. Since the June 25 order, consumers have wrestled over sudden bargains, and chief executives have been hauled into court for failing to cut prices.

This is why price controls don’t work. All they do is create shortages, and then the goods are not available at all, at any price.

Market forces will cause a business to resist lowering prices below its costs. That is, if a gas station buys its gasoline supply at $1.00 / gallon, and the government tells them they can only sell it for $0.75 / gallon and no more, then the gas station has two choices: refuse and survive, or obey and go out of business.

Devil’s Advocate: “Then the government just makes the gasoline supplier charge less for the gas, and then the gas station can buy it and make a profit.”

Counterargument: There are two possible sources for the gasoline: internal to the country, and imported from outside. If it’s imported, the supplier is going to tell the country to go to Hell, and then stop selling fuel there (because the profit is either lousy or nonexistent – no incentive). If the supply is from within the country, the supplier faces the same dilemma: is the government forcing a price reduction that is below the cost of producing the fuel? If so, to survive the company must refuse the price reduction.

Even a state-owned supplier is not immune to this economic truth. Producing goods has costs associated with it: Capital equipment such as refineries, wages to employees, raw materials (crude oil).

The report on Zimbabwe by the Canadian government back in 2004 made a parallel observation:

Construction has experienced very tough times recently, with income off more than 80 percent since 1999, as inflation and high capital costs have stifled spending on projects and building, a situation exacerbated by the hard currency shortage that prevents the importation of required equipment and fixtures for new buildings. Private companies in the transportation sector have similarly been hit hard by price controls and the hard currency shortage, the latter causing maintenance and fleet replacement difficulties. The private telecommunication sector is, on the whole, doing well; although rising equipment import costs and the need to pay international connection charges in hard currency have tested their strength and resiliency. Price controls, corruption and mismanagement have resulted in huge losses at many of Zimbabwe’s largest parastatals, including the Posts & Telecommunications Company, the national railway, the national oil company and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority. . .

Manufacturing, which has suffered extensively in recent years, is a victim of spiraling inflation, limited capital availability, declining real consumer incomes, critical hard currency and imported component shortages, and a shrinking human capital base, and as a result faces extreme uncertainty.

As government forces those costs to go down the results are poor quality equipment, poor quality or nonexistent employees, and insufficient raw materials. The 2006 article in the New York Times indicates what the consequences of this are:

The purity of Harare’s drinking water, siphoned from a lake downstream of its sewer outfall, has been unreliable for months, and dysentery and cholera swept the city in December and January. The city suffers rolling electrical blackouts. Mounds of uncollected garbage pile up on the streets of the slums.

These problems have been going on for at least a year now, probably longer. When the sanitary infrastructure breaks down, and people start getting sick and dying, panic sets in. People will become more and more desperate, and more and more willing to resort to violence to survive. Keeping order is already impossible, and the country is descending into anarchy:

Riot police were called Thursday to a wholesale store to control a stampede of shoppers gathering up reduced goods. Extra police were posted at downtown clothing and shoe stores.

People rush to buy what they can while the items are available. The lower prices are a primary incentive, but many people also realize that once the existing stock is gone, more will not be forthcoming. The paper currency is losing its value from day to day. Physical goods are what has value. So they hoard what they can get. This also causes people to take more than they need, leading to a distribution of goods that is unequal to actual demand:

“There’s a surrealism here that’s hard to get across to people,” Mike Davies, the chairman of a civic-watchdog group called the Combined Harare Residents Association, said in an interview. “If you need something and have cash, you buy it. If you have cash you spend it today, because tomorrow it’s going to be worth 5 percent less.”

Earlier in the week, the government withdrew the licenses of all private slaughterhouses, accusing them of refusing to reduce meat prices.

Restaurants and fast food outlets were also ordered to slash their prices. Police told one restaurant owner to “redesign the menu,” to eliminate more expensive gourmet dishes.

In several restaurants, steak was out of stock, waiters said.

Police even shut down the canteen at the Harare law courts, used by court officials, magistrates and police, for failing to comply with the price order, state media reported Friday.

Notice the direct connection here. Restaurants are asked to cut prices, but they can’t unless they can acquire the raw foods they need at lower prices, also. If the butcher refuses to sell them meat at the government-mandated lower prices, then the restaurant cannot survive. The butcher cannot comply with the lower prices because it, too, will die if it obeys. That leads to this:

Butcheries, stores, factories and gas stations were unable to replace materials sold at below the original cost since the prices edict.

The rush of people to buy up goods while they can causes existing stocks to run out more quickly. Then, no more supplies arrive, because suppliers either go out of business or they simply cannot provide more at the prices the government has fixed.

The Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, a respected privately owned business and political weekly, on Friday reported that central bank governor Gideon Gono expressed concerns over the prices crackdown, saying it likely would lead to widespread closures of businesses.

The fact that this newspaper is able to even print something resembling the truth, rather than Mugabe’s propaganda, is largely due to it being privately owned. The central bank governor, at least, appears to be reasonably intelligent about economics, which one would expect of a banking administrator.

State radio on Friday quoted Simon Khaya Moyo, Zimbabwe’s ambassador in neighboring South Africa, dismissing media reports there predicting the collapse of the economy, ending President Robert Mugabe’s long reign.

Translation: Simon Moyo is 1) Mugabe’s lapdog, 2) an idiot, or 3) both.

Official inflation is 4,500 percent, the highest in the world, though independent financial institutions estimate real inflation is closer to 9,000 percent.

I like how the article just presents this naked fact right after reporting denials that the economy is in bad shape.

The New York Times article provides some context for these inflation numbers. Keep in mind that at the time of the article, inflation in Zimbabwe had not yet reached 1000%:

. . .at a supermarket near the center of this tatterdemalion capital, toilet paper costs $417.

No, not per roll. Four hundred seventeen Zimbabwean dollars is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs $145,750 — in American currency, about 69 cents.

The price of toilet paper, like everything else here, soars almost daily, spawning jokes about an impending better use for Zimbabwe’s $500 bill, now the smallest in circulation.

But what is happening is no laughing matter. For untold numbers of Zimbabweans, toilet paper — and bread, margarine, meat, even the once ubiquitous morning cup of tea — have become unimaginable luxuries. All are casualties of the hyperinflation that is roaring toward 1,000 percent a year, a rate usually seen only in war zones.

The article is accompanied by this interesting graphic:

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change described the price cuts as a political gimmick to shore up support for Mugabe’s party.

If that is Mugabe’s intent, then he’s an idiot, too. But we already knew that. I’m surprised the guy hasn’t been assassinated yet (although I hear there have been attempts). This is an absolute catastrophe that will have a severe impact on Africa as a whole, and set back the general level of civilization there by many decades.

It is, however, an object lesson in how certain kinds of economic policies don’t work, and often have the opposite effect from that intended. Price controls Do. Not. Work. I can’t say it enough, folks.

Usually I’m not impressed by France, which includes not being impressed by their modern art. However, I’m making an exception this year with the advent of the Loire Estuary 2007 project. Basically, it’s a 40-mile stretch of river in France that is the territory of a number of outdoor, freestanding (or floating) works of art. The entry that has attracted the most attention is Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s “Badeend”, which translates to “Rubber Duck”:

I submit to you that this is made of 100% Awesome™. I giggle uncontrollably every time I look at a picture of it, although I’m not sure why. Hofman has this to say about his work:

A yellow spot on the horizon slowly approaches the coast. People have gatherd and watch in amazement as a giant yellow Rubber Duck approaches. The spectators are greeted by the duck, which slowly nods its head. The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relief mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!

The rubber ducky is made of rubber-coated PVC, with a pontoon and a generator to keep it inflated. It is free-floating, and has prompted a “duck hunt” up and down the Loire river among visitors eager to see the duck. It might be a good thing that this particular ducky does not have a squeaker. It would break windows from Tours to Lyon.

In all fairness, the artist is Dutch, so I suppose I’m still not impressed by France.

All images are © Florentijn Hofman

One of the things Kyle and I have noticed is a growing low-level incompetence of people in their paying jobs. I’ll let him explain that more at length if he feels like it, since he’s better at articulating what we mean. Today’s blog entry is about another data point in that body of evidence.

A couple of weeks back, I ordered a wall calendar from an online office supply company (which I won’t name). Nothing fancy, just paper with a cardboard backing that I can hang on the wall. I needed one now because I’m going to start the academic school year soon and I keep track of things better if they’re on the wall in front of my face instead of in a day planner. So the calendar I ordered is a 2007 calendar:

Problems begin when the thing arrives. Below is a photo of the calendar itself. On top of it is the box it came in:

Notice the disjunct between the size and shape of the box, and the calendar (also note, just for amusement’s sake, how badly damaged the box is. UPS delivered it like that). You may be wondering how they made it fit.

Yep. They folded it. Twice. I’ll remind you that the calendar has a cardboard (read: rigid) backing.

Okay. I’m less annoyed by the condition of the calendar than I am by the sheer ineptitude, or perhaps laziness, that caused whoever packed this item to think this was acceptable. So I sent email to the company that boiled down to “I can still use this calendar but c’mon guys, what the hell? You might want to talk to your drop-ship company about this.”

So a few days later I get a voicemail from someone at the company. She gives me her name and her direct phone number, and apologizes. She says she takes full responsibility and that she will 1) mail me a new one, flat this time, and 2) send me a UPS return shipping label so I can return the damaged one without paying shipping.

I’m pretty impressed by this, since it’s rare for a company to respond so promptly and thoroughly to a customer complaint, much less for someone to take ownership of the remedy. So I wait a few days. Then, the new one arrives:

Looks good so far. It arrived flat (note the simple solution: a regular box, unfolded flat and then taped). I’m pleased. Then after I take the new calendar out, I notice something:

Notice any difference between the two? My original damaged one is on the left. New one is on the right. Need a hint? Okay:

Yeah. They sent me a 2008 calendar for a replacement, rather than the 2007 I needed.

At this point I actually feel kind of sorry for the woman who took charge of fixing this problem for me. I’ve been in her position (making a retarded mistake and then making another retarded mistake in trying to rectify it), and it’s utterly humiliating. When she calls back to follow-up (which she said she would), I’m not going to be mean about it. But I will suggest that I just keep both and we’ll call it even.

My primary concern was making the company aware of the fact that their packing employees may require some re-training. I can use the 2007 calendar. It’s just bent a little. But damn…folding something rigid to make it fit in a box is right up there with sawing a ladder in half to make it fit sideways through a doorway.

Attention customers of my storage facility: The following are not legitimate excuses for having late fees waived:

1. “I never got my bill.” Read your contract. It states (and you were told at the time you rented) that we do not invoice. What we send you is a courtesy reminder that your rent is coming due. It is your responsibility to remember to pay your rent on time. Failure of the post office to deliver your mail properly is not our problem. Do you think the phone company would be sympathetic to “I didn’t get my bill”? Do you think the IRS would let you off if you told them you never got your W-2 form?

2. “I don’t have a lot of money. Can you cut me a break?” If you don’t have a lot of money, then pay your goddamn rent on time and you won’t have extra fees to pay. If you don’t like it, take your stuff somewhere else. If you can’t afford to have a storage unit, then don’t have one. We don’t want to hear your whining about how life is unfair and you’re just trying to get by, especially while you flash your $300 cell phone and trendy clothes after getting out of a brand new VW Beetle. If you’re under the age of 25, sport any kind of retarded goatee (if you’re a man), and I detect any entitlement vibe from you, you’re already well into the negative range, so don’t tempt fate further. Your late fees amount to 2 days’ worth of Starbucks. Pay it and GTFO.

3. “I don’t understand the simple explanation you are giving me about why I owe late fees, therefore I shouldn’t have to pay them.” You being stupid is not our problem. If you have that much trouble with life, find someone who can help you.

4. “I mailed my payment but you got it 1 day late.” Payments are credited the day they are received. If you can’t rely on the post office, mail it sooner. Call us and pay over the phone with a credit card. Pay a month ahead. Drop by in person.

ADVICE: Thank whatever gods you believe in that we let you rent here. Larger companies and corporate chains would not put up with any of this B.S. for a second, and their fees are higher.

While I’m at it, here are some other things that storage facilities don’t want to hear:

5. “I know my unit is in lien, but can you take the overlock off for just one second so I can get something?” No. The presence of that overlock technically means that we have the right to auction your belongings and they are being held hostage pending payment (in full) of what you owe. There are exactly TWO exceptions I make in cases like this:

a. I will allow you to remove tools you need to do your job if you have made some kind of payment toward what you owe, and I believe you will continue to attempt to pay it off. The overlock will stay on in the meanwhile. You’re welcome.

b. I will allow you to remove anything that is not supposed to be stored in the unit, such as open food (human or pet), hazardous materials, or anything valued at more than the limit stated on the contract. Nothing else may be taken, and the overlock will go back on.

Normally people should not have to be told things that fall under the heading of common courtesy and common sense. But we all know these things are in short supply, so here are some other things storage tenants should know or observe:

6. The dumpster is chained up for a reason. If we let people dispose of trash here, we’d need a dozen dumpsters and we’d have people lined up down the block waiting to throw stuff into it. Take your own trash away. If you leave it here, and we know it’s yours, don’t be surprised when a collections agency tracks you down demanding $50. We don’t care that you don’t know what to do with your mattress/couch/car axle. It’s not our problem.

7. Be careful when backing up a rental truck. Have someone else stand outside and guide you so you don’t hit the building. I’ve had to pay over $3,000 to repair structural damage to 2 of our buildings from large truck strikes (one building was pushed off the foundation, fer crissakes). If I knew who did it, they’d be getting the bill.

8. Don’t park on the street outside the facility for more than 12 hours if you don’t live here, and don’t park there overnight. The parking on our street is very limited, and must be shared by 3 residential homes and 6 businesses. Your camping out is illegal, annoying, and you’re nothing but a bum who lives in his/her smashed-up car and sleeps in it all day. You keep coming back even though we’ve called the police on you multiple times. That new sign on the fence is aimed at you. You know who you are. You’re not welcome here.

9. Don’t fuck with me. If you do anything illegal on my property, you will be evicted. If I ever have to call the police on you, you will be evicted. If you argue with me about the terms of your tenancy, you will be evicted. If you ever threaten or attempt to intimidate me, I will call the police (and then you will be evicted).

10. We know what you’re up to. Whatever you’re doing in your unit that you’re trying to hide from other people, we know about it.

Now, I realize that this doesn’t apply to most people. 99% of my tenants are responsible, friendly, courteous people who understand how to behave in a civilized way. But for that 1% of you who don’t, be aware that other people do notice your barbaric ways, and resent the fact that you force us to make rules that are a pain in the ass for everyone. Stop being a dick and we’ll stop picking on you. Nobody cares about your excuses for why you are incapable of acting like a human being rather than a chimpanzee. Stop burdening us with it. In fact, stop burdening the world with yourself.

Thank you,

The Management

UPDATE 07/12/07: People ask me why we charge late fees in the first place. The complaint usually revolves around something like “Corporations are just taking advantage of people to make a few more bucks.”

No, that’s not the reason. Businesses operate on a margin.

Gross Revenue = Net Revenue (Profit) + Expenses

It’s the Expenses part that is relevant here. It costs money to operate a business. The salary of employees, liability insurance, workman’s comp insurance, health plan, shrinkage (inventory loss through theft and damage), the phone bill, ISP, garbage bill, sewage, water, electricity (HVAC alone in a modest office building can run $30,000/month), etc. etc. These expenses are called “overhead”. Paying overhead on time requires that a certain amount of money be available every month to meet these expenses. That money is called “cash flow”, aka “liquid assets”.

A business like a storage facility calculates how much cash flow will be available based on occupancy and the amount of money tenants are paying for their units. Expected Gross Revenue and expected Expenses are projected into the future to make a budget.

When people don’t pay their rent on time, it creates a shortfall in the projected Gross Revenue, and reduces cash flow. Unpredictable cash flow is a pain in the ass, and can expose the company to financial loss and legal trouble if they are not able to meet expenses on time.

Late fees are both a penalty and an incentive. It helps to compensate the business for the aggravation of a disrupted cash flow (which is a real, quantifiable loss), and encourages the customer to pay on time in the future.

This lovely story comes to us from Minnesota:

A Belleville man accused of trying to kidnap a former girlfriend in Minneapolis laid out his plan in a notebook and a flow chart, outlining his goal to stun, Mace and “club her hard,” according to court documents. . .

According to the plan, Pentaleri was going to make contact with an ex-girlfriend with the initials of JML. Internet directions to the woman’s home were also inside the vehicle, according to the documents. Also found was a handwritten flow chart outlining his plan to “club her hard.”

The plan also listed two alternative plans on how to deal with her if she wasn’t alone, including a “lethal” option, the documents said.

Pentaleri, an Army officer, showed up at the airport wearing a long-haired wig, a fake mustache and beard when he was stopped and questioned near an airport carousel, according to police. . .

The duffel bag contained six condoms, a pillow case cut into strips, a camera, a turkey baster, KY oil, a bag of plastic gloves, two bags of zip ties, a package of Bic lighters, two-sided tape, shoe polish, a pair of nylon socks and Clorox disinfectant wipes.

Okay, so basically what we have here is your typical stalker freakjob. Bonus points that he’s an active Army officer. But this isn’t really what concerns me about this article. The part where I started getting confused was here:

Pentaleri was found carrying a stun gun, three chemical aerosol Mace cans, a folding pocket knife, a set of SUV keys and an expandable baton. He was issued a trespass notice and dropped off at an area hotel.

Wait, what?

This guy showed up at an airport wearing a disguise, carrying a stun gun, Mace, a knife, and a collapsible baton, and all they did was cite him for trespassing and take him to a hotel?

We’re talking about a US airport, right? The same place where they make me take off my shoes, my jacket, put my “3 oz. or less” shampoo and toothpaste in a Ziploc bag, confiscate my hair styling cream because it’s 5 oz., and forbid the presence of aerosol hairspray or deodorant? The same kind of airport where people waiting for arriving loved ones are not allowed past the security checkpoint anymore because they are not ticketed passengers? Where I have to show my damn ID about fifty times before getting on a plane and no one is allowed to bring a farking bottle of water on board unless it was bought inside the “sterile area”?

I note from the picture with the article that the man in question is white, not to mention active Army. Did either of those play a role in the decision to send him on his way rather than arresting him? Would this situation have played out differently if the man were of Middle-Eastern descent and was named Samir?

My cynical side says that if the guy had looked Middle-Eastern, we would still have sent him on his way, except we would have also given him a fruit basket and an apology for racial discrimination.

If it was because he was Army, why would that be a factor? Do we give a free pass to anyone in the military who acts like a kook or a murderer? Obviously not since we are prosecuting some Marines right now for killing unarmed prisoners, and sent the Abu Graib folks to prison.

I want to know who was responsible for that decision in Minnesota. That person or people need to be disciplined and retrained, or possibly criminally charged depending on the level of negligence involved. It’s outrageous that anyone could get away with being a genuine threat to an airport when ordinary folks are having their scissors confiscated.

I’m the manager of a self-storage facility in Santa Cruz, CA. We have an automatic gate here, a large one made of wrought iron and steel. The gate has this sign on it:

This morning I looked up out the window to see a child, about 8 years old, standing on the gate’s bottom beam and riding it open and closed. The mother was standing about 10 feet away, watching. I had to go out there and yell at both of them.

This gate weighs, I would guess, in the neighborhood of 3,000 lbs. It’s not like a garage door, where it stops if it hits something or encounters any resistance. The sensor is an infrared beam on one side of the gate, and only if something blocks that beam will the gate open again once it begins closing. It will cheerfully crush you against the opposite post if the sensor is unobstructed.

In the child’s case, I was waiting for her foot to get caught in the retractor chain that runs just underneath where she was standing. Having one’s foot torn off by a tension chain is not an ideal way to learn a lesson, but with parenting like this, it might be the kid’s only hope.

When did people get this stupid? Has it always been the case and I just never noticed before? The other thing I found disturbing was when I went outside to tell the kid to get off the gate, she just looked at me dumbly. She didn’t jump off like she’d been caught doing something wrong, or seem at all inclined to obey another adult. It was only when the mother told her to climb down that she moved.

Auto-Darwination eventually takes care of children like this, I am sure. Too bad it didn’t get the mom before she had a chance to breed.

Fark links this article today, which as far as I can tell is a legitimate news item:

A hard-line Pakistani parliamentarian and head of a religious political party on Wednesday demanded a “sir” title for Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, in retaliation for Britain knighting author Salman Rushdie.

“Muslims should confer the ’sir’ title and all other awards on bin Laden and Mullah Omar in reply to Britain’s shameful decision to knight Rushdie,” Sami ul Haq, leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, said in a statement, referring also to the leader of the Taliban.

Does anyone else immediately get a mental image of an 8-year-old throwing a tantrum about a child getting a toy that he doesn’t have? This is seriously unreal. This Sami ul Haq person somehow thinks that they can just call people “sir” and it means something? I’m failing to grasp the honor involved in giving an enemy of Britain a title that can only be granted by the British monarch, and which only has meaning in Britain to British people.

Maybe it says something about the overarching influence of British culture on the world that even terrorists who have vowed to destroy them consider an honorific from that culture to be desirable. Or, perhaps it’s revealing of a basic need to be validated and respected by others. It’s already apparent that Islamist ideology is highly focused on the concept of being respected and feared. They take affronts to their masculinity pretty seriously, and bluster and swagger a great deal when making threats.

Such insecurity is at the root of a basic inferiority complex. It’s not too difficult to imagine that some Muslim countries might feel that way these days. They’re technologically backward, economically stunted, and the harder they try to please Allah by blowing up infidels, the worse it gets. Cause and effect, in the empirical sense, makes no impression on them, which I suppose is typical of religious fanaticism.

I really, really hope that Islam has its Enlightenment soon, or they will wind up as little more than large panes of glass in the Middle East and Asia.

My good pal Low-Tech Redneck on Ricecop today links a fascinating little item from North Carolina. Hosted on a blog called Jeff Kay’s West Virginia Surf Report, it purports to be an exchange between a resident and that neighborhood’s Homeowners Association. It concerns the presence of a gargoyle lawn ornament on the resident’s property:

We are a congregate group of good Christian and God fearing people. The display you have set up on the outer section of your lot has us a bit concerned as the statue appears to be a type of Pagan worshipping symbol, unlike the other lawn decorations in our neighborhood. Shirley Whitley, a neighbor of yours says that this is a Satanic being and that you may be involved in the Occult. We have all noticed strange goings on around the neighborhood. There are flashing lights in the sky and numerous dead animals in the road. We understand that you are a homeowner, but if you will read your declaration of restrictions, obscene or vulgar displays on your property are not allowed. We insist that you remove this questionable display at once. Our children are not to be influenced by Devil worship and deviant behavior.

Jeff Kay’s West Virginia Surf Report displays the following picture, which I presume is the pagan worship symbol in question:

To quote Reverend Lovejoy from The Simpsons, “And it goes on like this.” Now I don’t know whether this is true or not. Naturally one has to take a certain amount of humor on the internet with a grain of salt. But a number of the details do appear to be valid.

I did find a listing for someone named Ardna Rash in Boone, NC with a birthdate in 1958, which would make her about the right age for this kind of nosiness. Presumably Rash is her maiden (or formerly-married) name.

There is an airport in Boone, and as the resident indicates in his response, it is a very, very small one. It is not “Boone International Airport” as the HOA claims. It is, in fact, “Boone Airport, Inc.“, a privately owned airstrip. As the Watauga County website states:

The airport features a paved strip 40 feet wide and 2,650 feet long. The elevation is 3,120’. Advance notice is not required for use of the airport. Landing fees are modest $5.00 for single engine aircraft, $12.00 for twin-engine aircraft and overnight parking fees on the grass are $5.00.

That ain’t no international airport. That’s somebody’s backyard. I’m with the resident in expressing disdain for what anyone landing at that airstrip thinks of his Christmas lights. Personally I find a big Christmas light display in a rural area to be very cool and in the spirit of the season.

At any rate, my research on the “airport” mentioned in the letters is intended to show that the HOA representative in question, a certain Ardna Tyne, is a busybody who takes her role in the HOA much too seriously. The neighborhood is probably an otherwise sleepy place where no drama occurs with any regularity.

Gargoyle waterspouts on Notre Dame cathedral

Regarding the issue of a gargoyle as a Satanic symbol, this is just another example of how far removed from anything like “education” and “historical context” a lot of religious fanatics are. Gargoyles are prominent architectural features on a number of famous Catholic cathedrals throughout the world, including Notre Dame and the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford, England.

The word “gargoyle” derives from the Old French gargouille, which means “throat” (also the derivation of the word “gargle”). There is a legend about a dragon named La Gargouille that lived in the river Seine, who was tamed by a saint. The dragon’s firebreathing head and throat would not decay, so it was mounted on the town wall and thus became the model for future such “decorations”.

In architecture, gargoyles typically were designed as waterspouts for drainage on buildings, much the way gutters and downspouts work in modern construction. The term “gargoyle”, therefore, often refers specifically to this plumbing feature. The modern term for such constructs is “grotesques” if they serve only a decorative purpose.

Greek griffin

Gargoyles as fantastic monsters or animal-human hybrids, however, go back much farther than Christianity. Greek architecture often features griffins, which were the guardians of treasures and riches.

Ibis-headed Egyptian god Thoth

In Ancient Egypt, the gods themselves were depicted as animal-human hybrids. Thoth had the head of an ibis bird, Anubis the head of a jackal, Ra the head of a falcon, and so on. The corresponding animals were considered sacred aspects of the gods.

Of course, the “origin” of gargoyles is not known for certain, although one theory is that they were inspired by prehistoric fossils of dinosaurs and the like. It may be that it is simply one evolution of an ancient concept of monstrous creatures that serve as guardians of special places.

It is alleged in some circles that gargoyles do have a Pagan origin, or at least a Pagan shared ancestry. If so, it would make sense that the Church would absorb the symbol and incorporate it into Christian iconography in order to facilitate the conversion of Pagans to Christianity.

I suppose that someone sufficiently righteous could refer back to the symbol’s origin as an “evil” symbol, but that would be analogous to declaring a Christmas tree evil (it, too, is originally a heathen symbol that was incorporated into the Christian holiday).

As a native Tennessean, I always read about narrow-minded folks like this HOA woman with a desire to pimp-slap them for making Southerners look bad and perpetuating the stereotype of ignorant, nosy, Satan-obsessed, inbred freaks.

I’ll be curious to see how this plays out, and whether the HOA understands that this incident has the attention of people on the internet and therefore shuts her trap. I’m kind of doubting it, since people like this bask in the attention and never think they are in the wrong.