What's wrong with Rand Paul?

(Another guest blog from our buddy Joe Mays)

So I find myself in the unusual position of defending a Republican, as I'm going to give what some may consider a defense of Rand Paul's controversial stance on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

As many of you may know, I'm a long-time supporter of most social legislation promoting racial equality in both the public and private sectors. I think that such legislation is necessary in order to counteract the long-standing institutionalized racism that exists in our country.

For those of you that don't know, Dr. Paul is under fire because he has questioned the legitimacy of legislation forcing *private* institutions to provide equal service to all citizens, which includes parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It should be noted that Dr. Paul has consistently supported legislation enforcing equal rights in the *public* sector, and has stated that he would never give personal support to businesses that discriminate in any way.

I think Dr. Paul has a right to his beliefs about the role of government in business, and he has demonstrated a willingness to logically discuss the subject. The center-left owes him a civil debate. While I do not agree with Dr. Paul's conclusions, it is unfair to paint him as a racist - which I firmly believe he is not. The case for equality - even with government intervention in the private sector - is sufficiently strong to stand on its own. The country is tired of political bullshit. Let's listen to Dr. Paul and discuss the issue on its merits, please.

Some Oddities in the World

Well, as injustices in the world go this one is pretty near the bottom of the list but while randomly surfing the net the other day I discovered that Gene Wilder does not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. George Lopez has a star, but not Gene Wilder. Winona Ryder has a star, but not Gene Wilder. Ricky Martin, Kenny Loggins, Erik Estrada, and Ryan f'n Seacrest all have stars, but not Gene Wilder! Even the fictional characters Godzilla and Pee-Wee Herman have stars! Yes, that's right; Paul Reubens' fictional creation that was popular for about 4 years in the late 80s and hasn't been heard from since is enshrined for all posterity in the Walk of Fame. There's about 100 reasons why Wilder deserves one, but I think I only need to list 4: Willy Wonka, The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. End of discussion. Well, Mel Brooks just got his 3 weeks ago, so maybe now some people will think "yeah, I remember all those funny movies Mel Brooks did. Who was that one guy that was in most of them that made them so good?"

So this morning while on my way to work I was offered a sample box of Oatmeal Squares by a sales rep on the corner of Michigan and Randolph. As she handed it to me and others she cheerfully informed us that it was "a healthy and crunchy way to start your day." Hmmm; yes there have been some days where I've woken up and thought "I want to start the day healthy; I think I'll go for a run." But I can't recall a day where I've thought "Gee, I'd sure love to start my day in a crunchy way!" In fact, the only times I can remember where I DID start my day in a crunchy way was back in college when I hadn't done laundry in about 3 weeks and had to put on well-used socks. Speaking of unusual places for descriptions, it reminds me of walking around the farmer's market in Madison and seeing cheese curds advertised as "Guaranteed to squeak!" Now usually when something is advertised as "guaranteed" it's something that is undeniably good, but up until that moment it had never occurred to me to judge food, in any form, by squeakiness. But of course once you see it advertised in that way a couple times, it quickly becomes "well hell yeah my curds better squeak! In fact I am gonna search this whole market till I find the squeakiest damn curds here!" Ah, the power of advertising. And for the uninitiated, yes good cheese curds really do squeak when you eat them and yes you do actually want that.

Something that makes me feel old: I just saw a headline that Survivor has now been on the air for 10 years. I'd still been thinking of it as "one of those new, annoying reality shows."

Something that makes me feel young: Jamie Moyer, who broke in with the Cubs in 1986 and who I remember watching pitch while growing up, is still pitching today. And actually pitching pretty well (he just pitched a complete game shutout two weeks ago). Seeing so many of the players I watched as a kid now become coaches and announcers, it's nice to know that there's still at least one out there who's still doing the same thing he's done for pretty much my whole life.

Something that I'm not sure if it makes me feel old or young: Vin Scully has been the announcer for the Dodgers since 1950. That's 60 years. In other words, he's been doing the same job since not only before I was born but before my parents were born.

And Back to Trivial Matters . . .

So as some of you may know, Anabelle was originally going to be "Isabella". Back in about 2004, before we were even married we (i.e. Christy) started thinking about names for our eventual kids. And we happened upon "Isabella" pretty quickly. It was kind of amazing. I don't remember exactly who said it first but once we came up with it we both were like "yep, that's a really good girl's name." And had we been ready for our little bundle of joy back then we would have been ahead of the curve. But slowly as time passed we were getting birth announcements from various friends and families and, although I know it wasn't, it seemed like every girl was being named "Isabella". I think that the final straw was 2 years ago when Christy had 3 Isabellas in her pre-school class at the same time. It was like "hmm; not so original anymore." So we kept a variation of the "Bella" and added an "Ana" and, presto chango, we have Anabelle.

I bring this up because today I saw a real good reason why it seemed like every girl was being named Isabella: every girl was! Well not really, but it did overtake "Emma" as the most popular name for girls in 2009. While I'm not one of those people that needs to have their child have a name that no one in the history of the world has ever had (e.g. Apple, Pilot Inspektor), I'm glad that she will not have to go through school with likely 5 or 6 other people in her grade having the same name. FYI, Anabelle is the 46th most popular girl's name while its components (Ana and Bella) are respectively 44th and 18th. Although it certainly seems to be the case that "Bella" has shot up in popularity due to the Twilight series, it's going to annoy me to no end if 10 years from now people just assume that she got the "Belle" part from that.

The big news of the week is that it is now 95% certain that 7 weeks from today we will be full-fledged suburbanites again! I liked to fool myself into believing that we were still quasi-urban up in Evanston, but now there will be nothing ambiguous about it at all anymore as we are moving into a house in Naperville. It's not without more than a little bit of irony seeing as how Christy and I have been quoted on many occasions as saying "well, we might move back out into the suburbs again at some point, but we are NEVER moving to Naperville." But we basically had a checklist of 8 things (house, 3-bedrooms, AC, dishwasher, yard, garage, within a mile of the Metra, and less than $1600/month) and this one met them all so it seemed pretty stupid to turn it down just because we didn't like the idea of "being Napervillians" (actually I think I might start referring to myself as a Napervillain, that sounds way cooler).

And just so I comment on something with a little bit of weight, today saw another bad news is good headline as the unemployment rate went up. Why is this good news? Because in April the private sector added the most jobs (231,000) in any one month since March 2006. However, as a result of the labor market looking better people who had previously given up on looking for jobs have now crowded back into the job search and as a result the unemployment levels have gone up. Seems like there should be a better statistic given to track the unemployment rate so that you wouldn't have two (those unemployed and actively seeking work and those just unemployed) and you wouldn't have counterintuitive effects like these. It's important because this weekend a Republican can go out and say "the economy is horrible; the labor numbers came out on Friday and unemployment is up again" while a Democrat can say "the economy is much improved; the labor numbers came out on Friday and in April we added the most jobs in any one month in 4 years" and both statements would be absolutely correct.

Finally, anybody else see the fun little roller-coaster the Dow decided to do yesterday (plunging 1000 points before getting about 2/3 of it back by day's end). Apparently the culprit is that some specific set of circumstances hit which triggered a massive selloff by computerized programs. I swear, computers are going to destroy the world but it's not going to be in some cool "Skynet launching nukes" or "machines turning us into batteries" way. No, I think that one day a computer network is going to decide to sell all the world's assets to a dead guy in Iceland for $1.95 and everybody's going to be wiped out in one fell swoop.

Define Free Speech

I think that the time has come where we need to establish a clear and unambiguous line on what constitutes protected free speech. And yes I'm sure that it exists in some legal jargon already but we need something that every layperson can easily understand.

I've been thinking a lot about this because it seems like just about every week someone is getting into trouble or being warned that they will get in trouble for something they've said. Whether it's the infamous Imus "nappy-headed hoes" comment on the air or an Oregon football player losing his scholarship due to comments on Facebook or Ozzie Guillen's son "resigning" in the wake of a Twitter controversy.

Here's my question, is the only pre-requisite for considering something to be free speech that you don't get thrown in jail for it? It seems to me that if you're losing (or being threatened with) your job and/or other tangible things of value as a direct result of something you've said, then your speech is not "free".

Now of course there are some exceptions that I agree with. Obviously you're not (and shouldn't be) allowed free reign to make slanderous and libelous claims against a person or a company. And you shouldn't be permitted to use company time and resources to put out a personal message that's not in the company's interests (that's what your free time is for) and you're also not allowed to say something that can be interpreted as you speaking for a company or organization when you aren't authorized to do so.

But (setting aside the Imus example) what we're talking about here are people using their own personal accounts (whether Twitter, Facebook, or blog) to express something that's clearly just their opinion and being disciplined for it. How is that permitted?

In this age, people have almost unlimited outlets for expressing themselves and a lot of people are choosing to do just that. Things that used to be said to your close friends and/or behind closed doors are now available to a much wider audience. But why should the rules be any different? If you have the right to say something verbally to someone, you should have the right to express it in any medium you wish.

I think this is only going to become a bigger and bigger issue as this happens to more and more people. And I think the only reason it's not huge already is that you have a perfect storm of both organizations and media having their interests aligned. An organization wants to control what gets said about it, so they're not happy with any member being able to spout out to the world. And the media doesn't like the idea that people no longer need to go through them to get the word out. It's hard to get the scoop on a story when it breaks on Twitter.

So, first, can we get a list of the words that no one is allowed to say on the public air? And, most importantly, it has to be the same list for everyone. Either everyone can use "nappy-headed hoes" or no one can. Then, I want it defined when and where I can issue my opinion on any subject. Can I use this post to blast Blue Cross for doing something I don't agree with it? Can I not do it right now because I'm on my work computer? Is it ok if I do it from home on my own time? Or can I never do it as long as I'm an employee?

Now if you'll excuse me, I've just been informed that I have a meeting with HR in 10 minutes . . .