There are certain books (such as Nabokov’s “The Chess Master”) where having a dictionary is a non-negotiable necessity.

Boyar n. HISTORICAL a member of the old aristocracy in Russia, next in rank to a prince.

What struck me most about this story when I read about it this morning was that it was a journalism conference. It was called “Journalism on the Edge” and Savage was a keynote speaker. Savage is one of the most outspoken gay-rights advocates in America, and he’s certainly not known for being PC. He says incendiary things that he knows will get people’s backs up, such as that he wished all Republicans were “fucking dead” . He’s an edgy guy, who was speaking at a journalism conference where edgy content was the order of the day.

And yet everyone spewing vitriolic abuse at him acts as if this wasn’t expected. He’s Dan Savage, for Christ’s sake. Furthermore, “as many as 100″ high school students even walked out of the talk. They’re supposed to be journalists! You can’t just up and leave when an interviewee (or, in this case, a speaker) says something that you personally disagree with.

That’s what struck me most about this story, maybe just because Dan Savage being his usual controversial self isn’t news to me.

Full comic.

According to the article:

Under current equality legislation, schools are allowed to claim that hiring a homosexual, lesbian or bisexual teacher would undermine their religious ethos.

I’ve been thinking about such legislation. Turning it on its head, should a very open, liberal school be allowed not hire a dire-hard Tea Party conservative religious fundamentalist?

I find the debate a lot easier to think about this way; the answer more obvious. Religious teachers shouldn’t be barred from such employment, provided that they observe the fact that they’re in a liberal, accepting school and they should leave their conservative religious dogma at home.

(Of course, the bitter hypocrisy can’t go uncommented upon. A religious school is simply exercising its First Amendment right. If a liberal school existed in the same way, it’d be “pushing the gay liberal nazi agenda.”)

In short, nobody should be barred from employment based on some small part of their personality. (My belief that the media and people in general make people’s religion and sexuality into a much larger part what makes them a person than they should is a whole other post.) Religious folk should respect that they’re teaching in a liberal school in the same way that LGBT teachers should respect that they’re teaching in a Catholic school.

All that said, though, don’t forget that being exposed to opinions and lifestyles different to one’s own is one of the ways we learn about the world.

But if you do just tap on it, which is an obvious thing to try, you get a clever hint: the lock screen playfully jumps and bounces, suggesting visually that you can slide it upward.

I noticed this too. When you tap the button, not only does it jump and bounce, but you can see the camera app behind it, which is a very clever hint.

Have you noticed that your iPad doesn’t come with an owner’s manual?

This is an unacceptable practice, especially considering how the iPad gives you thousands of unique, practical and time-saving features.

Personally, I feel that the fact that so many other products are so complicated that they require lengthy owner manuals is the “unacceptable practice.”

Most of the debates that have gone before have been trying to ascertain whether a federal requirement that Americans buy health insurance is unconstitutional. However, it’s an academic point, really, as the Constitution doesn’t say anything about health insurance specifically.

I’ve always liked the idea of mandatory health insurance in the U.S., and subsidies for those who can’t afford it. I’m not in favor of Obamacare specifically, I’m in favor of a healthcare reform in itself. Without such a thing, insurance companies can continue excluding pre-existing conditions and millions of Americans will remain uninsured.

I think a lot of the backlash against mandatory healthcare stems more from Americans as a people more than anything else. A 2009 Harvard study found that 45,000 deaths annually are associated with a lack of health insurance. I can’t help but wonder about a scenario where 45,000 deaths were linked to terrorist attacks, and what Republican action to a state mandated response would be.

In short, though, healthcare reforms are good and, by extension, Obamacare is.

Image: Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March 2010.

Bought this in Limerick today — fascinating book.

Forgot how funny ATMs were in Irish.

Spanish Exchange, March 2012. Saw Barcelona, which is a lovely city.

“…Organised religion is quite another thing. The trouble is that all too often in human history, churches and priesthoods have set themselves up to rule people’s lives in the name of some invisible god (and they’re all invisible, because they don’t exist) – and done terrible damage. In the name of their god, they have burned, hanged, tortured, maimed, robbed, violated, and enslaved millions of their fellow-creatures, and done so with the happy conviction that they were doing the will of God, and they would go to Heaven for it.

That is the religion I hate, and I’m happy to be known as its enemy.”

- Phillip Pullman.