Some time ago, a new law came into effect in Arizona.  It’s a law that proponents say is designed to crack down on illegal immigrants, empowering authorities to send them back from wherever they think they came.  some of the text of the law is pretty spooky if you ask me.  From the law itself, section 1, subsection E reads:

A law enforcement officer, without a warrant, may arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States.

The language is meant to be vague and is pushing law enforcement agencies to use racial profiling in detaining people.  Speak with an accent?  Papers please.  You might  be an illegal immigrant.  Don’t carry your ID on you?  Too bad, if you’re in Arizona, you’re living in the “papers please” state.

An accent can’t be heard all the time though.  Perhaps an olive skinned person is driving by in a vehicle.  Who knows, they could be from another country given their skin colour.  Lights on, sirens blaring.  Papers please.

Heck, maybe you don’t have an accent or a darkened complexion.  Maybe some one with a badge just happens to think you don’t look quite right.  You could be from another country.  Papers please.

You work in a meat packing plant or other facility known to employ a number of illegal immigrants.  The executives don’t have to worry but on a slow night when shift ends, you might be greeted at the property’s edge by an officer of the law.  Papers please.

The language in the law is so incredibly vague, that I can’t see how this will last beyond a single court challenge.  The consequences of the law so badly hamper a citizen’s freedom of movement so as to make the very notion of the law laughable.

I know that the American constitution doesn’t seem to mean much anymore but it is still there.  I’m continually amazed as how people seem to want to use the power of the public in a representative system of government for the needs and wants of a particular portion of society at the cost of another.  Illegal immigration is an important issue for some people but this idea that you can go around destroying civil liberties to suit a political agenda is yet one more thing that shakes my faith in humanity.

Destroying civil liberties for one citizen destroys them for every citizen.

By the way, I think your papers are forged or otherwise unsatisfactory.  Let’s go to jail.

Have you ever wandered through a bus depot or similar facility and heard classical music pouring into the room?  I first encountered this when I lived in Toronto and found that classical music was played regularly on the Toronto Transit Subway’s Kennedy stop used to transfer to the Scarborough line.  I assumed at the time that it was used to deter youth from hanging around and because I enjoy classical music myself, I didn’t really give it much thought.  The issue has recently been aroused in my mind again however after reading a Post Gazette article about how music in Britain is being used in a malicious manner.

The article above details how a school in Derby, a city of about 230,000, “subjected” some students to classical music as a form of special detention.  Sitting in a small room for two hours at a time, students were made to listen to Mozart and other composers both to relax them and deter them from future misbehaviour.  Students who have undergone the punishment are reported to have developed a deep hatred for classical music and claim that it is unbearable to listen to.

I have to admit that I never thought of the negative effective of using incredible feats of creative genius as a deterrent for particular actions in general society.  As said before, since I enjoy classical music, I never really thought about it passing through public facilities that played it but now I’m left to wonder how much damage is done to classical culture when its used as a negative tool of control.

There are any number of reasons I enjoy classical music.  Through my youth, I saw it as a way to separate myself from my peers in a manner that made me unique and interesting.  I also found it relaxing and inspiring.  From the softest symphony to the most unique concerto to the most stunning kind of violin solo, I could always find the type of expression I wanted from classical music and I was always impressed by the creativity of the composers.  Today my taste is tuned to techno music and more conventional types of composition but I’ve never been unable to appreciate classical pieces.  So for me, I’m left to wonder if after first encountering classical music as a deterrent to loitering around 7 years ago if I missed something in how sinister that was.

I’m glad I appreciate classical music and I would hate for it to be used in such a way that I came to despise it.  Were I to be locked up in a room and made to listen to Mozart for two hours in my earlier youth when I did act out negatively, I would have been robbed of appreciating some of the most interesting instrumental music around and knowing that now, I certainly would resent the effort being made today.  I would feel as though something was robbed from me.

Cultural milestones are milestones because we can get something of value from them.  From classical music, we get incredible expressive outlets and a method of cultural communication that is felt by people in a number of different parts of the world.  Turning that incredible material against people and in turn, devaluing it for them and even making it a negative experience seems like such an incredibly unwise idea.  In actually downright disgusting in my eyes.

It took me 7 years to realize it but classical music may even be a deterrent for some one like me riding the bus.

Listening to this classic song as played by a laser cutting machine.

Laser engraver plays Super Mario theme from Jedediah Smith on Vimeo.

A laser cutter is basically a box with a whole lot o’ cool crammed inside.  Typically used for cutting flat sheet metal or structural and piping materials, a laser cutter is something we probably should have seen being explained to James Kirk but frankly, it was too cool even for Star Trek.  But we’re in the present now and that can be fixed.  so without further ado,

Mr. Scott.  What IS…thisdevice?

Well, it’s certainly not no device to lure green women to yer cabin there cap’n.

Hmm….but it must be…useful for something…yes Mr. Scott?

Aye yes cap’n'!  *gulp*  Not only can she whip out a bonny little tune, but she can also cut sheet metal and other materials with a high intensity laser.  The laser don’t just guide the blades cap’n, the laser actually does the cutting itself.  This way, a computer program can guide the laser in a precise kinda way and cut intricate designs for all kinds of industrial metal manufacturing.

THAT’S INCREDIBLE!  Now what?

I say we drink.  Could you ever refuse to love such a sweet little lass as this?

And so from there is just goes downhill.  Faced with the incredible awesomitude of a laser cutter, Kirk and Scotty just get plastered and crash into a star.  It was the final episode you never saw…or something.  I dunno.

Seriously though, isn’t that thing cool?

So it seems a handyman in the UK successfully sued an employer after he fell from his ladder to the ground, 14 feet below.  It seems that the fellow named Mr. Aspinall had the bright idea to prop his ladder up against the tree branch he was sawing off rather than something more stable such as the tree trunk.

After a health and safety investigation, the hotel which was paying him to prune the tree was ordered to pay £2,015 because Mr. Aspinall hadn’t been properly trained by the hotel on how to cut the tree branch away.

It’s often said that young people are ruining various nations because of their sense of entitlement resulting in cases like this.  Mr. Aspinall is 64.

Somehow, I just couldn’t stop laughing.   Tip o’ the hat to,

Eat My Shorts

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