Integris Mortgage finally got around to hiring lawyers. I suspect they're paying a lot of money, because these guys sure love to write stuff.
Not that it's always good stuff, mind. But there's a fair bit of it. Consider the following from the definitions section of their recently-provided Interrogatories:
"Communication" means any transfer of information, ideas, opinions, or thoughts by any means at any time or place or under any circumstance.
So, say, gravity. Gravity is a transfer of information, yes?
But it gets funnier. Here's one that made me laugh out loud:
The words concern or concerning include referring to, eluding to, responding to, relating to, connected with, commenting on, with respect, about, regarding, discussing, showing, recording, describing, mentioning, reflecting, analyzing, constituting, evidencing, or pertaining to.
I am pretty sure the only typo in there is theirs. Certainly, there is an obvious typo. But wait, typo's the wrong word. That's just a plain spelling error, and a funny one. Guys, if you've never seen a word written, you should probably look it up before using it. Just a thought.
Some of the writing covers a broad range of topics. For instance, consider the scope of Interrogatory 9:
9. Identify what purpose the facsimile machine identified in Paragraph 2 of the Complaint is used for and whether it is personal or business use. Also, provide the date of purchase and all numbers that are or have been associated with your fax machine.
Contrast this with the much narrower focus of Interrogatory 12:
12. Describe for what purposes the facsimile machine identified in Paragraph 2 is used.
Now, generally, when you see shoddy work like this, with insanely burdensome demands for documents or information, the conclusion is simple; the attorneys want to make money. A lot of money. Since defense attorneys don't get awards in court, the way they make money is to spend time. Their goal is to rack up the billable hours. That's why, rather than asking for, say, faxes in some way related to the case, they want every junk fax I've gotten. You know, all 1,392 of them (as of last count, not including any that were tossed before I started saving them up in the late 90s).
Do they need those faxes? No. Are they related to the case? No. Can they charge a fairly hefty chunk of pocket change per hour to have some gormless intern grovel over them hoping to find proof ... oh, wait. That's not the point; it's not to look for evidence, it's to get billable hours. He's not looking for anything; he's just "examing evidence". $150/hour, please. Company check only.
The funny thing is, we're only talking about 11 faxes. Even given the clear admission that they knew that they were using fax advertising, that only gets us $1,500 per fax plus attorney's fees. At $16,500 plus fees, the whole case would be settled, and we'd be done... I don't know if they've spent that much on defense yet, but if they keep going, they will. Ironically, the defense counsel in this case and I have common interest here, albeit for different reasons. We both want Integris to pay as much as possible. Me, because I don't think they'll stop faxing if they can get away with it. (The seven or more faxes I got from them after my first call to them suggest this, certainly.) The defense counsel, because sharkskin briefcases don't buy themselves.
But hey, common cause is common cause.
One of the frustrations of online communities is that it's hard to make a good one. I last ran a BBS back in the early 90s; it was called "Schrodinger's Cathouse", and many people assumed my last name was Schrodinger.
Anyway, our new one is up; it's called UberChristians. I was gonna have a webcomic called that, and/or an apologetics wiki, but I never got around to it.
We is me and a friend of mine, Flesh99. (It's an online nickname, I don't think it has to make sense.) We've been hanging around on some of the same boards for a while, and this is our attempt to resolve some of the issues that always face a new board. We'll see how it goes. The site is intended to be a Christian site. That doesn't mean something like a Christian bookstore, where everything is aimed at making people who self-identify as Christians feel safe and comfy. It's run by Christians, according to our beliefs.
I can already see people cringing. You know what that's code for; it's code for a site where gay people get kicked in the teeth at every opportunity, and where people who ask questions like "well, who made God then?" find themselves banned. We're not doing that. Hell no. I've seen too many sites distinguish between the "real" Christian members and everyone else, and we aren't doing it. We might add a thing where you can put something in your profile about your religion, but we are not going to make special forums for Christians-only or anything like that. That would be contrary to the [b]practice[/b] of the faith, and sitting around talking about creeds never fed no hungry people.
If you wanna hang around and yammer about theology, or just hang around with people who enjoy this, feel free to pop on over. We're still exploring forum policy questions; obviously, that discussion is open to everyone to participate in.
I went to a funeral today.
Funerals like to say things like "in celebration of the life of...", but this is the first time I've felt they really meant it.
Corbin Kidder was this guy. He was one of my customers when I was running an internet service. He was my spouse's former spouse's father. He was the guy who used to run an annual party for the local BBS community in pre-internet days. (It was called "Pascettifest", because he served pascetti.)
His address labels called him "Corbin Kidder, Transit Advocate", and they were not kidding. The funeral was accessible by bus. His ashes will be scattered someplace accessible by bus.
I met someone from my church there. Given that I only know about ten people at my church, you might think that odd, but it's not. After all, the place was packed. I don't just mean standing-room only. I mean that, after it got to be standing room only in the main room of the church, they opened up another room so people could at least listen to the PA system, and that filled up too, so they added folding chairs for the people who couldn't just stand. The walls were lined with people.
Trying to assign demographics to such a crowd is ridiculous. Old and young, every skin color, every hair color. I saw someone with fire-engine red dreadlocks. It was just all these people who knew Corbin one way or another, and with all the activities he threw himself into, there were a lot of such people.
The service was interpreted in sign language for the hearing impaired. Not something you see every day, but something that you would expect for the memory of a tireless advocate of the oppressed. It was, of course, accessible by public transit. The stories were beautiful. I was particularly fond of the story one of his sons told, of asking his father once "Is that the hotel where the bums stay?" The response was utterly typical of Corbin: "Don't you EVER call them bums. They are human beings."
The recessional hymn was Solidarity Forever, a hymn you rarely hear sung in churches. But then, Corbin wasn't one of those people whose devotion to Jesus was best expressed by telling people who they should sleep with; it was expressed in eighty-some years of constant efforts on behalf of the poor and the downtrodden.
I don't think I've ever seen so much laughter or joy at a funeral. The man knew how to throw a party. And now that he's gone, I think it's safe to say that Heaven will be installing light rail. If not, he'll start writing letters until they do. Thanks, Corbin, for all the memories.
There's this guy, Sam Harris, who has made quite a name for himself in the evangelistic atheist community. I first became aware of him through some ads he took out on the Internet Infidels discussion site. They had the text "The End of Faith" superimposed on a mushroom cloud.
My impression hasn't changed much since then.
Harris talks a lot about how "moderates" enable "extremists". He recently gave an analogy of a set of concentric circles, with more extreme people in the middle.
Like a number of American atheists, Harris appears to be willing to completely concede the definition of Christianity to the Christians he dislikes most. Does he trust their judgement when it comes to the age of the Earth? No. Does he share their moral evaluation of gay marriage? No. In fact, it is fairly hard to find any topic at all related to Christianity on which he agrees with these people. This makes it all the more mysterious that, the moment we come to the question of what Christianity is, he is their #1 biggest fan, absolutely convinced that they have precisely and accurately captured it.
In fact, Christianity is a pretty broad group. There is more than one set of beliefs which are "Christian". The "liberals" out there are not just "fundamentalists who are less committed". One of my friends is a member of a Christian group called "Jesus People USA". They don't fit in the simplistic view Harris promotes. They are obviously zealous to a level that very few modern Christians are; for instance, they take the injunction to "sell all you have, and give the money to the poor" as an unambiguous statement of direction. On the other hand, they define their mission and goals in terms of, well, service to the poor. Not exactly the first image that comes to mind when you think of Jerry "blow 'em up in the name of the Lord" Falwell, is it?
Ultimately, I am obliged to agree with Harris on one thing; there is a real threat to our society that comes in large part from its Christian members. There are a lot of people who are convinced that it is not enough for them to be Christian; it is required that everyone else be Christian, or at least act according to their church's view of what Christianity is like. These people have done a lot of things that the rest of us are stuck making up for.
However, I do not think this is a question of zealousness about "Christianity". The belief that other people must comply with your beliefs is not necessarily a question of zealousness vs. apathy; it is a separate belief, which must be considered on its own. It is closely tied to the way in which people build a sense of identity, and one of the things humans love to do is demand agreement and similarity, and demonize those who don't comply. It's not enough for Dr. Dobson to marry a girl; no, he has to tell everyone else that for two men to get it on is an attack on marriage. The people who are different are not just maybe wrong, or something; they are so desperately, terrifyingly, wrong that it is obligatory to use any means at our disposal, including horrible abuse of a variety of research results (and a cherry-picked variety at that) to make other people shun them or punish them.
Even within fundamentalism, this is not always there in zealous believers. Another of my friends is a very zealous fundamentalist. I don't just mean "thinks gay sex is a sin". I've seen him argue, convincingly and seriously, that speeding is a sin. (I've even conceeded that I think he has a point.) So you'd expect him to be an authoritarian, maybe? Nope. I've seen him argue just as persuasively that, while he has powerful personal objections to the practice of prostitution, he can't understand why we outlaw it, since prostitution laws not only don't stop prostitution, but they make it harder for prostitutes to get legal protections that might help them get away from abusive pimps. That's not exactly the authoritarian pseudo-Puritan view we've been told to expect.
So what's going on? Where does Harris get this stuff?
Nietzsche once said (paraphrased, obviously) "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
Harris has become the thing he hates. When we hate a group, it becomes necessary to demonize the group; to dismiss their humanity, their individuality, and to compress them into a single well-understood group whose attributes can be unambiguously loathed. Just as some modern Christians believe ludicrous and horrible things about "Arabs" or "gays", Harris has come to believe ludicrous and horrible things about "Christians". Are any of these things ever true of anyone? Of course they are. Not six years ago, "some Arabs" destroyed the World Trade Center. I've even met one of the gay guys who's had sex with over a thousand people. But these remain anomalies; most people aren't like that, and indeed, most Christians aren't much like Harris's bogeyman. The so-called "moderates" aren't just watered-down versions of the militant and hostile Christians; often, they are zealous and committed opponents of the people Harris has justifiable gripes about.
Harris and Falwell are ultimately in the same line of work; peddling fear of another group, to build interest and swell the ranks, to get people comfortable dismissing that group as a threat. Someone like Harris is the best thing that could happen to a pundit like Falwell; after all these years of claiming that "atheists" want to destroy Christianity, we've finally got one that really does, and says it openly. Every time he writes an article, you can bet that the people in the treasuries of the big institutionalized Christian lobbies warm up their cash registers. And, likewise, people like Falwell give Harris material to work with.
They need each other. They deserve each other. I wish the two of them would leave the rest of us alone.