It’s been sleeting all day, probably since the wee hours. There are a couple of inches of accumulation. Accumulation of sleet is something I’m certainly not familiar with.

The twigs and branches are encapsulated in ice, like God has suddenly become a fanboy and is trapping creation away in mylar to prevent its depreciation. It’s really quite lovely, especially the bare branches tipped with clusters of red berries.

I have learned just now, in my trip across to the student center for coffee, that sleet hurts when it tries to penetrate the tender flesh of the ears.

My walk home will take me down a steeply graded hill covered in sleet and slush and, since it’s an overpass bridge, probably ice. Even if I make it without falling tonight, I am guaranteed at least one serious spill in the upcoming weeks.

And finally, the first promise of cold last week appears to have killed the battery or the alternator in my car. Strike that, it’s not a car, it’s an albatross. You may recall that I only bought it because it would be cheaper than repairing the transmission in my other one; with the repairs needed at this point, with the cost of titling and plates factored in, I have surely passed the break-even point. This means I probably won’t be able to make it back home for Christmas. I can deal, but it’s going to kill my mother.

Crikey, but things suck.

So I was on the reference desk yesterday when the phone rang. All excited I was, what with the opportunity to do the bit of the job I love most and all. I answer, and as per typical procedure the patron begins by asking a question that will have nothing whatsover to do with what he actually wants to know[1]:

“Do you have a public library?”

I haven’t perfected my reference fu yet, so it takes me about two blinks to process the question and decide what might prove to be the shortest path to the patron’s actual query. “There is a public library in Rolla, yes. Would you like me to look up its telephone number?”

“Yeah,” the patron says. I think this seems too easy, but I turn to Google and get the number for dude.

I start giving him the info and he cuts me short. “No, no, no,” he says. “Do you have computers the public can use?”

“At the university library or the public library?”

“At the university. Do you have computers the public can use?”

So I tell him we do have several computers open to the public and tell him where they are in the library. He doesn’t quite get the concept, his following questions indicate, but I think I finally convince him that “a number of computers open to the public” actually means “a number of computers open to the public.”[2]

And then he says, “I have another question.” He’s all furtive, I can hear the electrons shifting their eyes as they rush across the wires into the receiver.

“Sure,” I say. “How can I help you?”

And he asks if we restrict access to any websites, like Myspace or blogs or (little small voice)adult websites(/little small voice) or Facebook. And I tell him that know, we do not filter any content, we are devoted to freedom of information and further realize that any sort of censorship could hamper the research mission of some patrons, which would be counter to our mission.

So he’s almost tired of the dance, and he asks, “Um. Is it OK if…like, what if I was on a web site and a pop up ad came on with, like, naked ladies on it? Would I have to leave?”

And I tell him no, that sort of thing is likely to happen and is understandable. “You wouldn’t kick me out?” he asks, incredulous. I assure him we would not.

So he takes the plunge: “Is it OK for somebody to come to the library to look at porn?”

Ugh. I have to tell him the truth, that we take action only if someone complains that the viewer is creating a hostile environment. I reiterate our commitment to free access to information, tell him porn is prohibited but not discouraged, and ask if there’s anything else I can help him with.

He can’t believe it. The nervous in his voice is joined by elation, by excitement. He begins a fugue of offering half-assed justifications for both his desire and for his misunderstanding of the reason for our policy (”I guess you realize boys will be boys, eh? eh?”), sometimes vomiting up a chunk of something truly vile (”maybe they can get an idea of something to do with the girls”), pausing occassionally after again asking the question of whether porn is allowed.

Finally I get him off the phone, and I fear I’ve gotten him off on the phone.

It speaks for itself, I guess, but really: How the hell could anyone enjoy looking at porn in a public place?

Into a tall mug pour a half shot of Irish cream liqueur, a half shot of tequila, and top up with strong coffee. Stir, sip, enjoy, and fade gradually into a pleasant numbness.

It’s mighty tasty, honest.

Ad hominem does not mean “insulting”. That is to say, while an ad hominem argument or rhetorical device may be delivered in the form of an insult or may be fairly characterized as insulting, it is not necessarily so.

More importantly, and being the reason for this dispatch, an open insult or an insulting device in not necessarily, and in fact is almost certainly not, an ad hominem statement.

Ad hominem carries a highly specific meaning: it is to argue that an opponent’s statements can or must be disregarded because of some entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand characteristic of the opponent. To say that Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh is fat is not at all ad hominem, for example, but to say or strongly imply that either is not worth paying attention because of his corpulence is an ad hominem argument.

Further, to say that someone’s statements can be dismissed because he or she is an asshole is insulting but probably not ad hominem because asshole status strongly implies a cavalier attitude toward basic decency and honesty and therefore a tendency to misrepresent and distort. To dismiss someone’s arguments by claiming he or she is an asshole, then, may be poor form and probably needs to be strongly supported as an argument in itself, but it is not unfair.

More later, perhaps.

Still don’t have the title on the car I bought to replace the one that died when I got here. Missouri’s DMV is very strict, guy I bought the car from has to do some paperwork (it turns out) and is jerking me around. I cannot, therefore, do any driving more significant than the occassional furtive trip to the laundromat and grocery store.

Or, rather, I couldn’t do any more driving than that. Went out tonight to run an errand and found my car wouldn’t start. Won’t even try to turn over, makes a buzzing, ratcheting noise. I imagine this means the starter must be replaced.

Ironically, I bought this car because it was cheaper than replacing the transmission on the other one.

Damn it all to hell.

Recorded it, about six minutes left, but I can’t imagine what might happen to salvage it.

I mean, fugitive Kate marrying a cop? WTF?

Don’t you have to, like, get to know somebody before you marry them? And don’t you have to meet them before you get to know them? And in order to meet them, don’t you have to not be actively avoiding them and everyone like them?

Jebus. Kate really was the worst fugitive every, wasn’t she. Too bad she had the misfortune to be written by people who had to stretch three seasons of story across five seasons of TV.

Have Wikipedia articles been becoming increasingly unreadable, filled with apparent spuriousness, and chockablock with shallow understandings and glimmerings of a topic passing as authoritative information, or has this been the case for a while but unnoticed by me until I recently started reading more articles?

I should point out that the comic-related articles seem to be fairly free of the above, which is particularly weird. I’m also led to understand the science-type articles are pretty solid. The history and cultural (non-pop) type stuff, though, frankly sucks.

Here in Missouri, next Tuesday’s ballot will determine whether or not the state will enshrine legal protection of stem cell research and treatments within its borders. That particular initiative is Amendment 2.

Paragraph 2 of the amendment reads, clearly and unambiguously, “(1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.” If the amendment passes, in other words, stem cell research will remain safe in this state but human cloning will be illegal.

The organization opposing Amendment 2? Missourans Against Human Cloning. Make sure you hover over that link to get the website’s name, which is also splashed all over their bumperstickers and posters.

How can democracy, in any meaningful sense of the concept, be said to even exist when half the electorate opposes anti-cloning legislation because they are anti-cloning? If the amendment passes they will get exactly what they want, so they must passionately work against the amendment’s passage?

I only hope civilization survives long enough for future generations to be able to look back at these dark times and laugh.

The Others are founding members of The Polyphonic Spree!