Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

What the hell: I’ll go with “Outright evil.”

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AIDS Panel Choice Wrote of a ‘Gay Plague’

The Bush administration has chosen Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the “gay plague,” to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS.

Next week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson is scheduled to swear in several new commission members. They include Thacker, a former Bob Jones University employee, who says he contracted the AIDS virus after his wife was infected through a blood transfusion.

The 35-member commission, which makes recommendations to the White House on AIDS prevention, is the latest incarnation of a panel that has existed since the Reagan administration. Earlier commissions issued reports strongly critical of the national response to AIDS, and helped to nudge the government and the pharmaceutical industry toward greater action.

In his speeches and writings on his Web site and elsewhere, Thacker has described homosexuality as a “deathstyle” rather than a lifestyle and asserted that “Christ can rescue the homosexual.” After word of his selection spread among gays in recent days, some material disappeared from the Web site. Earlier versions located by The Washington Post that referred to the “gay plague,” for instance, were changed as of yesterday to “plague.”

Update: I see that Atrios and Oliver Willis wasted no time pointing to this story either.

Pull up a chair.

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From Thomas Holcomb’s Weblog (which I found by hitting the Random button): Reading at 8 months, and that was just the beginning.

Alia, who is 13, and will earn her undergraduate degree from the State University at Stony Brook this spring, has been stunning people for a long time, beginning with her parents, who thought it odd when she started reading words at 8 months old.

Prof. Harold Metcalf had her in physics her freshman year. “I was skeptical,” he says. “Such a little girl. Then the second or third class, she asked a question. I realized, this girl understands. I’ve occasionally seen this at 15 or 16, but not 10.”

And not just math and physics. She is an accomplished clarinetist. Ricardo Morales, principal clarinet for the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, is her teacher. He recalls two years ago, preparing her to play the Mozart Concerto for Clarinet.

“Such a monumental piece,” he says. “It requires a beautiful sound, beautiful phrasing, a solid technical foundation. You must sing through the instrument. She does! It was child’s play for her.” Literally.

You know, when I read stuff like that I’m a mix of emotions. Like, Gee, I was a smart kid but never smart like that, or, Gosh, wouldn’t it be cool to have a kid who was that brilliant and multi-talented? It’s hard—for me, at any rate—not to do the comparative thing. I have to remind myself that everybody does their own thing at their own pace.

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More charter schools coming to LA:

In a few years, the burgeoning charter school movement could siphon off more than 10 percent of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s student body, freeing educators from the bureaucracy to try new ways to improve education.

Already, more than 50 charter schools have sprung up in the Los Angeles area to serve 27,800 children in predominantly poor neighborhoods.

This year alone, the district expects to process 15 to 20 charter school applications. El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills and Pacoima Elementary School both plan to convert into charters starting this fall.

Also, the Alliance for Student Achievement — a nonprofit group led by Los Angeles’ civic elite — is working to launch a network of charter schools that will serve 50,000 students within five years. Education Week has dubbed the Alliance’s proposal the “Shadow L.A. District.”

I don’t quite understand what charter schools are, but the more choice we have around here for schools, the better.

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According to Fortune over at bread, coffee, chocolate, and yoga, chocolate is an excellent addition to any diet!

As an added bonus, coffee may reduce the risk of colon cancer in women.

Does this mean I can write off my visits to Starbucks as “health care”?

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Some days it’s hard to decide whether the Bush administration is cynical and stupid or simply outright evil.

(Boxgate via Atrios. Richard Hines info via Josh Marshall.)

More on copyright

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I’ve been doing a lot of reading about intellectual property law, the concepts behind intellectual property, and public domain of late. I think I have a better handle on it.

One of the arguments against allowing work to enter the public domain is that the creators of a work should be able to profit from it as long as they are able to. Well, okay…except the vast majority of works out there are no longer making anyone a dime. There isn’t a huge clamor out in our multiplexes for moviegoers to see the Great Movies of 1928. (1928 was, until Eldred, pretty much the current date for works to leave copyright protection.) There isn’t a rush on at Barnes and Noble to read the Bestsellers of 1928.

So basically the copyright extension was extended another twenty years to benefit a very few. It’s not called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act for nothing. There are very few beneficiaries of the copyright extension. And I’ve come to believe that society is definitely the loser.
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