Not a Potted Plant

So said TalkLeft’s Jeralyn Merritt:

Why Zimmerman reported Trayvon to the non-emergency number is a red herring. It doesn’t matter if he profiled him or unfairly suspected him of criminal activity. It doesn’t matter that he was a crime warrior. He didn’t break the law. His neighborhood watch program, set up with the assistance of the police, instructed residents to report suspicious activity. That’s what he did. He wasn’t on watch that night, he had a concealed weapons permit, and it wasn’t a crime to get out of his car to see where Trayvon had run off to, so he could tell the police when they got there.

All that matters legally is whether Trayvon Martin’s physical attack on him caused him to reasonably believe he was in danger of serious bodily injury or death. Zimmerman’s testimony, which is supported by proof of his injuries and witnesses observing the struggle, is that Martin broke his nose and banged his head against cement. He tried to get up and couldn’t. Using an objective standard, a reasonable person in that situation would fear imminent serious bodily injury if he didn’t react with force.

The state is unlikely to prevail in arguing Zimmerman was the aggressor because to be the aggressor, Zimmerman had to contemporaneously provoke the force Martin used against him. Zimmerman’s profiling of Martin and call to the non-emergency number were not contemporaneous with Martin’s attack. Even if the state could convince a judge or jury that Zimmerman was following Martin, rather than walking back to his car, rendering his pursuit a contemporaneous act, it is not an act that provokes Martin’s use of force against him. Demanding someone account for their presence does not provoke the use of force. Even if it could be construed to be provocation for using force, all it means is Zimmerman had to attempt reasonable means to extricate himself before using deadly force in response. W-6’s steadfast insistence that Zimmerman was struggling to get up and out from under Trayvon, right before the shot went off, fulfills that requirement. Zimmerman will say the same. And no witnesses saw anything different.

Now, this all speaks to the legal case and not the underlying social issues. Having said that, I found this account very convincing and – unless new information comes to light, less than comfortable with the prosecution. (This was written a while back, but a scan of what has been written since doesn’t move the needle). Merritt’s explanation of events – even keeping in mind that she is a defense lawyer – has changed my mind on the legal aspects (again, pending more information). I had a lot of skepticism of Zimmerman’s story in the more immediate aftermath of the story.

The underlying social issues I wrote about here remain in tact. And none of this should be construed as believing that Martin “deserved” what he got. Even if it wasn’t a crime, it was a horrible tragedy. I’d need to see a robust explanation from the prosecution, but as it stands, I’m less neutral on the “What if I was a juror?” question than I was. If what Merritt cites as law (what qualifies as a provocative action on Zimmerman’s part and so forth – more here). I’m also less sure about the “acted immorally” part, though Zimmerman’s actions still don’t sit right on a gut level (or I’m not entirely sold on his narrative… or both).

There’s been a lot of talk on the issue over here and thought I would share my updated perspective.

Kazzy:

I wish I didn’t care so much about any of this. But I do. The baby should change that, right? [pauses… looks around… sees baby-sized LSU T-shirt Zazzy bought at Gap] Nope. Apparently not.

Trumwill:

A little while ago, I got a really sweet deal on a used smartphone off eBay. It had a crack running through a corner of it and was a lower-range model to begin with (though the specs were fine). I buy most of my smartphones off eBay, and there have rarely been problems. I’d recommend it, generally. This post is not one an “I got ripped off by eBay posts”.

However, this purchase started off on an odd foot. The seller had not reset the device, so after booting up the phone, I was locked out of it. Not a big deal as I could reset the device myself. After that, I set the phone aside to take a look at when I got the time. When I picked the phone up again a week later, I learned that not only had the device not been reset, it hadn’t been deactivated. It was still receiving text messages and calls.

I did my part. I contacted my carrier to inform them that somebody out there (at [phone number]) was still being charged for a voice and data plan that they weren’t using. I was informed that unless the account-holder called, there was nothing I could do. (They also informed me that I couldn’t activate my new/used phone until it had been deactivated by the accountholder of the number it was assigned to.) I also found the email address of the original owner of the phone. I wrote them an email explaining the situation and that they needed to contact the carrier to cancel their coverage.

To which I got a six word response: “Who are you? Leave me alone.” I started to respond, but then realized that I was merely repeating what I’d said in my last email. The end result of all of this being that some girl or woman in the rust belt is going to be continually charged for a wireless phoneline that she isn’t using. She’ll probably be wondering why they are contacting her since she dispatched the phone and that obviously terminates the account right? At some point, debt collectors will be involved. Her current balance is over $1,000 in payment due.

Meanwhile, I have a smartphone that I can’t really use yet. Actually, I could use it as a separate phone line if I were so inclined. But I have a phone. I bought this for backup purposes in case I lost my phone. I assume that service will indeed be cut off at some point. Hopefully before I need this one. The next-to-last text message said that I needed to contact the carrier within 24 hours. That was over 24 hours ago, and I just got a text message from an irate friend wondering why he or she is being ignored.

It’s actually somewhat amazing to me that I have never actually lost a cell phone. I ran over one, once. I crushed one under an exercise bike. (By the way, never insure your smartphone. Trust me.) I have misplaced my phone on a couple of occasions, but I was quick to realize it was gone and recovered it.

Of course, I don’t know if she lost this phone, whether it was stolen*, or whether she just sold it. The bigger issue is that upon the dispatching or disappearance of the phone, she didn’t get it replaced or cancel the account. This is actually the sort of thing that I am bad at when it comes to wallets. I wait a week or two for it to pop up. I keep an eye on my credit card usage, and then if it hasn’t popped up I start making the calls.

I get the sense that there is no such deliberate process involved with the original owner of this phone. That she is like the guy who thinks that since his car was repossessed that his relationship with the creditors was terminated. These are the sorts of things that genuinely depress me. We live in an increasingly complicated world. The deck is enormously stacked against those who aren’t equipped for it.

* – A lot of people are under the impression that used phones are always stolen. I’ve actually never bought into this. As people continually upgrade or replace their phones, the old phones have to go somewhere. In any event, the girl in question had an opportunity to declare it stolen. She didn’t. My conscience is clean.

I’ve lived in the desert for a long time — I grew up here, and I’ve been here six years since I came back from Tennessee. But until tonight, I’d never seen a wild kit fox out in the desert. Only in zoos. But there he was, all tan and with a downward-pointed tail, running across the street and into the sagebrush. Coyote usually point their tails up, so that’s how I figured it wasn’t a coyote pup. And then a second glance showed he was too small for even that.

A cute footnote on what’s otherwise been a crazy day week month.

The culture wars over political correctness in academia never really went away, I suppose, although they only sometimes bubble up to the top of the simmering zeitgeist. One of those bubbles reaches up near the top today at Butler University, as a student took public his unhappiness with his professor’s request to a second-year political science class that students “write and speak in a way that does not assume American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status, etc. to be the norm” and instead use “inclusive language” as “a fundamental issue of social justice.”

The student who found this instruction an offensive and insulting presumption that he is a racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist, and national origin-ist, named Ryan Lovelace, dropped the “politically correct” class rather than do what the syllabus asked of him. The just-under-the-text line of outrage that we are supposed to read in to the story is the professor “indoctrinating” her students instead of “educating” them.

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Phone makers are apparently hoping to cash in on a Samsungian niche of “phablets.” That area between phone and tablet. Samsung, of course, got the ball rolling with the Galaxy Note.

I actually figured that the Note would be a failure. They seem to have moved away from the full tablet sized version, but it’s apparently become quite popular. Which is one of the reasons why it’s so important that the iPhone is no longer sucking all of the oxygen out of the room. They might actually release one of these things someday, but like the iPad Mini, only if someone else demonstrated a market for them.

Now, my animosity towards the iPhone has almost dissipated. I have what I want, and Apple controls a relatively small minority of the market. The only dangling issue are the lawsuits, but even a billion dollar verdict can’t stop Android’s momentum. This isn’t an entirely good thing, because I worry about Microsoft Windows Phone’s continued participation in the market and I’d prefer at least three options. The last outstanding concern I’ve had is “what happens if/when Google decides it’s simply not making money off of these things?”

Most likely, either the handset makers enter into some sort of Symbian-like consortium, or the code gets turned over to Apache or a like organization. Long-term, it could get overtaken by someone else when someone figures out the next Big Leap like Apple did.

There was a brief window where I wasn’t positive that this was going to be the case. Some of my apprehension towards the iPhone was based on an underlying fear that they would actually accomplish their goal of conforming the consumers to their own designs. And this horrified me not just because their design did not match my preference, but because I was concerned that something like the phablet wouldn’t actually come to fruition. Or good smartphones with physical keyboards or even slightly larger screens.

On the other hand, I am a bit glad that Apple is the way it is. Otherwise, they’d be fewer gaps for Samsung to have exploited. If Apple had been just flexible enough to keep more people in their ecosphere, then I’d really be screwed.

Is the secret to the modern dating site specificity?
Epstein divides dating sites into three categories: the “long bar,” the “long test” and the “niche.” A hugely popular and well-known site, like the aptly named PlentyOfFish.com would be a “long bar” site

— like going to a bar that stretches on for miles, with a nearly infinite number of people to drink, date or flirt with. The “long test” sites, such as Chemistry.com, start users off with a lengthy personality questionnaire that can take up to 45 minutes to complete — a process that tends to eliminate those afraid of commitment — then requires them to wait for the site to dole out its computer-chosen matches.

But a woman who posts an attractive photo on a popular site can easily have hundreds of replies to sift through, and that’s where niche sites come in: They’re weeder-outers. Users know going in that they’ll have at least one thing in common with a prospective inamorata/o, which makes for easier first-date icebreaking.

If Ayn Rand isn’t your turn-on, the Net can certainly provide something that is. Sites like JDate, SingleMuslim or BuddhistConnect, which match singles on the basis of religion, are among the earliest and most common types of specialized dating networks. And things have only become more diverse. Neck biters can hunt for bite-ees at VampirePassions. Aviators are promised that they’ll “never fly solo again” at Crewdating, a site for pilots and flight attendants. “World of Warcraft” gamers search for love at (the somewhat male-dominated) Datecraft. Cupidtino, the “Mac-inspired” dating site for Apple fanboys and girls, boasts that it’s “packed with designers, photographers, musicians, and tons of creative types.” Single members of the Bahai faith turn to TwoDoves, and vegans can search for partners on sites like VeggieDate, VeggieFishing or VeggiePassions that cater to their desire for cruelty-free love.

It’s an interesting concept, though it seems to me that the biggest problem you’d run into that there is so rarely gender balance among anything specific. I mean, maybe DisabledCupid is on to something, but I’d expect VeggieDate to be skewed in one direction and Rand devotees to be skewed to another.

Of course, that brings up questions about gender balance in general. It is still commonly said that guys outnumber girls by a significant degree. On the one hand, statistics suggest otherwise. On the other, that may be highly dependent on age and the type of site (more below). One of the things that comes to mind are those ads I see for Zoosk, which is a dating site whose ads are pretty clearly aimed at women. I remember thinking that was smart as a pre-emptive attempt to instill balance. If you’re looking at one imbalance or another, going directly to the minority side and figuring that the majority side won’t be too put off seems like a smart strategy. Zoosk apparently focuses on the younger crowd, which if there is a general imbalance, that would be the one I would figure to have over-representation of guys.

According to Wikipedia, eHarmony (“long test”) is almost 60% female while Match.com (“long bar”) is the other way around. This has a certain degree of logic to it. Even setting aside the questionnaire, a website that filters out users would likely be of more use to women than to men. I know that when I was briefly a member of a high-maintenance (costly, among other things) dating site, it seemed that the response rate I got from women was quite good (somewhere near 100%) and I got unsolicited pings either because the balance was skewed in my favor or because the cost made it so that each message ping was considered more relevant. On the other side was LavaLife, where it wasn’t free but you were charged on a per-unique-contact basis.

The niche site is a system that can be gamed if you’re a guy pretending to be a vegetarian or a lady who pretending to like Japanese animation (well, in 2001, it may be different now). Of course, that presents its own disincentives.