Monday, October 23, 2006

People Worse Off Than Me

So a 40-year-old woman wants to scare a teenaged boy away from a basketball hoop? Is stripping naked a good option? What does it say about the woman's appearance that the hormone-laden boy took off running to his parents? What does it say about a judge who doesn't understand inclusive pronouns taking masculine form? And she's planning to keep doing it every time he plays basketball? Do I hear a webcam being installed?

When I was in legal editing, San Francisco spent a fortune on their municipal code to replace every "he" and "his" with "he or she" and "his and her," even though they had provisions that clearly stated that masculine form included feminine and neutral forms (and, yes, neutral is necessary--a corporation is legally defined as a person but has no clear gender). Alternates for "him or her."

At the time, I thought SF's job was the easiest, most profitable, and most unnecessary assignment in the history of codification. If Judge Armstrong has his way, it might become commonplace.

And what about this idiot? I'm not sure if I'd want to meet a guy who screwed a pit bull so hard it was "squealing and crying."

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