I have been thinking about hate crimes a lot lately. I am of two minds. As a member of a class that is frequently the victim of hate crimes, I feel that there should be legislation requiring stiffer penalties for them. But isn't that really punishing someone for what they are thinking? Where does that end? When does the thought become the crime rather than the act. In many european countries denying the Holocaust occurred can be a crime. While in no way do I condone that line of thinking it seems weird that writing it is a crime. Assaulting someone is and should be illegal. But when charging and sentencing the perpetrator of the crime should thought or intent come into consideration? I understand that pre-meditating a murder is a different crime from just suddenly deciding to kill a person. But hate crimes legislation seems to me to be an attempt to control how people think. There will never not be raving lunatics like Charles Manson and well dressed, well spoken lunatics like Ann Coulter. Punishing them for what they think seems like a useless measure. Until violence as a way of solving problems is eliminated in our society hate crimes will occur. Likewise to pretend that stiffer penalties will make the perpetrators re-consider committing them is foolish.

My Sitcom Life . . .

. . . isn't as funny as one might expect. Moving was, seriously, one of the worst days of my life. We got to Abingdon and there had been a screw up with the U-haul office and for some reason they sent me to a garage 8 miles outside of Abingdon. This place was some mom and pop body shop. When I got there the guy was just firing up his computer, once he was on the U-haul website (using dial-up 'natch) he asked me what a heartbeat was. At first I thought there might be some sort of metaphysical/philosophical questionnaire to pass in order to get the U-haul. Apparently this guy had *never* used a computer before. At one point he almost charged me $20,000 for the stupid truck. Long story short an hour later we left without the truck. A quick call to the U-haul office solved the problem and we shortly had a truck. Thus far in the day the family had gotten along remarkably well. Unfortunately that streak ended as we parked the U-haul in front of my house. All hell broke loose, a family fight that began with my mother storming out to the car and ended with me having a MAJOR breakdown in the bathroom. Then after moving everything into the truck we had to drive the 6 hours north. The english language doesn't have words for how awful the day was. True to family form once the fight was over we acted like nothing happened. Then, of course, came the unloading of the truck which provoked another major breakdown from me. It was all delightfully reminiscent of high school. Good times, good times. Living at home is probably the worst idea I have ever devised in my simple little mind. After 19 days . . . remember a few years ago when the Crown Prince of Nepal shot all his family members? Well that little spree doesn't seem so off the wall sometimes. After two months of this 2006 maybe the year of the crazy . . .