HEAVY WEATHER 2011: NESAT!

Typhoon: we has one.



Well, sort of. Typhoon Nesat is 350 km away from us right now, and isn’t going to get any closer. But it’s close enough to generate 90 kph winds in the harbour, which means the No. 8 signal (i.e. the signal that means “Stay inside, and yr excused from work”) is in force.

It also meant a really loud night for us, as we live on the western outskirts in a coastal village, which means we’re geographically closer to Nesat and more exposed to the winds.

On the bright side, the weatherproofing we had done when we bought this place seems to be holding up.

Indeed, this is the first chance we’ve had to test it. HK has been dodging typhoons the past couple of years. The South China Sea has been generating plenty of them but somehow they’ve all managed to land Somewhere Else. Or, when they did make it here, they had weakened so much as to not warrant any real alarm. 

Anyway, we’re battened down for the time being. And we have plenty of breakfast cereal, Jack Daniel’s and Internet, as well as a 2500+ CD library. So we’re good.

Let it blow,

This is dF

CAPTAIN MAL WANTS YOU TO KILL

ITEM: University of Wisconsin-Stout’s chief of police, Lisa Walter, forces theatre professor James Miller to remove this poster from his office door.



When the professor protested on 1A grounds, Walter said the 1A doesn’t cover speech that can be “reasonably expected” to disrupt school activities or constitute a threat:

We were notified of the existence of the posting, reviewed it and believe that the wording on the poster can be interpreted as a threat by others and/or could cause those that view it to believe that you are willing/able to carry out actions similar to what is listed. This posting can cause others to fear for their safety, thus it was removed.

Miller responded by replacing the Mal poster with this poster.

 

Walter ordered it removed for the exact same reason.

See what they did there?

CLARIFICATION: One of the exceptions to the 1A is speech that intentionally incites people to imminent violence or other unlawful actions, or is likely to do so. However, the key words are “intentionally”, “imminent” and “likely” – which means things like deliberately getting a crowd worked up to go lynch someone right this minute, not posters protesting state violence or quoting fictional characters from TV shows.

But then we live in the post-Columbine/Virginia Tech age, where even writing fictional violence in school can get you arrested. Because you wouldn’t be writing about violence – or sticking it on yr office door – if you weren’t planning to kill someone.

And even if yr not, anyone could read it and then decide to go kill lots of people. And then it’d be all YR fault.

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?

Zero tolerance,

This is dF