moodyredhead

Because this week, I was sitting in Birmingham, Alabama, using my iPhone to read a blog post written by my favorite former hometown Memphis food writer, who has since moved to Seattle. Which I found via a link from my favorite former law professor in Knoxville.

That’s just cool.

(* Concept of “Living in the Future” blatantly and proudly stolen from Wil Wheaton.)

We will now take a quick break from our normal blog for a brief PSA regarding telephone manners. (Although I strongly suspect I’m preaching to the choir here.)

For those of you who weren’t taught phone manners in school, or from your parents, please note the following when you are calling a business. Or a residence, for that matter.

Wrong: Opening a conversation with “Who is this?” (Let’s face it, you should know who you called.)

Correct: There is a much better chance of the person answering the phone not knowing who YOU are. A much better response is to introduce yourself. “Hello, this is (insert-your-name-here).” In some circumstances, “May I speak to (insert-name-here)?” is also acceptable. But still, be prepared to give your identity.

Wrong: Following up the exchange of identities with “How are you doing?” and demanding that the person answer before proceeding with the conversation.

Correct: Why? (a.) It’s a bit smarmy and controlling. (b.) It may be none of your business and/or you may get a more honest response that you wanted. (c.) The person you are talking already suspects you don’t really care how they are. Be prepared not to get an answer, or the social minimum of “fine”, and move on with your business. And speaking of that. . .

Wrong: Failing to state your business promptly.

Correct: After the pleasantries are over and everyone knows who is speaking to whom, get to the point. Immediately. Generally, when you are calling a business, the person on the other end of the line is paid to be there and has other job responsibilities. No matter how polite and friendly they seem, they do not wish to hear your whole life story. Even more importantly, they are not interested in playing twenty questions with you to find out what you want. If you will take the simple step of stating what you want, it will greatly speed along the process of getting help or finding out that help is not available.

(A corollary to that last one: if you find out that the business you called cannot help you with what you need, let it go. Do not attempt to talk to a host of other people that you think may be more interested in your needs. A good gatekeeper won’t let you get away with that, anyway.)

Wrong: Not listening to the person answering the telephone.

Correct: If you begin with listening instead of talking, you may hear important information, like the name of the business you called, and/or the name of the person who answered. This may save you the embarrassment of, let’s say, railing at someone for not immediately providing you with directions to your doctor’s office when you have not, in fact, called your doctor’s office. Which brings me to my final point. . .

Wrong: Hanging up on or berating someone for not being the person you meant to call.

Correct: It is acceptable to take an extra moment to determine whether you dialed the digits you intended to dial. After that, the ONLY acceptable response is “Sorry, wrong number,” or words to that effect. Unacceptable responses include (a.) rudely hanging up, (b.) cursing, and (c.) demanding that the person who answers tell you what number you should have dialed. (No, sadly, I am not kidding about that last one.)

For anyone who is interested, or needs a resource to teach someone else, you can look here. Or here. Or here. And this is a good source for those answering the phones at a business.

Thank you for your attention. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog.

A brief disclaimer: I never meant this blog to be about politics, or law. However, as these things do interest me, and do affect what I read, and watch, and listen to, I’m probably inadvertently going to drift that way at times. Plus, I recently re-activated my law license, so I’ve been looking at the world through legal-colored glasses lately. (Hence starting this post with a disclaimer. Lawyer-brain can be a debilitating condition.)

This past week, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about First Amendment rights. It should be an easy concept, right? After all, freedom of ideas and an open national discussion all sound great. In theory. At least until people start getting offended. Then you get this, thanks to the celebration of a “Mexican” holiday that isn’t even celebrated in Mexico. (And seriously? You’re that proud of beating the French? I mean, haven’t we all? But I digress….)

So, not that you asked, but let’s just review the basics of the First Amendment, and what these rights really mean, and don’t mean. It’s pretty easy, once you understand that the Constitution does not grant rights to the people — it’s the document in which PEOPLE grant rights to the GOVERNMENT. Pretty nifty, huh?

What, precisely, does the First Amendment establish? (Well, if you know that it’s not the part of the Constitution that establishes Congress, you’re way ahead of Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey.) The first, and arguably most important thing our founding fathers added to the Constitution prevents the Congress from passing any laws:

1. Establishing a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Everyone seems to get that Congress cannot force citizens to practice a particular religion. What gets lost in the shuffle is that Congress also cannot prevent people from practicing their religion, either. Even if people get offended. For example, say that you’re a complete tool who gets offended by the Pledge of Allegiance, or having “In God we trust” on our money, or having government officials sworn in with an oath that ends “so help me God”. That’s fine. (I still don’t get why an atheist worth their salt would be any more offended at that than they would if our cash said “In the Tooth Fairy we trust,” but whatever.) The point is, you’re entitled to be offended. You are not entitled to have the government make people not offend you.
2. Abridging the freedom of speech. This one seems pretty easy, too — our government can’t tell us what to think, or what to say. But there are some nuances. For example, freedom of speech doesn’t guarantee an audience; you can say whatever you like, but no one has to listen. Similarly, you are not protected from what other people have to say. Even if it offends you. Especially if it offends you.
3. Abridging freedom of the press. Is this already covered under free speech? Sure. Did the founding fathers think a free press was so important to be able to hold government’s feet to the fire that it bore a specific mention? You betcha. These guys didn’t repeat themselves often, so we should probably pay attention to this one.
4. Preventing people from peaceable assembly. Any peaceable assembly, from a flash mob to a rock concert to a political rally. It applies equally whether you’re an attendee of the event or outside protesting, as long as it’s peaceable.
5. Preventing people from petitioning the government for redress of grievances. This is the part where it’s patriotic to question your government, regardless of who is in office and which side you’re on. Currently this part is protecting people at Tea Parties; a few years ago you might have noticed it protecting people who were protesting President Bush’s refusal to withdraw our troops from Iraq.

And that brings me back to this week, and the events at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California. On May 5, “Cinco de Mayo”, five students at Live Oak were told that they were not allowed to wear clothing with the American flag on it because it was “incendiary” on a day when the Mexican-American students were celebrating their heritage — in many cases, by wearing Mexican flags. The boys were told to remove their clothing or turn it inside out, or they would have to go home.

This is a prime example of a lack of understanding of the First Amendment. The same law that allows the Mexican-American students at Live Oak to express pride in their heritage grants equal protection to those wearing the American flag. It is completely irrelevant what “holiday” may be going on… because the First Amendment grants each of us the right to celebrate a holiday or not as we see fit.

But what if the school administrators were right? What if the students only wore American flags to irritate the other students? Well, so much the better. Again, it is their right to do so, as long as they do so peaceably. If the Mexican-American students are offended by an American flag on Cinco de Mayo, so what? And if the Caucasian students are offended by a Mexican flag on Cinco de Mayo, so what? Both sides have equal rights; each can express themselves, and neither can force the other side to stop expressing themselves.

And the symbol of your right to wear what you want and celebrate a holiday based in another culture? Yep. The same flag the boys were told they couldn’t wear. It’s a lot like flag burning… it’s really stupid to want to burn the very symbol of your right to such extreme speech against the government. But in this country, we protect your right to be that idiot.

In response to the situation at Live Oak, Roger Ebert tweeted, “Kids who wear American Flag t-shirts on 5 May should have to share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle on 4 July.” Well, he’s right. Sort of.

Let’s set aside for a moment the fact that the USSR doesn’t exist anymore, so no one is celebrating Soviet holidays much. And let’s set aside that school isn’t open on July 4. And let’s set aside that the First Amendment also protects freedom of association, so it really wouldn’t be the same lunch table, but maybe the same lunchroom. And let’s set aside that Roger Ebert is clearly losing it and couldn’t even keep up with the plot of last year’s Star Trek movie.

But in a sense, he’s right. Yes, those boys should have to put up with students wearing other countries’ flags even if it irritates them. (They did put up with it, by the way.) Just like the Mexican-American kids should have to, oh, I don’t know, share a lunchroom with kids wearing American flags on a day they consider “theirs”. It works both ways.

That’s what the First Amendment is all about. Let’s hope it stays that way.

This is the point where I would normally apologize for not having posted in so long.  Well, this time. . . not gonna.

The truth is, my life has been in a bit of upheaval the last several months, with circumstances ranging from annoying to sucks-beyond-the-telling-of-it.  The upshot is, I’m finally getting it back together (I think), and part of that will be trying to get back into writing.  As best I can, while cutting myself some slack.  As a dear friend of mine says, I need to “do what I can and not what I can’t”.

So. . . if there’s still anyone out there reading. . . well, first, thanks, ‘cause seriously, that’s WAY more dedication than I deserve.  And second, bear with me.  As always, I’m still a work in progress.