Yeah, We Just Thought This Was The Future

You've probably heard about this charming incident, where two adolescent women at a McDonalds in Baltimore beat another young woman -- a transgendered woman -- until she had a seizure, because she had dared to use their bathroom; while meanwhile an entire store full of employees and customers stood about, most of them doing nothing at all, some of them laughing, several of them filming the incident?

(A few of them did something: at least one of them called the police; and a manager, ineffectually, attempted to stop them.)

Many people are upset and outraged. As am I.

But I'm disturbed for yet another reason. Long-time readers know my kid does not perform her gender especially well. She has short hair; she does not wear or want to wear make-up; she doesn't wear or want to wear girly clothing. She looks, on first glance, to the ignorant, somewhat boyish. (When we took her to be tested with the homeschoolers, for instance, all the boys thought she was a boy all through the testing, and she never informed them otherwise.)

So when we're out in public and she has to use a public bathroom, she's always terrified that someone -- some girl, she means, but anyone -- will attack her. I've been telling her it's silly, that that will never happen. But now this.

Shit.

Oh dear...

Once when I was a fledgling professor, years ago, still capable of being shocked -- this was so long ago the internet was still in its first years, and students didn't believe professors knew what it was -- I received an essay that was, word for word, a copy of an article from an online encyclopedia.

It took me about 20 minutes, even in those ancient days, with their ancient search engines, to find the article.  As was my standard practice, I printed a copy of the article, paperclipped it to the student's essay, and sent the student an email (we did have email in those days, oh my best beloved) saying I would like to see him in my office as soon as possible.

He arrived, all wide-eyed and innocent.  When I confronted him with the evidence, first he claimed that "it wasn't fair," because I had been "trying" to catch him.  (Apparently he thought of my acts as a sort of entrapment?) But then he claimed he was innocent because he had not thieved the essay off the internet.  

Oh, no.

See, he had not had time to do his assignment; so he asked his girlfriend to write the essay, and she had thieved the essay off the net; so really --

"Dude," I said, wincing.  "Son."

All of this, by way of saying, to the latest revelations concerning George W. Bush's "Memoirs" -- dude.  Son.