If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or email alerts. Thanks for visiting!
Fresh from the Terri Schiavo case debates, lately almost everything seems like irrational interference by government or corporations in public policy issues. Just surfing around, I spotted few examples in recent times:
North Carolina (along with a dozen other states) has a law that prohibits unmarried couples from staying together. The only thing that stops the police from rampantly arresting cohabiting couple is the almost total absence of implementation. Imagine if a moralizing “law-abiding” Sheriff was elected to office?
Some pharmacists are refusing to fill prescription for birth control in accordance with their religious beliefs (The Catholic Church still speaks against condoms although almost 80% of American Catholics support birth control). Does the law allow pharmacist the “right to refuse service” on grounds of their moral and religious beliefs? In the Middle East, even non-Muslims aren’t allowed to eat publicly during the month of Ramadan, but then no one wants to piss them off because they have oil.
I emailed a friend in India with Hola (Spanish for hello) in the subject line. She responded back that she didn’t get the email because according to their network security folks, I had used an “unparliamentary” word in my email. But using the word in the text body was acceptable. It later turned out that they didn’t appreciate me saying, life is a bitch. Hmmmm….I understand that this is common practice in corporate offices in India i.e. to monitor employee emails. I am not sure whether I consider that appropriate; anyway why the distinction between the subject line and text body? Does using “unparliamentary” words in my personal emails, mostly to my friends through my corporate account (because the company will not allow me access to web-based emails) any business of the company? Nothing works for rekindling old memories among (guy) friends by swearing at each other; sadly the company thinks otherwise.
You have parents to shout, “don’t do this, don’t do that” and then you grow up and your government and company take the mantle of parenthood. Gah!
by Patrix | on Tuesday, April 26th, 2005 at 11:05 pm | 
Society Culture . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
April 27th, 2005 at 12:14 am reply
Bah! This is nonsense.
April 27th, 2005 at 12:15 am reply
I meant the censorship, not your post.
Just clarifying :)
April 27th, 2005 at 8:48 am reply
What is unparliamentary about ‘Hola’?
And I dont thinnk it is legal for pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control prescription. Where did u see that? Especially in chain pharmacies, they will sack the guy right there and then.
April 27th, 2005 at 8:50 am reply
http://www.aphanet.org/pharmcare/ethics.html
at least ethically, it doesnt seem right to me..see point III
April 27th, 2005 at 12:32 pm reply
Gabby - LOL! Don’t worry, you are at NEFA; we don’t get easily offended here ;)
Sqrl/NT - I think the problem was with ‘bitch’, which out of context would seem ‘unparliamentary’ but come on! Regards the pharmacist thing, I heard about it on the liberal blogosphere couple of weeks back. It raised a ruckus out here.
April 27th, 2005 at 1:25 pm reply
Better be careful dude, u never know, they might be monitoring ur blog ;-)
April 27th, 2005 at 1:41 pm reply
I too have heard that about the pharmacists, as well as protests outside pharmacies which did sell condoms. Who knows, may lead to birth of latex tourism!
April 27th, 2005 at 1:47 pm reply
Adi - Why do you think I am anonymous, Patrix can say things that P*** can’t :)
Spaceman - Line in a page for students coming from India: Bring your own condoms, Bush’s America doesn’t approve sex (with condoms).