Sound Effects

We've trained our cats to go to the garage at 10PM. It used to be a struggle to round them up and evict them from the house each night, but evidently lack of consistency was the problem. We've been rounding them up each night at 10PM for about a month now, and when it's ten o'clock, and I tell them it's time, they toddle off quite willingly.

The reason they spend the night in the garage is that if we leave them in house they meow. They are quiet most of the night but eventually they come looking for someone to pay attention to them and if they don't get any response they meow. Nothing more obnoxious than a cat meowing. Unless it's while you are trying to sleep. Quiet cat equals good cat. Meowing cat equals boot to the garage.

When we were in Seattle a month or two ago we went out to diner at the "Ram" restaurant in University Village. It was pretty dreadful, but I did learn one thing. It was very noisy and it was difficult for me to hear what anyone was saying. But I did have a brief conversation with my daughter. She told me I was talking too loud. I was talking loud enough that I could hear myself. I tried lowering the volume of my voice. She could hear me and understand what I said. I could barely hear myself. Strange.

Some time ago I saw the movie "Layer Cake", a British film about some drug dealing gangsters. One of the "gang", a little crazier than most, rips off a large quantity of drugs from someone on the continent. He wants to unload this wholesale quantity of drugs, but he wants retail prices. So they set up a meet: two other British gangsters and this crazy guy and his girlfriend. The meeting dissolves into the crazy guy shouting. One of the Brits shoots him. That quiets him down. Now his girlfriend goes into hysterics and starts screaming at them. He shoots her too. Now we have peace and quiet.

One of the things we have in the US is freedom of speech. You can say pretty much whatever you want, unless it is:
a. slanderous,
b. intended to excite people to violence, or
c. threatening someone with violence.
I am sure there probably some other exclusions as well, but we still call it freedom of speech.

In other parts of the world, places under military rule, or under dictators, freedom of speech does not exist. The press is controlled by the government. People are arrested for saying things the government does not like.

Now why is that? Why would the government in power be so worried about what people say? I mean they have the police and the army under their control, who cares what a bunch of yahoos out in the street are saying?

I suppose it's because words can convey ideas, and ideas have power. If you don't like someones ideas, then shutting them up would be one way to keep those ideas from spreading, or at least slow down the spread. Or maybe it's like a cat's meow, just the sound of someone espousing an idea you don't like is enough to set your teeth on edge and to call out the police to remove the offending noise maker.