Observe the time, and fly from evil
(That's the Douay-Rheims version of a passage from the Catholic apocrypha, which is inscribed on a Catholic church in San Francisco's Chinatown.)
Last week I bought a watch, and I became a member of the ACLU and the FSF.
I hadn't had a wristwatch for about three years, since my watchstrap broke. It's a great feeling to have one again; I'm trying to get used to actually knowing what time it is.
I'd delayed joining ACLU for many years because I disagreed with them about affirmative action (though I agreed with them about almost every other issue they work on). But when I read about some recent events (I have an unfinished diary entry about this), I thought that I really needed to join the ACLU. So I did.
It's pretty well known that ACLU membership is booming. Troubling times and events tend to increase their membership numbers -- a phenomenon we're familiar with at EFF. (If I remember correctly, more people joined EFF the week Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested than any other week that year.)
