>Della,
>
>SNIP
>>If the majority of people agreed (or at least didn't complain), the show went on. Now, one bizarre person can single-handedly stop a song or even a whole event.
>>
>SNIP
>you are right as I see things, and I suspect that, more often than not, the "bizarreness" has nothing to do with "conviction" but more with testing their own power to cause 'trouble'. They succeed and so do it more often.

That's why I used to term "bizarre" instead of a number of terms that could also mean that people are truly living their beliefs. I think that people who truly live their beliefs (especially from those religions/cultures that stress tolerance as a virtue) can find more creative ways to work with the system instead of causing trouble.

>There developed a movement (might have been small, but it got lots of publicity) decrying the device on the basis that implanting the device in children was immoral because it removed them from the "culture" (the "deaf culture") into which they were born.

Every once in a while, the story surfaces (my daughter loves sign language, and my son's school is a hearing-impaired center, so we hear a bit more than the average person about the hearing-impaired world). I can't believe that a parent wouldn't want to better their children's chances of interacting with this world. I can see that people are born into their race, religion, and ethnic culture, and they shouldn't ever be forced to change (well, it is pretty tough to change one's race!). But to intentionally keep a child from having one of their senses? Sorry, I don't get it. But, like you say, I'm not gonna argue with 'em and look like a shmuck.


- della