What I've Read - "When killing activists, never shoot for the head, always aim for the heart." - The Nightly News by Jonathan Hickman

Outstandingly innovative graphic design. Rich with ideas and concepts. A plot that zigs when I thought it was going to zag. Really, really entertaining. Interesting thoughts on media, entertainment, education, information, religion, violence, cults and... well... life. Highly Recommended.

The Nightly News by Jonathan Hickman:

"As an act of violence spirals out of control to encompass the entirety of the news media, a cult has emerged from the errors and retractions that have ruined careers, marriages and even lives. Under direction from his cult master, The Hand leads an army of followers committed to revolution, willing to die for their cause.

"...NETWORK meets FIGHT CLUB..." - Andy Diggle"

From the book notes/references [which are almost as interesting as the narrative,] by Hickman -

"...this idea that being a protestor is not just a noble activity but is a righteous work done by the enlightened is some type of reality-warped, romanticized notion of the sixties. For the most part, this is nothing more than public therapy by part-timers. Their focus isn't actually on changing the world; it's on making a public display, a cathartic offering, out of the guilt they live in an opulent society. There is nothing more pussy than sitting around and doing chants and singing songs pretending like that is going to change the world. Nothing. It's an embarrassing charade by the wealthy."

...and this one I particularly liked:

"The idea of an established persona - that you are the sum of all your experiences, decisions and feelings - is false. We are, in fact, quite malleable to new experiences, peer influence and tragedy. Adaptability, humanity's evolutionary strength, is also one of its greatest weaknesses."

Spitzer - Arrogance and Hypocrisy.

Leaving aside the issue of whether or not prostitution should even be illegal [to paraphrase the Great Carlin - if sex is legal, and selling is legal, why isn't selling sex legal?] remember this was Mr Hard-Nosed-Prosecutor-Super-Cop. Mr Law-and-Order.

Always remember they will lock you up and throw away the key, not give you a second thought, and then high five over a round of drinks at the bar while waxing philosophically about how you brought it on yourself and the importance of the rule of law in society.

But the laws only apply to you. Not to them. They're special. The laws are only for the little people. Or whoever they don't like. They don't care about the law, they care about power and their personal agenda.

Yeah, fuck them. Schadenfreude all around... it's on me.

The Spitzer Scandal: Lust Plus Pride - TIME:

"On a day of heavy ironies for one of America's most prominent and promising politicians, there was this: the prostitution ring that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer allegedly patronized was called the Emperors Club VIP. It was the governor's own imperial mien, after all, that will make this fall from grace particularly bruising.

...The allegations could be particularly damaging to Spitzer, a former hard-nosed prosecutor who had made ferreting out corporate malfeasance and cracking down on corruption centerpieces of his political platform."

Wow, do I feel dumb.

Brazilian boy, 8, passes law school entrance exam | World news | The Guardian:

"Brazil's lawyers have been shocked to find that a boy aged eight has managed to pass the entrance exam to law school.

...Joao Victor is still in fifth grade, two levels ahead of normal for his age, but his mother says he is not a cloistered genius. "He is a regular boy," she told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. "He is very dedicated, likes to read and study, but he has fun and makes friends."

..."My dream is to be a federal judge," the boy said, according to Globo TV's Web site. "So I decided to take the test to see how I would do ... it was easy. I studied a week before the test.""

What I've Read - [since Oct 07]

Well, I think I can say the "monthly reading list" post has been an unqualified failure. I'd inevitably get hung up at the end of the month when I'd be in the middle of a book or two. Thinking "as soon as I get through this book I'll post up." Of course, by the time I was through that one, I'd be in the middle of another, or two. [Let's see... book on the desk at work, another by the computer at home, another in the bathroom [tmi], another in my messenger bag... one day I'll stop reading so much and get a life. Though the 1000 or so books/CDs/DVDs on my Amazon wishlist dispute that assertion.]

So anyways, the "monthly reading list" is now "what I've read" and that takes the whole time constraint bit off it, thereby reducing my feelings of failure, guilt and shame. [I was raised Catholic. That's what happens.]

Here we go again, catching up...

[All descriptions from their Amazon.com blurbs or a [fair use] selection from an Amazon.com review.]

Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More by Joe Vitale, Ihaleakala Hew, Ph.D -

...Imagine wiping your mind's slate clean and starting over without preconceived notions, so you can live in a world of daily wonder. Imagine if anything and everything were possible. In fact, everything is possible when you look at the world free of mental constraints. This book is a key that opens your life to a new universe of possibility and accomplishment——a universe with Zero Limits.

Positive psych. Worthwhile read. Needs re-reading. Cause I'm slow like that.

Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs -

A superb new writer introduces her intrepid heroine to crime fiction. Dr. Tempe Brennan, a trowel-packing forensic anthropologist from North Carolina, works in Montreal's Laboratoire de Medecine Legale examining recovered bodies to help police solve missing-persons cases and murders.

Still searching for a replacement for the early, good, Kay Scarpetta novels... before Cornwell shot them all to hell. This wasn't bad, but didn't really hook me.

Already Dead: A Novel, No Dominion: A Novel, and Half the Blood of Brooklyn: A Novel by Charlie Huston -

Huston does an irresistible and fiendishly original take on the vampire myth. Manhattan is teeming with the undead, the island divided into often-warring vampire clans such as the Society, the Hood and the Enclave. The most powerful is the Coalition, whose goal is to protect its members from public scrutiny and persecution. Rogue PI Joe Pitt (aka Simon), who like all vampires is infected with a virus that requires him to drink blood regularly... Huston has fun playing with the conventions of the genre, creating his own hip update that will appeal to fans of Quentin Tarantino and Buffy the Vampire Slayer alike.

...The second Joe Pitt casebook finds Greenwich Village's favorite undead shamus caught in a nasty power struggle between competing vampire clans.

...Huston's third Joe Pitt vampire novel takes his Manhattan-based hard-boiled hero on a dangerous trip into the undead communities across the bridge in Brooklyn.

My new fave series of books. Vampire Noir. Bloody Philip Marlowe. Awesome.

Brimstone (Pendergast, Book 5)by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child -

As FBI Special Agent Pendergast immerses himself in the investigation of an art critic's bizarre murder, he conjures up clues pointing to the Devil as the culprit.

Wanted to love this, as Pendergrast is an Holmes homage. Plus, lots of potential blasphemy. It was only okay.

Reflex (Jumper) by Steven Gould -

In this delightful SF thriller, the long-anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed Jumper (1992), Gould puts a fresh spin on the classic plot device of human teleportation. Once a teen struggling to escape an abusive father, Davy Rice is now a covert operative for the National Security Agency and happily married to Oklahoma psychologist Millie Harrison-Rice. Enter sudden marital discord over starting a family, and Davy, eager to avoid the issue, jumps from their remote West Texas hideaway to a meeting in Washington, D.C., only to be snatched by an evil organization intent upon forcing "the asset" to work for them.

Really enjoyed this... as I did the first one - Jumper.

The Blue-Eyed Salaryman: From World Traveller to Lifer at Mitsubishi by Niall Murtagh -

A rare inside look at corporate life in Japan—one that is worth more than a dozen business-school studies.

I dug the book, and it was an interesting read, though I ended up not liking the author so much. Odd, that.

The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell, Dustin Thomason -

Caldwell and Thomason's intriguing intellectual suspense novel stars four brainy roommates at Princeton, two of whom have links to a mysterious 15th-century manuscript, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. This rare text (a real book) contains embedded codes revealing the location of a buried Roman treasure.

Great premise, but not as good as I hoped. Parts dragged. Interesting, but not exceptional.

Choke Hold (The New Destroyer) by Warren Murphy, James Mullaney -

Pity poor tobacco tycoon Edgar Rawly.Thanks to lawsuits, government meddling and the inexplicable deaths of many of his best customers, his megabucks industry is gasping its last breath.That is, until the introduction of the Cheyenne Smooths, Rawly's latest product.Not quite tobacco, not quite legal, more addictive than crystal meth... Enter Remo Williams, the Destroyer, and Chiun, the deadly Master of Sinanju.They've been sent to kick some butt, but wind up in danger of being snuffed out themselves. Turns out Edgar Rawly is not the only shady character to recognize the value of the Cheyenne Smooths, and things really start to heat up when Remo bumps into a cult of ancient Chinese assassins, an Asian crime lord, and a worldwide addiction that just might send civilization up in smoke...

Fun, funny and politically incorrect. Classic Remo Williams fare... and that's a good thing.

Secret Dead Men by Duane Swierczynski -

Del Farmer isn't your ordinary hardboiled private eye. Instead of collecting fingerprints or clues, he collects souls of the recently dead.

The best premise for a book I've read in a long time. Kind of disappointing. Finished it up with what felt like too many unanswered and unasked questions and a sense of not really having gone anywhere. Like life, I guess.

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayres -

Yale Law School professor and econometrician Ayres argues in this lively and enjoyable book that the recent creation of huge data sets allows knowledgeable individuals to make previously impossible predictions.

Interesting, in the same way Freakonomics was, with the same failings. Reducing everything to numbers, math and statistics crushes individuality and paints a picture of small, circumscribed lives devoid of passion and humanity. Plus, and the same caveat with the other, is that it all depends on whether you can "control for sufficient variables." You can't. That's why it's called life.

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie -

Is someone else's problem your problem? If, like so many others, you've lost sight of your own life in the drama of tending to someone else's, you may be codependent-and you may find yourself in this book.

Yeah, I did. I do. Work in progress.

Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life by Susan Forward, Craig Buck -

All parents fall short from time to time. But Susan Forward pulls no punches when it comes to those whose deficiencies cripple their children emotionally. Her brisk, unreserved guide to overcoming the stultifying agony of parental manipulation--from power trips to guilt trips and all other killers of self worth--will help deal with the pain of childhood and move beyond the frustrating relationship patterns learned at home.

This actually reinforced and validated a lot of things I've had to come to on my own over the last 5 or 6 years. Wish I'd have read it way earlier. Would have helped.

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower -

Embracing Defeat tells the story of the transformation of Japan under American occupation after World War II.

Best history book I've read in some time. Helps to decode a lot of modern day Japanese idiosyncrasies. Most disturbing bit of info - a popular children's game in the post war occupation was panpan asobi - pretending to be a GI and prostitute.

American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China by Matthew Polly -

...Polly's quest for manhood leads this guy from Topeka, Kans., to the Shaolin Temple, ancient home of the fighting monks and setting for 10,000 chop-socky movies. As much a student of Chinese culture as he is a martial artist, Polly derives a great deal of humor from the misunderstandings that follow a six-foot-three laowai (white foreigner) in a China taking its first awkward steps into capitalism after Tiananmen Square.

Outstanding book. Lots of fun, well written, culturally revealing. Highly recommended.

Steroid Nation: Juiced Home Run Totals, Anti-aging Miracles, and a Hercules in Every High School: The Secret History of America's True Drug Addiction by Shaun Assael -

"With Steroid Nation, Shaun Assael has brilliantly anatomized the American obsession with performance -- and physique -- enhancing drugs. If you are interested in the truth about todayÕs sports world -- the unvarnished but juiced-up, muscle-bound truth -- Steroid Nation is required reading." --Jeremy Schaap, author of Cinderella Man: James J.Braddock, Max Baer and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History and Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics

Extremely well written. Inadvertently reveals the inanity of this particular aspect of the Drug War, but perpetuates dumb myths regarding steroid use. The most obvious was the way the author lets the implication endure that Lyle Alzado's brain cancer could have anything to do with his steroid use. No medical evidence for that anywhere at all.

Comics, TPBs and Graphic Novels

Checkmate, Vol. 2 : Pawn Breaks by Greg Rucka, Jesus Saiz -

...Greg Rucka's Checkmate continues to impress with Pawn Breaks, the second TPB of the series. Amanda Waller, always seeming to be one step ahead in the game, has big plans in store, and the way that writer Greg Rucka weaves everything together is simply fantastic.

Espionage in the DCUniverse of superheroes by one of the best suspense/thriller/espionage writers today.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 2 by Various -

This second volume of our Buffy omnibus series collects many of the best Buffy comics to see print. As we follow the newly-chosen slayer from Los Angeles to Sunnydale and through her parents' divorce - with Dawn in tow - the souled vampire Angel makes his first appearance and the not-so-souled Spike and Drusilla cleave a bloody path towards the West Coast.

Pleasant and diverting. BTVS fans only, probably.

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Daniel Acuna -

The classic super-hero team known as the Freedom Fighters isback in a new configuration for a new generation!Meet the all-new PhantomLady, Doll Man, Human Bomb and the Ray -- members of the government taskforce known as SHADE, the country's first line of defense against super-powered threats and terrorists. When the government becomes corrupt, how far will SHADE have to go to protect the country? And what of Uncle Sam? Has the embodiment of thespirit of America really been forced underground?

Fun, crazy ideas. Great art. Wild visuals.


Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon, Andy Owens, Georges Jeanty, Jo Chen -

The newest incarnation of the Buffy comic, written by series creator Whedon, is effectively the new season of the TV series... The Long Way Home establishes the season 8 status quo: demon-killing heroine Buffy Summers is now commanding an army of hundreds of Slayers (and her little sister, Dawn, has been turned into a giant by Whedon's favorite transformative force, sex). Still, there's some creepy unfinished business from the TV show to deal with, and the U.S. Army is coming after her, too.

Season 8 of BTVS with the return of Joss Whedon as "show runner," writer and dialogue god. It is AWESOME. With a capital A.

The Boys Vol. 1: The Name of the Game by Garth Ennis , Darick Robertson -

THIS IS GOING TO HURT! In a world where costumed heroes soar through the sky and masked vigilantes prowl the night, someone's got to make sure the "supes" don't get out of line. And someone will... A CIA backed team of very dangerous people, each one dedicated to the struggle against the most dangerous force on Earth-superpower. Some superheores have to be watched. Some have to be controlled. And some of them-sometimes-need to be taken out of the picture That's when you call in THE BOYS

Wicked humor by Ennis and great art by Robertson.

Phonogram: Rue Britannia by Kieron Gillen, Jamie Mckelvie -

Britannia is ten years dead. Phonomancer David Kohl hadn't spared his old patron a thought for almost as long... at which point his mind starts to unravel. Can he discover what's happened to the Mod-Goddess of Britpop while there's still something of himself left? Dark modern-fantasy in a world where music is magic, where a song can save your life or end it.

Fascinating, but most all of the music references - 90s Britpop - were lost on me. Clearly not the intended audience. Cool read though.

Blue Beetle: Road Trip by John Rogers, Cully Hammer -

Since the inception of Spider-Man, the young superhero learning about his power and responsibility has been an effective platform for examining the trials and tribulations of growing up. The Blue Beetle character's legacy reaches back into comicdom's golden age, but his latest incarnation is Jaime Reyes. A young man of Latin American descent living in El Paso, Jaime deals with the mysterious scarab that has melded with his body, manifesting as armor that gives him astonishing capabilities.

Best young superhero book out there, bar none.

52: The Companion by Various -

The super-powered stars of 52, DC Comics' acclaimed weekly comics series, are featured in this graphic novel collecting the best oftheir solo stories.Classic tales of Adam Strange, The Metal Men, Booster Gold, Steel, BlackAdam, The Question and others from the 1960s to today...

Great classic comics.

Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality by Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang -

...collects the Doctor 13 back up stories that appeared in the most recent Spectre mini series. This is a very fun collection with great artwork that tackles and gives new life to some old minor DC characters. It's a trippy adventure tale laced with bits of humor...

Funny as hell. Metatextual. For lovers of comics, and comics history.

Rex Libris Volume One: I, Librarian by James Turner -

At no time does Rex Libris seem pretentious. It's smart, yes, but it is accessible all the same because its core concept of a librarian charged with retrieving overdue library books reads like a tale of high adventure.

The tales of a librarian retrieving overdue books from interstellar despots, with a bird for a sidekick and a boss who is the ancient Egyptian god Horus. Extremely well written, really funny.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang -

Indie graphic novelist Gene Yang's intelligent and emotionally challenging American Born Chinese is made up of three individual plotlines: the determined efforts of the Chinese folk hero Monkey King to shed his humble roots and be revered as a god; the struggles faced by Jin Wang, a lonely Asian American middle school student who would do anything to fit in with his white classmates; and the sitcom plight of Danny, an All-American teen so shamed by his Chinese cousin Chin-Kee (a purposefully painful ethnic stereotype) that he is forced to change schools.

Well crafted and worth reading.

I continue to be astounded at the level of ignorance of people.

You'd think I'd be dissillusioned by now, that I'd learn, but everytime I come across one of these mouth breathing idiots, I'm still shocked. Even moreso when you've still got the underlying assumption [public school indoctrination rears its ugly head] that elected officials have some semblance of something superior going on in their brain pan.

Sadly, no.

Idiot.

Crooks and Liars » Oklahoma State Rep. Goes On Anti-Gay Tirade:

"We nominate to the patheon of homo hate Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (sallykern@okhouse.gov). She didn’t know that she was being recorded in a meeting, so we get the a nice insight about what she thinks of her gay and lesbian constituents. Perhaps she doesn’t think she has any.

About 30 seconds into this homobigoted, fact-free, BS screed, Rep. Kern actually says how she doesn’t hate gays (of course not!), then proceeds to continue on her tirade..."

I did not know that.

Did He Know That?

Clerk: Hitler was a black man. Did you know that?

Long's Drugs
Oakland, California

via Overheard Everywhere, Mar 9, 2008

Every weekend brings another dinner.

Quite the social calendar of late... [for me, anyways.]


True love is matching hats.


Jon and his best friend.


I meant the alcohol. Not Anton.

[Just playin' dude!]

A typical Junior High School pencil case.

You might think that in Japan, with its extremely harsh marijuana laws, that a pencil case within the halls of public education celebrating the ganja would be verboten.

You would be wrong.

This, and many others like them are EVERYWHERE in school. I can't speak to whether the kids actually know the meaning, but [at least some] of the teachers do not. I had to explain marijuana leaves and rastafari culture to one of the English teachers, and he was quite surprised.

I figure some of the kids know what it is, but probably for the majority it's just another cool gaijin fashion accessory.

Much like seeing Jr High School and High School girls with their sweaters and socks and scarves embroidered with the Playboy logo.

Or my all time favorite, the 3 year old toddler who was wearing BITCH brand sneakers.

It's all relative.

I'm not a teacher, but I play one in Japan - Part 2, Junior High School.

Been meaning to do something like this for a bit now, and the video from the Elementary school class a couple weeks ago reminded me... but since my old camera crashed, I've been waiting to get a new one and get back up to speed. Plus I needed to wait until I rotated through to teaching the 3rd graders again. So, finally, all the stars aligned and everything worked out and I got a chance to video the start of a typical Jr High School class. Runs just a little longer than normal, since I ran through two versions of the warm up activity/game.

This group of kids in the vid are probably some of the absolute best I've taught. Just an amazingly well rounded, smart, participatory, genki [enthusiastic] group. I can't ever remember having a bad class with this group.

Honestly though, the entire 3rd grade class this year has been awesome. It's been really a fascinating experience. They are, as a class, and as a group, just an outstanding group of kids. Great attitudes, personable, polite... even the kids who don't like to study and goof off in class do so in an almost endearing way.

When I first came to Japan, they were all halfway through their 1st grade year [the school year runs April to March.] Just little kids, really.

And now, almost three years later they're all grown up and getting ready to graduate this week. They've changed from children to young adults, and it's been extremely cool to see.

I've really grown a lot more attached to, and fond of, them than I ever really expected to when I started the JET Programme.

I present to you the graduating class of 2008. I am really gonna miss them.

Internet Dragons are Coming to Destroy Your [Japanese] Children.

Lately, in the media in Japan, like the media in America, the evil Internet and its corrupting and dangerous effect on children [you know, by exposing them to the world] is getting the hard sell.

And I can only decipher a bit of the Japanese in the morning meetings at school, but the dangers of the 'net are getting play there as well.

The poster to the right went up a couple weeks ago, and you can clearly see how the Internet leads to guns and drugs.

But the other day, this ended up on my desk.

The "Moral Guidebook" for dealing with the Internet.

[How very Mao.]

But take careful note, in the upper left corner, on the cover, of the Internet Dragons that are coming for your children.

I love Japan so much sometimes.



Translated version of http://www.kayoo.org/moral-guidebook/:

"...progress of the information society, such as the Internet and mobile phones have spread rapidly in the students is worth the trouble to get involved in multiple incidents. Moreover, in recent years, Internet message boards and mobile phone bullying by mail ( "Net bullying") occurs, new problems also occurred. Based on these circumstances, the school of information is required to enhance moral education, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, so far, the information about various moral and implementation of our efforts.

...This guidebook is the moral guidance information "model curriculum" with a commentary about demystify the first teacher can easily understandable introduction to a number of practical examples, and information on educational practice moral guidance..."

"Monk stole porno films."

Of course he did. But only because of the Church's healthy views on human sexuality. Because repression and celibacy are what Jesus wants.

Monk stole porno films - Scotsman.com News:

"A MONK has been arrested for stealing dozens of blue movies from a sex shop. Brother Niklaus, 49, of the Benedictine order Maria Laach, pilfered nearly 40 raunchy videos, which he stored in his cell at the abbey in Germany.

Police were called after a sex-shop assistant saw him stuffing films up his habit in the town of Wuerzburg some 150 miles away, where he was often sent on church business.

He was chased through the town and tried to ditch a haul of four films – among them such classics as Nuns in Heat and Ladyboys do Bangkok – in a wastepaper bin."

Reading About the Fight Against Racism = Racism.

Kafka would be proud. Bizarro, too. More insanity at the link.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Put Down the Book and Step Away From Your Co-Workers:

"At Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI), the image to the right is considered Not Safe for Work. Can you guess why? ...I'll let IUPUI Affirmative Action Officer Lillian Charleston explain:

The Affirmative Action Office has completed its investigation of [redacted]'s allegation that you racially harassed her by repeatedly reading the book, Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan by Todd Tucker in the presence of Black employees...

We conclude that your conduct constitutes racial harassment in that you demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your co-workers who repeatedly requested that you refrain from reading the book which has such an inflammatory and offensive topic in their presence... Furthermore, employing the legal "reasonable person standard," a majority of adults are aware of and understand how repugnant the KKK is to African Americans, their reactions to the Klan, and the reasonableness of the request that you not read the book in their presence. "

Hidden Depths - Mike M, English Teacher, Gourmand.

Fellow Fukutsu ALT Mike M has been a whirlwind of culinary excellence of late, blogging all sorts of tasty dishes and making me hungry. Lasagnas and Pies and Salads and Salmon... Check it out.

Adventures in the Not-so-Orient: What's for dinner?

Hope for the Future - Students Kicking Ass.

Awesomely Civilly Disobedient.

Reason Magazine - Daily Brickbats > Penny For Your Thoughts:

"When officials at New Jersey's Readington Middle School cut the lunch period to 30 minutes, students got upset. Some of them showed their displeasure by paying the $2 cost of their lunches in pennies. Twenty-nine eighth graders received detention for their payments."

Arizona students stage hug-a-thon to protest 2-second hug rule detentions - Boing Boing:

"Shepherd Junior High School in east Mesa, Arizona has begun vigorously enforcing its rule prohibiting hugs of more than two seconds' length, and students have responded with a 'hug-a-thon'...

[From the comments, and too true.]

Wow... we are becoming more alienated from each other all the time. When I was a kid, campers hugged camp counselors, students hugged teachers, we hugged each other, there was AFFECTION all around and no PDA, pedophile, stalker, etc PARANOIA... Then we wonder why we have so many psychos and serial killers now. We've become a cold, paranoid country where "don't talk to strangers" has turned into almost "everyone is a sexmaniac, pervert, pedophile, stalker, and lunatic unless proven otherwise." This is horrible."

The right to keep and bear arms... but only sometimes.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Are Guns on Campus Uniquely Dangerous?:

"As I said after the Virginia Tech murders, I am sympathetic to the idea that students and faculty members who are licensed to carry guns should be allowed to carry them on campus. "Gun-free zones" clearly do not protect people from gun-wielding maniacs (or ordinary criminals or scary ex-boyfriends) and may well attract them to places where they know their victims will be unarmed. Guns in the right hands can deter attacks or at least cut them short.

The downside of letting people carry weapons on campus is the same as the downside of letting them carry weapons anywhere else: Everyday arguments might escalate into deadly violence, accidents might happen, police (assuming they ever arrived in time) might mistake a law-abiding gun owner for an attacker, drunken gun owners could start whooping it up by wildly firing shots into the air, etc. These are the same arguments that gun controllers deployed in opposing the liberalization of concealed carry laws across the country, and the nightmare scenarios never materialized, even though 39 states now have nondiscretionary permit policies. On the whole, permit holders turned out to be remarkably well-behaved, committing crimes at a lower rate than the general population and rarely doing anything bad enough to lose their permits."

Look everybody! Torture! Yay!

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

Balloon Juice:

"A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.

In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees’ faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle “because it resulted in increased revenues for the company.”

Dear wingnuttia – torture isn’t about who they are, it’s about who we are. It’s about who we become. It’s about how torture eats away at a country’s soul. Take notes next time."

More victory in the War on Terror!

Balloon Juice:

"[Another reason not to torture] Because the evidence is inadmissible (unless you run a kangaroo court in Gitmo- then it is kosher!) in civilized societies:

The Canadian government is no longer using evidence gained from CIA interrogations of a top Al Qaeda detainee who was waterboarded.

According to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country’s national-security agency, last month quietly withdrew statements by alleged Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah from public papers outlining the case against two alleged terror “sleeper” operatives in Ottawa and Montreal."

"How to abandon your God."

How to abandon your God / Is it OK to switch religions, change denominations, even split from God entirely? Jesus says: Sure!:

"...maybe you go even further, as you realize that it's actually quite dangerous and small-minded to hew too closely to one narrow way of seeing/feeling/tasting the divine as you perhaps come to the slippery conclusion that it's all about co-creating God in your own way and, therefore, any religion that contains more than one person (that is to say, you) is deviously suspicious and apocryphal at best, unhealthy and destructive at worst. Or maybe that's just me."

Oh no, that's me, too. Well said.

And this bit had me cracking up...

"...Speaking of marketing, should we try to muster some pity for the Catholic Church? I mean, for so many reasons, but this time for how this study reveals that, were it not for a massive influx of immigrant families into America, its numbers would be not merely wavering and faltering, but tanking fast? Fact is, more people split from the Catholic Church than any other, so many that it turns out a whopping 10 percent of Americans are former (i.e. recovering) Catholics, and it's certainly easy to see why. Hell, even Christian megachurches have become more fluid and modern in their perspectives on love and sex and human evolution than the House That Dogma Built."

Holy Jesus, is NC retarded.

Reason Magazine - Daily Brickbats > If This Had Been a Real Emergency...:

"Jingbin Wang was teaching a foreign policy class at North Carolina's Elizabeth City State University when a man entered the classroom and pointed a gun at him. The gunman told him to close the door and ordered seven students to line up along a wall. The man said he had been kicked out of the school and threatened to kill one of the students. After about 10 minutes, campus police rushed in and subdued the man. Only later did Wang and his students learn that it was all just a drill to test the school's preparedness for a real gunman."

I've never watched The Wire, but this makes me want to.

The Wire's War on the Drug War - Yahoo! News:

"...The drug war has ravaged law enforcement too. In cities where police agencies commit the most resources to arresting their way out of their drug problems, the arrest rates for violent crime - murder, rape, aggravated assault - have declined. In Baltimore, where we set The Wire, drug arrests have skyrocketed over the past three decades, yet in that same span, arrest rates for murder have gone from 80% and 90% to half that. Lost in an unwinnable drug war, a new generation of law officers is no longer capable of investigating crime properly, having learned only to make court pay by grabbing cheap, meaningless drug arrests off the nearest corner.

What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we've been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain.

...If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will - to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty - no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.

Jury nullification is American dissent, as old and as heralded as the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, who was acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, and absent a government capable of repairing injustices, it is legitimate protest...

The authors are all members of the writing staff of HBO's The Wire, which concludes its five-year run on March 9Time.com"

Ah, yes... the death of childhood.