Whoa.

I'm glad I don't live in New Orleans or, really, anywhere in that region. Hopefully, the body count will stop where it is, and things will start to fall into place recovery-wise.

*Sigh*

And, since I haven't done enough to get myself worked up this morning...The UN is now saying that the US is actively harming the fight against AIDS in Uganda by hyping abstinence rather than using condoms. Link.

Okay, it breaks down like this in my mind. AIDS is a big problem, in that it's fairly preventable, but still ravaging the better part of a continent. It's spread, primarily, through sex. People are going to have sex, because it's basic human instinct and with a very, very small number of exceptions, people give into that instinct sometimes. Therefore, AIDS is spreading. Condoms have been proven to drastically reduce the chances of AIDS spreading.

Therefore, we preach abstinence in Africa and are reluctant to support the distribution of condoms.

....

Seriously: the hell? This latest accusation is just part of a trend. We've refused in the past to support anti-AIDS initiatives, beacuse they involve encouraging the use of condoms. Is it somehow more morally superior to sit on our spoiled, obese rear ends and watch a preventable epidemic continue across an entire continent, rather than hand out condoms? Let more people die vs. risk possibly being thought to encourage, sort of, sexual freedom?

There really, really are days when I'm just flat-out ashamed of America.

A peaceful conclusion to WHAT?

"Bush reiterated his resolve for a peaceful conclusion to the Iraq war Monday in back-to-back appearances in Arizona and California, where he was promoting the new prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients." Courtesy of the AP.

Let's back up a moment, shall we? Nearly 1,900 American troops - dead. At least 23,654 completely innocent civilians - dead. Well over 190 billion dollars - wasted (and that money is not going to the troops or their famlies).

But we hope to resolve this peacefully.

It's a war. By definition, there cannot be peace. You can't have a peaceful war: not a peaceful beginning, not a peaceful middle, and not a peaceful end. To quote Gandhi: "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

I think that Mr. Bush needs a good swift kick to the head, honestly. Maybe it'll knock some sense into him. Then again...why would we expect him - he who sort-of served in the National Guard but then decided, nah, he'd rather do something else - to understand war? To understand sacrifice?

Classes, plus bonus violiny excitement!

So, I've now had all of my classes. Looks like I'll be kept busy this year, but obviously, I expected as much. I also located my "core group", which consists of one person, and then two others who are soft-core (not in my seminar).

First up was language, which I can tell will be a favorite this year. I think certain unnamed people may speak up a bit too much, but nothing that can't be cured with a good swift jab to the ribs, or something. Tutor is excellent, and the class dynamic seems great.

Next was music, which should be interesting. I'm not big on the chanting - give me four strings over a voice any day. The tutor definitely knows his stuff - he studied piano for two years at Juliard, so he's got the music qualifications. Someone asked at the beginning of class if not knowing music put them at a disadvantage; the response was that coming in with a clean slate could actually be an advantage, which sort of deflated me. I'd been psyching myself up: I've never formally studied theory and know nothing about vocal music, but obviously I know the fundamentals of music in general, since I literally don't remember not playing violin. Anyway, I know I'll be able to get through it. (Random thought of the moment: It would be way more fun if we studied classic punk rather than Gregorian Chant. Seriously - monks in church? Or the Sex Pistols, The Who, The Clash...? Anyone who says that chant is more fun than the Sex Pistols gets beaten brutally about the head with a heavy book.)

Then, after a lunch of lukewarm and utterly tasteless macaroni and cheese and a brief lounge on the grassy knoll, math. The tutor is new to St. John's this year, so I've got some reservations. He seemed a little nervous, which I can't fault him for, but also very laid-back - impossibly mellow compared to last years math tutor. I'm a bit more cautious just because he's new. So not only has he not done Ptolemy before, but he's new to St. John's, which means he possibly just doesn't get it, or not yet. We shall see, though. On the upside, I totally remember that I did at one point understand the "fried-egg" proof, so I've got that back now! Yay!

After a brief nap, I decided to finally tune my poor, neglected violin. It was frustratingly hard to do so, which was odd. The pegs tend to slip a bit, but I can normally get it at least within close to in-tune fairly quickly. Anyway - the strings had gotten so loose, that when I started tightening, the bridge got pulled forward, and was on about a 45-degree angle, sloped towards the fingerboard when I finally finished. That was an oh, crap moment, because I have no doubt if I tried playing it like that, the bridge would have broken and/or shot off the violin, both of which have happened before and scared the ever-loving crap out of me. Anyway - I got that straightened out (hah), and I'll just have to keep checking the next few times I take it out that it's straight.

Things in the bible that have left me bewildered or freaked out

(since I haven't done enough to piss of Christians lately)

1. I'm reading the bible, which is just...weird, for me.
2. After God destroys Sodom and Lot and his daughters are in the desert, they date-rape him. Uh...okay...
3. It's ok for Lot to offer his virgin daughters up to a mob, but not for the mob to want gay sex?
4. Do we really need entire chapters of "So-and-so begat so-and-so Jr..."?
5. God's kind of pissy, in general.
6. God is not nessecarily good. We discussed this in seminar: there's nothing said that "god is good", and there's not much evidence in the text. The same holds for omniscience/omnipotence/all that Judeo-Christian stuff.
7. Adam and Eve: Why bother putting the tree there? Why wasn't the serperant banished, too?
8. Cain and Abel: How were they supposed to know what was a good sacrifice? Did God know what Cain was doing? If he did, why did he let him do it, only to punish him later? Why was no one supposed to kill Cain? For that matter, who was God worried about? Where'd the other people come from?
9. God regretted man - isn't this a sign against omniscience?
10. About that flood: Vindictive, much? "Oops, this didn't work out so well, so...smiting for everyone! Other than Noah, and all the animals."
11. Abram: Stop letting other people marry Sarai. It may work well for you, but not so much for the third party, as they're the ones gettin' the Godly Smackdown.
12. Is it possible that Abra(ha)m was just completely frickin' insane? He convinced all the other guys around him to cut off part of their genitals? This, more than anything else, I refuse to believe anyone who can think truly believes is the literal truth.
13. Why'd god need to test Abraham? What if Abraham hadn't noticed the ram? What if he sacrificed Isaac anyway? Poor Isaac. Also: see previous item. Is that not proof enough of Abraham's loyalty?
14. God says that man isn't going to live to be over 120 anymore. Then Sarah proceeds to live to be 127. Uh...hello? Did a certain deity forget his promises again?
15. How in the world did we get the cute little naked babies on valentines day cards from cherubim? They had fiery, ever-turning (?) swords.
16. Was god pissed off because Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit, or was god pissed because they were ashamed and tried to hide from him?
17. Why put the tree there!?!? That's gonna kill me.
18. Does God have a physical form, according to the bible?

I'm finding the Jewish version a lot easier to read, compared to the King James. Good ole' James seems immensely archaic in comparison (which, yeah, ironic much?). That could be due to the respective fonts, though.

Phelps, go die.

Well, the "reverend" Fred Phelps is at it again, and the AP is writing about it, which really is more attention than he deserves. Regardless: Now he's down in Tennesse, protesting at soldiers' funerals.

The quote at the end of the article says it all, I think. They're not protesting the government, per se, nor are they protesting the war, or anything else like that. They're protesting...gay people? Their existence? The fact that we haven't outlawed being gay?

I just don't get it, but I would shed no tears if Phelps just...went away. Forever.

Rankings ahoy!

The Princeton Review has published their annual list of college rankings. Naturally, since we put so much stock in things like that here at St. John's, I had to check it out.

The Santa Fe campus has earned the number one spot on one list: "Professors get high marks". Good tutors - this is not a surprise, as if a tutor doesn''t want to be at St. John's specifically, they're not. Annapolis is not on the list. Other high-ranking schools I applied to on this list: One (Knox). Also - Albertson College of Idaho? O...kay.

We are number two for - and let me say that this cracks me up that we're not number one - "Class Discussions Encouraged." Eugene Lang beat us out there for number one, Annapolis is number 3. Heh. Other schools I applied to: Three (Eugene Lang, Bennington, Knox).

Apparently, we have the third-best overall academic undergraduate experience in the country. I'd like to point out that Annapolis did not make the list here, either. Other schools I applied to: None. Number of schools my sister attended: One.

"Intercollegiate sports unpopular or non-existent": number 5. Others I applied to: 2. Annapolis is way down at 9 - I think that they have rowing there, or something.

Our professors are, apparently, are the sixth most accessible in the country. Annapolis is, once more, oddly absent. Other schools I applied to: none. Schools my sister attended: one (and they beat us!)

Santa Fe Johnnies also are the sixth-less likely to ever stop studying. No Annapolis, none of the other places I'd applied to. However, we did beat MIT, which makes me feel inexplicably proud. Take that, you Cambridge-dwellers, you with your...modern math! And...majors!

I'm not sure what this says in conjuction with the previous item, but we are the seventh happiest students in the country. Annapolis makes a weak showing at number 17 (cue Nelson Muntz). I'd like to know what on earth gives TCNJ the right to even be on this list, let alone at #6. It's in New Jersey. There is no joy in Jersey.

Again we're in slot seven for "Lots of class/race interaction", to which I say: huh? I guess, percentage-wise, it's not terrible. Perhaps I'm bitter because Annapolis actually was ranked higher than us for once. We're ten inexplicable spaces higher than St. Mary's, where a good friend of mine attends, and, from what she's said, they're far more diverse than us. Anyway, I know nothing.

#11 for "gay students accepted". Annapolis wins again - sigh. I'd just like to point out that none of the military academies made it onto this list - could it be that the military does, in fact, flat-out encourage - nay, enforce - bigotry?

Final one: We are #13 for dodgeball targets. Annapolis is 20, and I say that it's because they have far more students from the east coast, and everyone knows that we are far tougher than, say, Californians. Every other person on this campus is from Texas or California. There's something like six Texans in my dorm this year, and two Hawaiians, which is so statistically improbable that the mind boggles at it. (The Hawaiians, not the Texans.)

We also, according to the Princeton Review folk, are amongst 122 of the best colleges in "the West". w00t.

Further random browsing makes me glad for so many reasons that I don't attend the Colorado School of Mines, not least because I really don't want to learn how to...uh, mine for stuff.

They did not teach us this in Hebrew school

Genesis, chapter 14? The part in Genesis where Lot's daughters date-rape him?

Ye gods. That would've gotten my attention on a Wednesday night in Hebrew school. Wouldn't have made me any more enthusiastic about Judaism, but still: holy crap!

Yet more Sheehanigans

According to the Baltimore Sun, Cindy Sheehan is airing a TV ad accusing President Bush of lying about Iraq. In these ads, she claims that Bush was wrong about WMDs being in Iraq, and about their being a link between Iraq and al-Queda. She then goes on to outright accuse him of lying, and says that because of his lies, her son died.

Now, it's probably no great surprise that I have the utmost of sympathy for Mrs. Sheehan. Honestly, I have sympathy for anyone who looses a child. Regardless of why the war is being fought, regardless of anyone's political beliefs, it's ultimately tragic for a parent to bury their child. Cause of death doesn't effect my sympathy; it's simply all the more tragic when it's preventable.

I don't, however, think it's a good idea for Sheehan to be publicly accusing Bush of lying. That makes it personal, and adds fuel to your opponents counter-attacks. This is not, in any way, my saying that I don't think Bush was lying. However, I think that Sheehan's cause would get a lot more support from middle-of-the-road folk if she just stopped at "Bush was wrong", rather than continuing on to "Bush intentionally lied to us."

According to the Sun, a VP at one of the stations that refuses to air her add said: "She claims the president lied about, among other things, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is no proof that we are aware of regarding the truthfulness of her claim. We require proof of claims such as this. Until that is provided, our station will not carry this ad."

This, I don't get. Does he think that, if Bush had found solid, conclusive evidence of WMDs - in essence, proof that he was right - he wouldn't have revealed at least something to the public? I understand, of course, that there may have been some security concerns, but still! It's a hugely controversial action he's taking, and if he finds evidence that his claims were right, he's not going to say anything? I think not. I think that this is a case where his silence can be construed as a distinct lack of evidence.

The article continues on to say that Bush has expressed sympathy for Sheehan. True, maybe, to a very, very small degree. However: Sheehan eventually changed her plea not for him to sit down and talk to her, but to sit down and pray with her. Bush's whole image is that of the good, southern, Christian guy - a sort of everyman who (allegedly) most people can relate to. The type of guy who goes to church all the time and lets religion play a part in his life. Bush refused to pray with her. I fail to understand why. He's never been afraid of prayer or public dipslays f religion seeming 'inappropriate' in the past - he's expressed support for teaching intelligent design in schools, for crying out loud. But yet, he can't take five minutes out of his immensely-busy five week vacation to pray with a mother who lost her child? A mother who's child died to "protect and uphold the Constitution"?

Which, by the way, I'd like to point out, is the oath that every police officer, every member of the armed forces, and every government official takes when they begin their duties. They pledge to protect and uphold the Constitution. There's nothing about protecting the government, the administration, or even this country. It's the Constitution, and last time I checked, there was nothing in the Constitution saying that other countries can't have nuclear weapons, real or imagined.

Not quite another .gov

First of all, I would like to say that St. John's College rocks so much. I feel like I'm home again - intellectually, not emotionally. Seminar last night was amazing: my tutors seem great, there's an excellent (at least compared to my seminar last year) dynamic in the class. I left seminar last night feeling every bit like this kid (courtesy of someone who stole from the endlessly-awesome Gary Larson). I talked, too, which is good. I finally got my stuff out of storage, and so my room is cozy again, personalized, rather than a bleak blah box. A throw rug, a few posters - that makes such a difference. (Plus, more books on my shelves.)

Onto bigger and not better things. I was trying to find something (whether or not we're still officially engaged in the "war on terror", or if the Bush admin has decided to stop with the ridiculous, overinflated, and just plain stupid language), and I stumbled upon (in the sense of "it was the first Google result") this. Hmm. DefendAmerica.mil. This could be...interesting.

It's an official Department of Defense website, and on the 'about us' page, they seem most proud of offering photos and daily news reports and photos by military journalists (if such a thing can exist; journalist implies a sense of ethics and avoiding conflicts of interests, and I don't see how someone could both be employed by the US government [especially the military] and be unbiased) which, apparently, aren't readily available from the mainstream media. While trying to verify this - whether or not I could readily find this, I discovered that finding reports from Iraq isn't hard; finding relatively unbiased non-FOX News-ish ones is. I also found this. Apparently, one of the ways we gently guide a nation towards democracy is, after invading, overthrowing their government, and terrifying the people with occupying troops, we refuse freedom of the press to them.

Anyway, on the DefendAmerica homepage, one of the news stories down at the bottom is: "Women Soldiers Contribute to Iraqi Freedom."

W00t. Guess doing your job now gets special recognition, at least if you're a female soldier - 'cuz everyone knows that they can't actually do their job well. It's a pointless, stupid article, and it's just perpetuating the military's latest thing, where some factions are just one tiny step short of coming out and saying that women have no role in military.

I say that they're full of crap, but what else is new?

On return

So, I went to Wal-Mart last night but didn't get half of what I needed, because by that point, I was so ridiculously tired, I just sort of gave up.

I still need to get my stuff out of storage, and also, perhaps obtain another bedsheet. I apparently packed a pillowcase, and a flat sheet, but no fitted one. I also had to go down to the mailroom this morning pre-shower, because the only towel not in storage was in a box in the mailroom. Alas and alack.

In other topics, I've decided that the bible is weird. It's just full of little things that contradict what little I was taught about the bible, and in places, it contradicts itself (e.g., the first two chapters of Genesis.) I'm trying to avoid cynicism about it, though - I've got more than enough of that to go around, and will need to try to be conscious of it.

Also, my schedule sucks in a huge way on Mondays - I've got language, then music, then math, which takes me to 2:30, and then seminar is at 7:30. Not a whole lot of time there, so it looks like my weekends will be more work, less play. On the other hand, my Fridays end at 10:30, so I guess it sort of balances.

I am tired

Therefore, I present this with absolutely no commentary right now. Tomorrow, if I get the chance.

I'm back in Santa Fe, at long last, six sardine-packed hours of crying babies later. I left my cell phone on my dresser at home, so I don't have that until Friday or so. I got here fairly late, so I missed the mail room. Wal-Mart run soon, then I was told I'd have a ride to the storage place tomorrow to pick up my stuff. That and the boxes will make my room cozy indeed.

It's two AM on the east coast, which is the time I'm running on since I've been there all summer. I'm very, very tired.

"We're not quite sure why a goat would go and do this."

I'm in the process of cleaning out my bedroom at home, and naturally, stumbling across some slightly creepy things (book of poetry I wrote in seventh grade? Yeesh.) This puts it all in persepctive though.

And, this? Holy crap, that's cool.

Fighting noise with noise

I don't get this Newsweek story - I think it's indicative of how much is terribly wrong with the American media, because there's no news here. Local news, sure. But news worth being in a national news mag? No.

There's a Marine, and he was pretty good at his job, which consisted of collecting and packaging up body parts of the victims of the war in Iraq. He gets home from Iraq, and seems edgy and not quite the way he was before. One night he gets pissed off at some noisy partiers across the street, opens his window, grabs his shotgun, and shoots at them.

Er, okay. Now, I don't condone anything he did, be it the 'joining the Marines' thing, or the 'let's shoot out my window at the people who are noisy.' But this is news how?

PTSD is not a new phenomenon - it's been around as long as war has, admittedly under different names. I won't say that that wasn't a factor in what he did. But seriously: he's a former Marine from Lawrence, Ma., which Newsweek describes as "a struggling old mill town." To me, that does not say that the people of Lawrence are sophisticated, level-headed, educated urbanites. It says to me that, when a Latino club opened up, the main complaint may not really have been the noise, but the people who frequented it. It makes me think that, maybe, the people of Lawrence think that being a Marine or a mortician is the best you can ask for, because, hey - it puts food on the table, keeps you in bullets for you guns, and serves God 'n' Country - what more is there?

So, a small-town Marine gets pissed off at his neighbors, pulls out his shotgun, and tries to scare them away.

Tell me this has never happened before. Go ahead and tell me that a gung-ho soldier has never before tried to solve a problem by shooting someone, and, while your at it, just go ahead and continue pretending that America's not encouraging this. "Join the Army, kids! Join the Air Force! Here, have a gun, have some bullets - no armor, though, sorry - and go fight!" Then, next thing you know, it's: "Okay, great, you're done. Good job serving your selfish and materialistic nation - don't ever do anything like this again."

America is populated, governed, and policed largely by morons.

Wonder where the stereotype came from...

It's things like this that make me so embarrassed by my country sometimes. A guy in a pickup truck allegedly drove over the memorial that Cindy Sheehan has set up outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tx. This patriotic American drove his truck over "over 500 crosses and 40 American flags," and I'd bet anything that he's the type of guy who things that flag-burning ought to be illegal and prayer in schools should be mandated. Granted, I don't know that for sure, and he could've just been struck by a sudden lack of sense. If he did;: so be it, we've all done regrettable things in the heat of the moment. Pay your fine and apologize, and all is good. Something makes me doubt that that's how it'll play out, however.

This just makes me more proud to be American:

The protest has drawn counter protests from supporters of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the ire of some neighbors -- including one who fired shots into the air Sunday, telling reporters he was "getting ready for dove season."

And this:

Ranch neighbor Melissa Harrison said she also was concerned for the safety of her children.

"Who else is going to come up there?" she asked. "We don't know who all is up there protesting, what type of people it's bringing around, and I don't think they know everybody's background. So that's just my concern there."

Yeah, you better watch out! Those liberals, with their...desire to end an illegal war, and, uh...have the President take some responsibility for his decisions. Better keep those good America-lovin', bible-thumpin', boot-wearin', tractor-drivin' kidlets inside. Might get contaminated by the liberal infection, and before you know it, they're going to be turning gay on you and growing their hair long and protesting peacefully! Instead, we want them all to grow up and join the Marines. That way, you can be like Brook Park, Ohio, and lose 19 Marines in two days.

Bush is taking a five-week vacation. Somehow, I really doubt that many of the men and women who've been killed in Iraq come from families that can afford five weeks of vacation. I bet that's partly because the lower- to middle-class makes up a huge majority of the military. I bet it's also because military pay and benefits are so terrible that even those with good careers within the military are going to be solidly middle-class unless they come from money to begin with.

And God said, "Let there be translators!"

And so there were, and God saw that it was not good; it created mass confusion and distress amongst the people [1 Cor. 15:33].

Okay, fine. Chapter 5, verse 33 of 1 Corinthians is actually "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners." Which, actually, since I just picked that at total random, kind of creeps me out a bit.

In the Continuing Saga of "Religion Creeps Me Out, Yet I Must Read The Bible", I've taken the plunge. I've purchased the bible. Two, actually, or maybe one and a half. I took myself out to Barnes and Noble today and proceeded to stare in something resembling awe at the entire wall lined with "Religious/Christian" books, and then the two shelving units of "Bible", one of "Judaica", and ignored the others. Only Judeo-Christian thought for me!

There are, as I mentioned an entry or two ago, quite a lot of versions of the bible. There is the Tanakh, the traditional Jewish translation. Then there's the King James Version, the New King James (which is apparently quite different), the New International Version, and the New American Bible, which I gather is the currently-accepted Roman Catholic text, but I gather that there's a previous version of the Roman Catholic Bible, as the New American version was written sometime in the 1900's, and the Roman Catholic church has been around for a bit longer. I know that because this website, written by the Vatican, told me so, but I can't be bothered to get past the first paragraph.

Plus, there are other various things. There was a translation which said it was the Dead Sea Scrolls transalation, but every other word was bracketed, because while, yeah, the Scrolls were preserved really well, they were also a couple thousand years old.

Anyway, after much contemplation and a bit of sticker shock (bibles are expensive!), I figured a few things out. I could get the Tanakh, which is by definition Jewish, and most editions are Hebrew/English, which means that they open the wrong way, which would drive me completely insane within about thrity seconds. Also, the one edition of that at the store I liked was $45.00. I could get a "study bible", which is weighed down by dozens and dozens of footnotes, study questions, and things like, "Eighty Ways to Feel Jesus' Love At Night In Bed." (Note: the preceding blasphemy was entirely mine. I did not see that exact quote anywhere.) Also, they're expensive. Or, I could go with the classic: leather or clothbound, plain dark cover, "Holy Bible". I was really hesitant, because, while I'm all for great books, I'm not sure I'm ready for my seminar reading to be holy. Then I finally realized my problem:

I'm not going to find any version of the bible which is devoid of religious links. It will be Jewish or Christian. There is no 'athiest' or 'agnostic' bible, nor is there a 'not-holy, just-purely-academic' bible.

I did draw the line at buying one which advertized on the spine: "With Jesus' words highlighted in red." But I am now the owner of one sturdy, non-celebratory copy of the Tanakh-ish version of the first five books of the bible, and one "Holy Bible", King James Version.

Also, I swear I just saw a pig fly past my window.

If I still feel like I need to balance out the grand scheme of things more tonight? I'm going to put into writing my thoughts about zombies, vampires, and Jesus. Chock full of blasphemy, and probably an embarrassment to both my Catholic and Jewish relatives!

Meat me there.

This is a brilliant idea, if you're into murdering people. Kill them with meat! Feed the investigators the murder weapon! I wonder if it's ever been done - if anyone has ever been clubbed to death with a big ole' slab of frozen meat. I can imagine a conflict in a meat-packing facility and/or slaughterhouse could get ugly, fast. Of all workplaces, they probably have a respectable array of possible weapons there.

Scenario: Two guys work in a meat-packing plant. There's something shady going on: I'm seeing this taking place somewhere in Jersey, and there's mob connections all over the place. There's this new guy, and we'll call him Joe. Joe's this new guy at the plant, real good kid, smart and honest. Working to take care of his ill mother. He starts sniffing around and realizes that everyone around him is crooked, that some of these guys practically wrote the book on crime. He gets nervous and sort of flips open the phone book to look up the number for the local FBI office a few times, but is too scared to call. He's from New Jersey, there's not a kid that grows up in that state who doesn't know that the mob's not something you mess with. There was a mob hit in the parking lot of my school once - true story.

Anyway, so Joe's this real good kid who's a little too smart. He keeps his mouth shut for now, but his boss, this big rising star in one of the major families, he's a little nervous. So the boss takes one of his most trusted employees - Tony, we'll call him, because no mob story is complete without at least one Tony - the boss takes Tony aside and talks to him one day, man-to-man, we're-in-this-together. He puts his arm around Tony's shoulder and tells him, real serious like, that they've got to do something about Joe. This kid is too smart, he knows too much already. We've got to do something about this, you know what I'm saying?

So Tony's psyched about this. He's being trusted, because this is real important and if he does this right, he's gonna get more of that. More trust, more money, more girls: this is gonna be great for Tony.

Tony's not a dumb guy, either. So he doesn't try to scare Joe. Tony's elegant, he's refined. He's learned from the best. He's talking to Joe one day on their break and he brings something up. They're just sitting there out back on upside-down milk crates, both smoking, just leaning against the brick wall and half-heartedly waving away the flies and mosquitos, and Joe brings something up. He looks around, makes sure no one's around, and he says, "I think that the boss-mans into something." He says this real calmly. "I found-" he says, and then stops, looks around again. Acting like he's real nervous, right? "I found some stuff. Been hearing some stuff." Again he looks around, acting real nervous to be saying this. "Meet me here tonight," he tells Joe. "Meet me at two. No one'll be here then, and we can talk. Privately."

Joe buys right into it, because Joe knows something's not legit here. So he agrees to meet Tony that night, real trusting. So Joe goes home to his mom, makes her dinner and they watch some TV, a real normal night. He doesn't even let on that this is happening, Joe's a real smart kid. But he sets the alarm on his watch and leaves his house, just walks right out the front door, at about one-thirty, gets in his crappy car - it's a Nissan and the heat doesn't work so good, and the brakes squeak like a dying rat when it's raining, but it gets him to work on time most days - Joe gets in his car, and drives down to the plant. No one's there, but the door he uses every morning at nine AM is open. So Joe goes in and it's all dark, but he's not real scared. He used to be scared of the dark, terrified, until one time when he was six and went monster-hunting with his dad. They spent half the night searching under tables, in closets, in cabinets - didn't find a single monster. Anyway, Joe's dad died when he was fourteen but everytime it's dark Joe thinks of that, and it makes him feel good. Brave, even. He's no hero, but his dad, well - anyway, that doesn't matter so much. Joe never talked about his dad.

So Joe, this poor kid, goes looking in the dark for Tony, and kinda wishes he did have a flashlight, just so he could find him faster. He searches everywhere, and can't find Tony. He looks everywhere, even the bosses office - locked and empty. Finally, he's about to give up, and decides to check the big freezer, the one with the big sides of beef and huge shelves of chickens and slabs of pork hanging from the ceiling. Officially it's the Deep-Freeze Storage Unit, but everyone just calls it the Freezer. The light is on there, Joe sees as soon as he opens the door, so he walks in and lets the door shut behind him. You can't get locked in there, there's a safety mechanism that'll force the door open no matter what. And Tony's there, and Tony's waiting for him, and there's this look in Tony's eyes like nothing Joe's ever seen before, and it damn near makes him piss himself. Tony looks mad and crazy, like that guy with one arm who Joe saw every summer growing up, down the shore. Real crazy, just like that, only even worse, because Joe knows Tony, and this isn't him.

Tony doesn't even give Joe a second to react. He's been thinging about it all day and working himself up to it, past it, into a frenzy, and when Joe finally walks in it's like instinct, he just grabs one of the chickens off the shelf. These things are hard - they're frozen solid, way below freezing. It's forty degrees below freezing in there and these things sit for days like that, and they're like little bowling balls with legs stickin' out. Hard as rocks, but it still takes three hits to the back of his head before Joe goes down, and then Tony hits him a few more times just to be sure.

It's easy, from there. Real easy. There's a big incinerator that burns all the time, to keep up. They gotta do something with the rejects, the meat that's spoiling or gets contaminated and stuff, so they keep this big furnace blasting around the clock. The only hard part is getting the body - already a body, really - to the dump room. It's deadweight, and Joe's a small guy, but still a hundred fifty, sixty pounds of deadweight. Tony finally drops him on the conveyor belt and pushes the green button, watching it move toward the chute.

Once it's been done and he's sure it's done, Tony hits the stop button and the conveyor belt shudders to a stop and for a second the silence makes him uneasy. But this is big, and the boss is gonna be real happy, 'cause Tony did everything exactly the way it should be. They used to bury people in the dunes, he knew. They'd hit someone and then drive out down the shore, Asbury Park or somewhere, and bury them in the dunes. Then three weeks later some Shoobee would find a piece of cloth sticking out or something and Tony knew that was when it got bad, when the cops got called.

He smiled. This way, there was no clothing left, no weapon, no grave. Nothing but a chicken.

Note one: Sorry. I just got a little bit carried away there. Um...everyone occasionally gets carried away with a murder. You know how it is, right?
Note two: The thing about a mob hit in my school parking lot is, in fact, true. The guy actually used to live one house down from me and was a real dick. He dealt, he was in with the mob, and he abused his wife and kids (who I hated, too, but that's another story). They moved, no one heard from them, a few years ago they found him with a bullet in his head in his pickup truck. Granted, not the actual school parking lot, but in the American Legion parking lot which is, like, on school property.

The Fear of God is in me!

I'm not afraid of God so much as I am of religion. Organized religion, quite honestly, creeps me out: while I freely acknowledge that it's brought countless millions hope, inspiration, joy, and community, I personally have only had negative experiences with it. Judaism was very much not my cup of tea, and the teeny-tiny exposure I've had to a somewhat moderate breed of Roman Catholocism has been no better. Mostly, I feel that all organized religions put too much faith in the unseen and unproven, and I've never been one to accept "just because" as an answer for anything. I generally try to avoid religion, partly because it was forced on me when I was younger, partly because so much of 'the establishment' is firmly esconsed in bigoted and/or biased views, and partly because I personally feel that there's a very fine line between 'strong religious teachings' and 'freaky cults involving goat blood.'

So, add into the mix that I was raised Jewish and I've relatively recently realized: "Holy crap, Jews are a minority!", I'm sort of nervous about starting seminar again. With seminar sophomore year comes the bible, and with the bible comes...fear, on my part.

Right now, this is manifesting itself in a very bizarre way. I've figured out (I think) what flavor of the bible I'm supposed to have (or at least will be acceptable) - I'm planning on using a copy of the Tanak, the Jewish version of the bible. I have hesitations about doing so, but I think I will, mostly because it prolongs the plunge into the complete unknown. Additionally, the other choices are too staggering. I've been looking at bookstores, and...good lord! There's the King James edition, the New King James edition, the Roman Catholic edition, study bibles, daily bibles, teen bibles, annotated bibles...staggering, I tell you. And I just realized that not only do those possibilities not include the Islamic take on things, but also leave out the Jewish versions. It left me feeling very confused and alone, which I suppose could be considered slightly ironic, judging by the number of books promising to make me closer to God.

Ah well. It's one more thing I can blame on my parents: If they hadn't settled in what's one of very, very, very few places in the country where it's easily 40% Jewish, then I wouldn't be as confused about this.

Finally...

Discovery has landed, safe and sound, at Edwards Air Force Base. Thank the deity of your choice.

Things about the Philadelphia Area that I appreciate and/or like

1. KYW 1060. Local 24-hour AM news with that reassuring clic-clic-clic omnipresent in the background. What local kid didn't grow up listening to that KYW jingle every snowy morning, just waiting for their number to be read off?

2. One Liberty Place and it's next-door baby brother. As far as skyscrapers go, I think that they beat anything up in New York.

3. The fact that up until the late 80's, William Penn was the tallest thing in the city.

4. City Hall is butt-ugly. It's not helped by the fact that it's perpetually encased in scaffolding. A little eyesore, big emphasis on a historical figure, always in need of repair, people love it anyway...yep, that's Philly.

5. Real rivers. At school, the Santa Fe River just doesn't cut it. The Delaware might be a little toxic, the Schuylkill has a name which is utterly baffling to non-natives, and in here on the Jersey side, the Cooper is kind of dinky. But I still like rivers.

6. The museums. They're all very expensive. Both my parents have lived in DC and I think always are doing the Smithsonian comparison. On the other hand, we've got a lot. Some are famous in their own right (the art museum, ignoring Rocky). Some are unique and true gems of Philly (the Franklin, the Mutter in all its creepy weirdness).

7. No city's sports teams suck quite as much as consistently as ours do. And yet, our fans are far more rabid than most places'.

8. Proximity to other cities. From the Philly area, New York and DC are pretty easy day trips - definite weekends, if you want to go broke. You can get up to Boston in a day, to Baltimore in less than that. If you feel an odd compulsion to go to the midwest, you can do that - Cleaveland's a day away, Chicago less than two. Really, every important city other than Miami and LA are within a day's drive (and that's important using my little East-coast-centric POV).

9. Dear god we pollute a lot. Not a good thing, but I must respect that.

10. The Philly authorities simulatneously hosted the X-games a few years ago and also pissed off every skater in the country.

11. Tons of newspapers in the area, ranging from major metro ones (Philadelphia Inquirer) to awesome alt-weeklies (PW), to fairly less-respectable locals (Courier Post). I like newspapers.

12. The Pennsauken Mart, it's incredibly creepy shabbiness (I wouldn't go in there alone if you payed me to do so), and the fact that so many people are getting all worked up about it's "future".

Just heard on the local news that Peter Jennings just passed away. If this is true, we've lost yet another one of the Last Good Anchors. If this is true - godspeed, Mr. Jennings.

Well, _everyone's_ doing it!

Welcome, DietCoupon, to the wide world of 'Johnnies Who Blog', which sounds like some sort of horrible, double-geeky variant on 'Girls Gone Wild'. Anyway. Speaking of risque things, which I wasn't really, but that's not the point. The point is today at my internship I fact-checked a review of The Aristocrats (lots of comedians, all telling the 'dirtiest joke ever'). One of the sites I ventured onto to verify something was this, which is not safe for most workplaces. It's an alphabetized list of various, uh, places, things, and acts mentioned in the movie. Including Betsy Ross' feces, I kid you not. I'm not sure which was worse: checking this one, or some of the reviews of various movies for the gay and lesbian film festival, including a review of a 'making of' about a gay porno.

Anyway, with that all said, since everyone seems to be doing it, a rundown on what I think about things I've seen and read this summer, at least the ones I can remember right off.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Delicious all-around. No, it wasn't flawless, but what movie is? It was visually stunning, the score was good if you're a fan of Danny Elfman, the Oompa-Loompas were glorious, and the kid who played Charlie (who also played next to Depp in Finding Neverland) was the perfect doe-eyed waif. Also, Mike Teavee so reminded me of someone I knew in high school.

Fantastic Four: Hollywood summer fare. Boom smash pow, pretty special effects, a handful of decent laughs. Enjoyable but utterly forgettable.

Batman Begins: Truly did justice to the Dark Knight. Intensely dark, visually speaking, and felt a step removed from the likes of Spiderman, which while also excellent, was a bit too true to the tone of old comics. Batman was suitably dark, I think, but not too dark.

Er. Real life calls; books'll get their own entry later tonight.

Blair's kinda a jerk (again)

He's going to "root out" extremists! So sayeth the Guardian. NinjaGeek sayeth: No, you're not, Tony. You're going to continue to be a sad, confused little man with funny looking hair.

According to the Guardian article, he's going to "deport extremist Muslim clerics without appeal, close down mosques preaching hate, proscribe extremist Muslim groups and extend the use of control orders to British nationals advocating terrorism."

Now, I may just be a Wacky Bad-American Liberal, but that sounds to me an awful like he's rooting out those scary Arabs. Continuing: "A commission will also be established to examine the future of multiculturalism, looking at measures to better integrate those who deliberately separate themselves from British laws and culture."

Part of my reaction to this might just be the way the article was written; it's not unbiased. But saying that if you move to Britain - even if you're seeking asylum there - you live by their customs? Law, yes: I fully agree that by moving somewhere, you accept to live by their laws. But customs? Granted, Britain does have a rather unfortunate history of colonization, and if you look at America's great endeavours into cultural imperialization, it's nothing compared Britain's long list of 'places we've forced our way of life upon, and the devastating effects of this are still very obvious today in the spread of war, poverty, and disease'.

Still, though! This isn't the late 1800's or early 1900's with the Dutch and the French and the British all doing their best to capture all of Africa. We are, theoretically, more enlightened now than we were then, and I didn't think that even Britain was so into the "be exactly like us or else!" thing anymore.

Bonus light-heartedness: the UK page for BBC news is displaying the headline "Student and friend swept to death." I just picture them being force to sweep a large wood floor until they finally pass out and die from all the sweeping.

Insurgents, killers and traitors (aka heroes)

This column by Ted Rall raises some interesting points. To sum up the way I read it, he's asking why we don't have more sympathy for the Iraqi 'insurgents' (in his ficitional scenario, he uses the term patriot. I like that, and think I'll adopt that rather than the derogatory and highly-biased 'insurgent'.)

Why don't we? Anyone who's studied American history - not sat through the ethnocentric and mindless indoctrination that passes for history in most American schools, but really studied it - knows that our 'founding fathers', the men who we so often look up to as larger-than-life, noble and brave, were insurgents. They were traitors, they were disloyal, and no doubt if today's terminology was used then, they'd be terrorists. We idolize them.

For example: Here at home, Philadelphia. City of Brotherly Love and home of the Declaration. We have the Ben Franklin Parkway, the Ben Franklin Bridge, and the Franklin Institute (note: the Franklin Institute does rock in so many ways - no hating there.) We have the Betsy Ross house, Congress Hall, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and my personal favorite solely because of the name, the Man Full of Trouble Tavern. We've got a ton of history here, much of it connected to the Revolutionary War, and we're damn proud of it.

The Revolutionary war was illegal. Sure, Britain then signed the Treaty of Paris and declared no hard feelings, but still. It was an illegal revolution, based mostly on the fact that we didn't want to pay taxes and didn't really want to listen to the government anymore. "Leave us alone and don't make us pay taxes," they said. Britain sort of glanced at us, and said in a tone of utmost contempt, "No, that's not very likely." So then the Americans went out to a pub in Boston, got completely wasted, painted themselves up like Indians, snuck onto a ship, and threw a bunch of tea into the water. A bunch of also-drunk dock workers starting throwing ice and rocks at some soldiers who were on guard and everyone was stunned - stunned, I tell you! - when the soldiers reacted violently. (Note to revolutionaries everywhere: Guns usually win over rocks. Seriously.) These noble and honorable men dragged loyalists out of their house in the dead of the night and set the house on fire with the family still inside. They tarred and feathered people (cruel and unusual, perhaps? Due process, perhaps?). In essence, they invented dirty tactic and urban warfare. They fought hard and dirty, both politically and in combat, rules of engagement in both arenas be damned. They wanted these 'occupiers' out of their hair. They wanted their independence, and they wanted to be able to determine what would happen to them. "Hey, Georgie-boy: take your troops out of our houses, and get lost!"

In Iraq right now, there's a group of people who are pretty sick of being ruled by another nations' soldiers. They want sovriegnity and they want it now. They don't want to have to answer to a government that's not theirs anymore. They want to live by their own constitution, make their own laws and judicial system and society. Some of them are getting frustrated, so they might take up arms. Throw a few rocks at a few guards outside a base, 'engage' some soldiers at a checkpoint on their way home.

Can't imagine how anyone could sink to such a dispicable level. Nothing good has ever come of rebellion like that, has it?

Ahoy, there!

I've just noticed in my morning routine of 'try to remember all the various sites I want to check up on' that Ouroboros, a buddy of mine and fellow Johnnie, dropped a link to my blog from his, so I shall do the same. He's a rather conservative guy, but I try hard not to hold that against him.

CNN is confused.

Bob Novak has been suspended from CNN after cursing out Democratic strategist James Carville live on-air. Heh. Well, one, that's sort of an 'oops' moment for Novak right there - poor guy's having a rough time lately, isn't he? Poor lad.

I find it interesting, though: if you go to CNN.com, and search their site for 'Bob Novak', then this is the most recent hit you get.

Hm. Is this a 'let's ignore it and hope it goes away' thing, or is it a 'we really don't think that this is credible and important news, even though it happened on our network, live' thing? I personally am leaning towards the latter. Will the FCC be fining CNN for obscenity, now? Is a 3-second broadcast delay in CNN's future? The people will not stand for this horror! Won't someone think of the children?! (Oh, wait: the kids are to busy playing GTA. Forget that last bit.)

Few more interesting tidbits: the TIME.com search function doesn't reveal anything at all about the Time/Novak/Miller mess, at all. Both CNN and Time are, of course, owned by the same parent company (which also owns a crapload of other media/news outlets, as you can see thanks to the good folks at the CJR.) Also interesting: CNN has been accused of being liberally biased (at least, more than it's been accused of the opposite). Time Magazine has been accused of being liberally biased. Can someone find the common thread here?

Aaah, I've got it. They both use lots of shiny graphics and sidebars and human interest features and, really, are marshmallows in terms of toughness. It doesn't matter if they're liberal or conservative or completely and totally neutral: They're utterly worthless.

On a lighter note...

As a compulsive news reader, I sometimes stumble across little gems of news which elict one sole reaction: huh? Ladies and gentlemen, I present: Taste Test for Underwater Cheese. (You know that some BBC editor spent about nine hours trying to find a headline like that.)

Apparently, a Canadian (funny news story marker 1) cheese-maker (FNSM 2) had the wacky belief (FNSM 3) that if he threw his cheese into a lake (FNSM 4), it would taste better. The Canadian food authorities say that he can't sell any cheese without testing it first, and in order to test this cheese, they have to go SCUBA diving (FNSM 5) to the bottom of a 130-foot deep lake to find some of the 1700 pounds of cheese.

Items like this, which provide quotes such as, "They insisted that cheese production must take place in licensed, fully-hygienic facilities, which rules out the bottom of a lake."

Where oh where would we be without you, Canada? You wacky cheese-sinkers, you.

Lucky in two very different ways

So, those couple hundred folks who were on the Air France jet that crashed in Toronto yesterday are very, very lucky. In a pure sense of the word, they defied probability and were in a plane crash. This, I think, can be considered bad luck. On the other hand, according to the press release, twenty-two people were treated for minor injuries, and that's the extent of that. No fatalities, not even a serious injury. Having your plane slide into a ditch next to a major highway and explode into flame, then walking away without a scratch? That is some serious luck.

In my opinion, the media coverage has been excellent. 'Look, a plane crashed! We don't know anything yet but we're going to keep telling you that a plane crashed!' I went ahead yesterday afternoon and turned on the TV, and (to my jaded eyes, at least) it truly sounded like the newscaster was almost hoping for it to be a serious tragedy.

It wasn't, of course., and that's why I'm admiring the coverage. No one died and no one was seriously injured. The head of Air France is praising the flight crew for their actions - the entire plane was evacuated in less than two minutes according to most sources. Some of the passengers simply climbed up onto the highway on the other side of the ravine and hitchhiked back to the airport. There's an investigation already underway, they think it was related to the weather, and it's already off the front pages of news websites. The BBC, for example, is currently leading with gangs roaming Sudan's capital city, a military coup in Mauritania, and the Shuttle repairs going on above us. I say: amen to that (the coverage, not really the events).

Speaking of which, and I just have to ask this: Mauritania has armed forces to take over their government? (I admit it. I just Googled and the CIA estimates that they have just over 370,500 'fit for service' military members, out of a population of 3,086,859. Then I checked and, to my utmost disappointment, they are not a member of the Coalition of the Willing).

Thoughts on Harry Potter

I went up to the mall today to check out a sale at Penney's. As I was meandering that cornucopia of modern consumerism, I passed by the bookstore, and very nearly dropped twenty bucks on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Um...why?

It's not, let me state, due to any sort of lack of reading material on my part. Firstly, I have more than enough books to begin with, had just gotten a few more out of the library this morning, and had just recieved an already-fascinating book as a birthday gift from my father this morning. Secondly, I don't remember ever not having something to read, as that simply doesn't happen to me. Thirdly, I don't really need a reason to buy a book, because I really really like books.

But why Harry Potter? Why was I tempted to pay full price at a chain bookstore for a clothbound book? Why, for that matter, have I been able to like Harry Potter, which has become increasingly more commercialized and has always been mainstream pop-culture?

Well. For one, and this I have no hesitation in admitting: JK Rowling is a hell of a writer. She's brilliant, because I've yet to talk to someone who's read the books and hasn't felt that they could could, in some way, relate to at least one of main characters. Harry himself is the lovable underdog, a normal boy in his eyes who was thrown not entirely willingly into a decidedly abnormal situation. Hogwarts may have magic and moving stairways, but who wasn't there in middle and high school? Is there anyone in the world who didn't know a Draco Malfoy, who didn't have a Hermione or Ron to fall back on?

There are times in every book, from the very first time Harry sets foot in Hogwarts, that he feels overexposed. Everyone already thinks they know him, becuase he's The Boy Who Lived. He's not just Harry, he's Harry Potter, and you can hear the emphasis there, can't you? Once again: Is there anyone who didn't feel this way in their early teen years? That everyone thought they knew you even when they didn't, that there was something setting you apart, making you different? I'm absolutely certain that every single person, at least in their teen years and most people throughout their lives, has felt that feeling that, somehow, everyone is watching you, holding you up to a standard you don't know you can meet. That, that unsettling scrutiny, is a universal theme, and Rowling has done it extremely well thus far.

Then, there's the actual plot of the series, the story arc that runs through all the books. Now, I've yet to read the most recent addition, but I'm willing to put money on it following the same arc, which is: (ready for it?) Good versus evil.

Well, yeah. Look at practically any book ever written, any story ever told, any sort of fiction and the vast majority of non-fiction, and it's summed up in those words. They may not be all clean-cut black-and-white, but telling a story requires taking a point of view, which means you're going to end up presenting someone as the good guy and someone as the not-as-good-guy. In Harry Potter thus far, it's fairly clear that Harry is the good guy and Voldemort is the bad guy, and, really, that's the soul of the story right there. In every book, Voldemort is the menacing bad guy, and Harry fights him. Right there is the most universal theme imaginable. Of course people like her books.

I'm certain I'll have much more to say on the topic once I actually, y'know, read the new book.

Bad news

An AirFrance jet has apparently skidded off the runway in Toronto and burst into flames - CNN link.

Sometimes, when you think that humans are doing enough to themselves, something like this happens and reminds us that, sometimes, shit happens for no reason at all.