Guest Feature: Lubbock in the Dark III: Prostitution

WARNING: Mature and disturbing themes follow, detailing some ugly details of prostitution. Kids, talk to your parents before you read this.

Ruth Bradley is a crack reporter and an official Friend of the Brink. She's got a five-part series on social issues in Lubbock, Texas running in the Texas Tech student paper, the Daily Toreador. We'll link to the articles, and we'll also run them here since you have to sign up to view them on the site.

Anita Morales was 14 years old when she first sold her body for sex. The price was $30.

She took cues from her friend Lita, a fellow homeless teen, who had worked the streets since she was 12 years old.

"She told me to take the money up front and just go in there, take off my clothes and lay on the bed," Morales said.

Morales knew she needed the money. But she did not know how she would feel after the stranger had finished.

"It made me want to hide," she said. "It was a mark that had been placed on me - like somebody just threw paint on me. I felt like everybody could see it."

That same day, Morales and Lita spent their earnings on drugs and got high together.

"Right then and there, I felt that I had found the escape for the disgrace I had just endured," Morales said.

It was an escape into a cycle Morales said most women on the street are caught in - one of shame and dependency.

"(I) continued in my prostitution," she said, "so I could continue in my escape, and in doing so, I became an addict."

Eighteen years later Morales sits in a Lubbock County Jail cell. She is small, 5 feet 5 inches, with large eyes and curly hair pulled into pigtails. She has worked the streets off and on ever since that day.

"It's not something that I like to do," she said, "but it seems like its something that's calling me back."

Morales is incarcerated on charges related to her drug abuse for the second time. The first time, she spent her time and money on a correspondence course, earning her associate degree in child psychology. But when she got out of prison, she found the degree was not enough to get her a job. A fast food chain told her she was overqualified. Other companies couldn't see past her criminal background.

"When times get hard, I go back to what I know," Morales said. "For me, that's prostitution."

Sex workers like Morales are more common in Lubbock than people think, said Cpl. Theresa Bulls of the Lubbock Police Department.

"Most people don't see them for what they are or know about it, but it's been a problem," she said.

The exact number of women is difficult to pin down because many prostitutes come through Lubbock only to leave soon after for another city, Bulls said.

Morales recalled a group of at least 15 to 20 women that she used to work with on Lubbock streets. Freddy Harris, outreach worker for the Lubbock Regional Mental Health Mental Retardation Center, said he knows of at least 25 women working in Lubbock now. He said he believes there are many more he does not know of.

"I think in some parts of the community, some citizens see it as a big problem," said Lubbock City Councilwoman Linda DeLeon.

DeLeon said she receives one or two complaints a year about prostitutes in her district. One complaint involved a group of prostitutes who were working a corner near a school bus stop.

Residential sightings do occur from time to time, Bulls said.

"A lot of these neighborhood kids are going to know who they are for what they are," she said. "They become desensitized to the actual problems that are going on. It tells them it's a way of life."

Prostitution is a misdemeanor for the first two convictions and a felony for the third, said Bulls. Several times a year, the Lubbock Police Department conducts stings in which officers go undercover to catch women in the act of prostitution or men in the act of soliciting.

"It's prostitution for (men), just like it's prostitution for the women," Bulls said. "Both people are guilty of it."

And prostitution is not just a crime - it's a crime that attracts other crimes. Bulls said prostitutes tend to be surrounded by theft, drug abuse and crimes of violence - even murder.

In September 2005, pregnant prostitute Summer Baldwin, 29, was beaten to death, stuffed into a suitcase and left at a Lubbock city landfill. In 2004, Linda Trevino Carbajal was found dead in the middle of a road just outside New Deal, killed by a blunt-force head wound. In 2003, in a ditch west of Slaton, the body of Cynthia Palacio was found, partially nude and strangled to death. All were friends of Morales.

After the murders, Morales said she and her friends started a "buddy system," watching out for each other more, making sure they knew who their friends were "dating" (a term the women use for having sex). But violence still occurs.

Morales was raped often, once for two hours straight. She was beaten and left for dead three times. Once, a client tried to stab her in the face. Her hand is scarred where she blocked the knife.

"I'm real paranoid now," she said. "It's a weird life. I don't even know why we indulge ourselves in this madness. 'Cause it is, it's crazy."

The majority of the women Morales knew are battered other ways, too, living this lifestyle to get away from abuse or neglect in their former lives.

"Most of us keep hoping we'll find someone who cares about us, just for us," she said. "But nine times out of 10 it doesn't happen because of who we are - what we've become."

Prostitutes also battle disease. Although most use protection, many men will pay extra if they do not. And even with protection, prostitutes always are at high risk.

"Sex workers have a lot of sex partners," said Vilka Scott, disease intervention specialist for the City of Lubbock Health Department. "When it comes to disease, the more partners you have the more disease you spread."

Morales said several of the women she knew had diseases, but worked anyway. And since the same men often come back looking for different partners, it is difficult to avoid having sex with someone who has a disease.

"We just can't pinpoint who they've dated," Morales said, "so it's like we're playing Russian roulette with our lives."

Harris regularly distributes free condoms to prostitutes on behalf of MHMR, a service that helps greatly, Morales said.

"If it wasn't for them, there'd be a lot of diseases going around," she said.

Although many women charge whatever they can, Morales has set specific prices: $40 for oral, $50 for sex, $60 for both. On a good night, Morales said she would date close to 15 men, and on a regular night, five or six. And then there were the nights when no one came. On these bad nights, she remembers walking aimlessly up and down the streets all night with the other women, because they had nowhere else to go.

Morales said each of the women she knew was special in some way - beautiful, or musically talented or kind.

"But they settle for less because they feel it's OK," she said. "They feel they're not worth more."

Bulls said she believes that many of these women started out as victims.

"But at some point, they have to realize what they are doing," she said.

When they do reach this moment, Morales believes most prostitutes do want to get out, but don't know how to escape.

"It's not like there's a prostitution anonymous," she said. "If there was something that could be offered to us, a majority would take it."

She paused and sighed deeply.

"How do you relieve your weariness?" Morales said.

Morales said she knows 14-year-olds and 50-year-olds who are prostitutes - little girls entering the nightmare that the woman standing on the corner next to them can't stop.

"We want to get out of this lifestyle so bad, but this is all we know," she said. "This is what we've been through, and change is hard, and change is scary."

She laughs.

"People don't just come up to prostitutes on the street and say, 'Hey you want another chance at life?'"

But some are beginning to. In Memphis, Tenn., that is exactly what Carol Wiley is trying to do with the faith-based "A Way Out" program, an outreach of Citizens for Community Values of Memphis.

"The goal is to help any woman to get out of the sex-for-sale industry," Wiley said.

The organization does this by providing counseling, drug rehab, housing and training for jobs and in parental skills. And they meet these women where they are, visiting street corners with their message of hope for those who want it.

Wiley said working with these broken women takes persistence.

"It's hard at times, but it's also a real joy when that light comes on and they get it," she said, "(that) they are worth more than standing out on a street corner."

Wiley said she hopes to help start other programs like theirs. More information about "A Way Out" can be found at www.ccvmemphis.org or by calling (901) 685-1493.

Other cities have programs that can help, though not specifically for prostitutes. Dallas, Houston, Temple and Corpus Christi have programs that can help these women to get off drugs and back to their lives, said Harris.

"In Lubbock, we don't have stuff like that," he said. "We're behind times. We're slow-motion."

Harris said he would like to see the city and churches get involved in helping these women by helping them get rehab, jobs and homes.

"If you're gonna take drugs out of this hand, put something in the other hand," he said.

Morales said she encourages prostitutes to look for that help and to learn to understand their value.

"Our lives are precious," she said. "And we're worth more than what we're settling for."


Copyright 2006 Daily Toreador


For more on the Memphis, Tennessee program A Way Out, see this article.


filed: social.issues

Guest Feature: Lubbock in the Dark II: Child Abuse

Ruth Bradley is a crack reporter and an official Friend of the Brink. She's got a five-part series on social issues in Lubbock, Texas running in the Texas Tech student paper, the Daily Toreador. We'll link to the articles, and we'll also run them here since you have to sign up to view them on the site.


Every day, somewhere in Lubbock County, a child is abused.

Sometimes the abuse is emotional. Sometimes it's sexual or physical. And sometimes the abuse will end the child's life.

"We've had children that die, children that sustain pretty serious injuries," said Shawn Vandygriff, investigation program director for Children's Protective Services. "Children are hurt every day in our community because they don't have someone to protect them."

In Lubbock, reported abuse is high, according to the Texas Kids Count 2005, a compilation of statistics from the year 2004, found at www.cppp.org. Out of counties in Texas in 2004, Lubbock ranked 19th in size. It ranked third in the number of children in foster care. And it ranked fourth in child abuse, with a rate of 12.2 per 1,000 children. The Texas rate was 8.2.

Vandygriff said these high numbers may be the result of awareness and subsequent reporting in the Lubbock community. Although official numbers for 2005 have not yet been released, Vandygriff estimated that nearly 2,500 cases of suspected abuse were reported. Of these, between 25 percent and 30 percent were confirmed by Children's Protective Services.

In Texas, reporting suspected child abuse is mandatory.

Abuse falls into seven categories, said Catherine Bass, executive director of the Children's Advocacy Center of the South Plains. These include physical abuse, emotional abuse, medical neglect, abandonment, neglectful supervision, physical neglect and sexual abuse. Regardless of type, most cases have one thing in common: The perpetrator is usually someone the child loves.

"Eighty to 90 percent of our perpetrators are people that we know, people that we trust," said Dakesa Piña, director of clinical services for the Children's Advocacy Center.

When Bass was growing up, the catch phrase for child abuse was "stranger-danger."

Now, she said, out of almost 650 cases the Child's Advocacy Center dealt with last year, only four involved strangers.

Motivating factors behind abuse are varied, said Vandygriff. Abuse can stem from frustration, stress, lack of good parenting skills, and, especially, substance abuse.

"We've seen a substantial number of children and a singular increase in problems due to drugs and alcohol," said Vandygriff. "Because, of course, when you're impaired, you can't take care of your kids."

And sometimes, people become perpetrators because they themselves were once victims, Vandygriff said.

This is just one of the many long-term effects of child abuse, Piña said.

"The kids deal with things like nightmares, problems sleeping, what we call semantic problems," Piña said. "Kids sometimes will get aggressive behavior, cause they don't know how to communicate what they're going through."

Piña said victims of sexual abuse are especially likely to deal with the effects of their abuse later in life.

"You can be ashamed of your body," Piña said. "You can not be able to have intimate relationships (because) it might trigger the feelings you had when you were sexually abused."

Sexual abuse is prevalent in Lubbock, Vandygriff said, and is usually committed by a close family member, such as a father or a mother's boyfriend.

Bass said a close relationship enables the perpetrator to build trust.

"Normally it's someone who has access to the child that can groom them and make them feel like it's OK," Bass said.

Girls are three times more likely to be sexually abused, but that number may be slanted because boys are less likely to report it, Piña said.

Sexual abuse also is difficult to pinpoint because the symptoms are not as apparent as they are with other types of abuse.

"We rely pretty heavily on … the child making an outcry," Vandygriff said.

Many children simply do not recognize what is going on, Piña said, and do not know enough about sex to protect themselves.

"We don't like to talk to kids about sex and sexual things," she said. "But it's important that we educate them."

One of the goals of the Children's Advocacy Center is to help children pinpoint what is happening and be able to communicate it. Children's Protective Services and the Lubbock Police bring children to the center for interviews, which are videotaped for use by investigators and sometimes as court testimony.

Bass said this recorded interview makes it easier for agencies to work together and also helps the child who does not have to constantly relive the experience as a result of multiple interviews.

The center also provides counseling for children and non-offending family members.

"It helps my parent and my child to reconnect," Piña said. "Abuse can be very isolating. You feel like you're alone. You feel like you're the only one."

Support for non-offending parents, who often feel deep guilt for what has happened, is especially important, Piña said.

"That's our support system," she said. "If we don't take care of our parents, our kids aren't going to be OK."

Maintaining the family unit is important to Children's Protective Services as well. In cases where children should be removed from their homes, a social worker usually will work with the parents to help them create a "plan of service" to help define changes that need to be made before the children will be returned.

Kevin Hart, associate judge for the South Plains Foster Care Court, said plans of service often require participation in parenting classes, psychological evaluations or treatment for substance abuse.

Hart, who oversees all cases involving children and foster care in Lubbock and eight other surrounding counties, said he looks at the level of the parents' level of fulfillment of the plan to help him decide the outcome of the child's case.

"The ultimate thing I'm looking for is whether the parents can provide the child with a safe and secure home," Hart said.

Volunteers with Court Appointed Special Advocates also help Hart make his final decision. When a case is brought before the court, Hart appoints a member of CASA as a guardian ad litem, a special temporary guardian for the child or children involved. This volunteer will work with the child, Children's Protective Services and the child's parents and foster parents.

"Based on that information they receive, their role is to recommend to me, as judge, what the outcome should be in the case," Hart said.

Children are returned to their homes in about 50 percent of all cases, Hart said.

"If parental rights are terminated, then kids will stay in foster care until an adoptive home can be found for them," Hart said.

But foster homes are scarce. Hart said children from the Lubbock area often must be sent to homes in surrounding communities, such as Midland or Amarillo. There is a need for more foster parents or relief parents (families who take children for a short period of time to give foster parents a break).

There's also a growing need for CASA volunteers, Bass said, and for people to get involved in public education about abuse.

"People can help raise awareness to legislators about those kinds of issues," she said.

And they can work to educate their community. In April, which is Child Abuse Prevention Month, volunteers with the Family Guidance and Outreach Center of Lubbock will cover the city with blue ribbons as reminders of the problem, said Alaina Bloodworth, program coordinator for the organization. The group also is planning a candlelight ceremony to commemorate victims of child abuse and to raise public awareness. It will be at 7 p.m. on April 4 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3321 33rd St.

More information about volunteer opportunities can be obtained by contacting CASA at (806) 763-2272, the Children's Advocacy Center at (806) 740-0251 or the Family Guidance and Outreach Center at (806) 747-5577.

The best way to get involved however, Bass said, is to simply watch out for the children of the community.

"Just be aware of what's around you, and report if you think something is wrong," she said. "(Child abuse) does happen, but there are things that we can do to help prevent it."

Copyright 2006 Daily Toreador

filed: social.issues

Guest Feature: Lubbock In The Dark: Homelessness

Ruth Bradley is a crack reporter and an official Friend of the Brink. She's got a five-part series on social issues in Lubbock, Texas running in the Texas Tech student paper, the Daily Toreador. We'll link to the articles, and we'll also run them here since you have to sign up to view them on the site.

Every day in Lubbock there are stories that go untold, pain that goes unheeded, cries that go unheard. This is the beginning of an answer to those cries. This is the first story in a daily five-part series about social problems in Lubbock, such as homelessness, prostitution and abuse. This is the side of Lubbock few people ever see, these are whispers barely noticed, lives lived out in the shadows. This is Lubbock in the Dark.



Erika Cook lives behind a Dumpster. Evicted from her apartment after the friend she lived with was hospitalized, she spends her days searching for a job, her nights huddled next to a pile of the few belongings she has left. She is alone. And a few weeks ago, she was attacked.

Cook said three men jumped her, coming up from behind.

"I was way outnumbered," she said.

Since the incident, which she did not elaborate on, Cook has worked hard to avoid people, trying to stay hidden.

"I'm scared and nervous," Cook said, "and wishing I could have found a job before I lost my place."

Mary George Beyer of Family Promise of Lubbock, a non-profit agency that provides temporary care for homeless families, said many of the homeless in Lubbock are in this same situation.

"They don't want to be seen," Beyer said. "They're afraid. Many of them are afraid of being robbed, either by another homeless person or by someone who just thinks it's fun."

Because of this Lubbock has an "invisible homeless," a group of people who live inconspicuously on the streets trying to avoid perpetrators and incidentally avoiding the community in general, Beyer said.

"Because they are not seen as much as they are in bigger cities, we don't think of there being a homeless problem," said Diane Hudson, family services director for the Salvation Army of Lubbock. "Ours are more of a hidden homeless."

Hidden from harm, but also from help. Because it is difficult to find these people, it is difficult to count them, a governmental requirement when requesting grants to assist in homeless care, Beyer said. Moreover, it means that many Lubbock citizens are unaware of the problem and its severity.

In January, 260 homeless were counted in local shelters. Bob Terrell, president of the South Plains Homeless Consortium, the organization that enacted the count, said the actual number of homeless in the area is probably much higher.

"We don't have any real idea," he said. "It's almost impossible to get a handle on it."

Terrell said many homeless simply don't want to be counted. Others live in places that would be unsafe for volunteers to survey.

Based on case notes, Hudson said the Salvation Army estimates that Lubbock has close to 300 chronic homeless; that is, men and women who stay homeless.

Though some of these have no better option because of personal mental health issues, Hudson said a portion of chronic homeless choose their lifestyle deliberately.

"There's lots of different reasons for a person choosing to be homeless," Hudson said.

Mark Stone, a homeless man, said he knows homeless people who don't want to get off the streets. But people often point to them as the norm, he said, while ignoring the needs of people who genuinely need and want help.

Many of these are people who have been forced out of their homes by overwhelming circumstances. An estimated 100 Lubbock citizens are expected to lose their homes within the next few months, said Connie Hindman, executive director for Family Promise of Lubbock. Some of these are people living paycheck to paycheck, one financial disaster away from the streets. Others are hurricane evacuees, whose Federal Emergency Management Agency money is about to run out.

"I think that homelessness is the social issue of this decade," said Hindman, citing natural disasters like Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina. "Being homeless could happen to anybody."

It happened to Richard Moore. While living in Dallas, he commuted nearly 20 miles to work every day. When his car broke down, he had no choice but to quit his job. Unable to find work, he lived on the streets of Dallas for a time before making his way to Lubbock.

"Crime is rampant," said Moore, speaking of Dallas. "I haven't really met a bad apple around here."

While the streets of Lubbock may be safer, Moore said shelter and programs are much more limited.

"I think here there's a lot of indifference," he said.

Assistance is also hard to find, said J.D., a resident at the Salvation Army dorms who didn't want to give his full name.

"A lot of people just don't know where to go for help," he said.

The Lubbock Salvation Army provides shelter for three nights in a row, once a month per person. According to Beyer, this is the only shelter available for men without children. Women can apply to My Father's House or sometimes Women's Protective Services. Families are eligible to apply for Family Promise of Lubbock's program, which provides housing at local churches for a small number of families. Carpenter's Church provides a place to stay during the day and allows members of the church to sleep there on cold nights.

But there is always a hot meal.

"No one should be hungry in Lubbock," said Tom Clark, a volunteer at the South Plains Food Bank's Second Helpings Soup Kitchen, which provides meals for around 150 Lubbock citizens every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Clark said the Salvation Army and Broadway Church of Christ cover the other days of the week.

The city of Lubbock also provides help with jobs. Homeless can visit the Texas Workforce Commission, use a call center at Carpenter's Church and are allowed voice mail with the Salvation Army for 90 days to enable potential employees to contact them.

Even these resources may not be enough, said Kelcie Kopf, a doctoral student in Texas Tech's College of Education who recently spent a night on the streets to learn about the homeless.

"If we want them to get jobs and keep jobs, we need to find them a place to stay off the streets," she said.

If they do find a job, homeless struggle to stay presentable, to get a good night's sleep and to find food, since the kitchens serve during business hours, Kopf said. Even if they can do all these things, they don't have a place to store their earnings, since most banks require that customers have a place of residence.

"They're put in danger because they're having to walk around the street with lots of money," Kopf said.

She said she believes Lubbock needs temporary shelters to help the homeless to get back on their feet.

Hindman said there is also a need for more affordable homes.

"Lubbock desperately needs low-cost housing," said Hindman. "We have a little, but the waiting list is so long."

Lubbock's North Overton district, one large site of low-cost housing was bought out in 2003 by McDougal Companies. Since then, the company has demolished the majority of the houses in the area to make way for construction of several mid-to-high cost housing developments.

"Short term, that was where the way affordable housing was," said Frye. "And it's all gone now."

Frye said Mayor Marc McDougal has been working on the problem, and the Mayor has met with him several times to discuss solutions.

Another problem in Lubbock is funds, particularly following the hurricanes this summer.

"I was very conflicted over the entire city of Lubbock's response to the Katrina evacuees," Beyer said. "The city of Lubbock did not reserve resources for our own."

Frye said financial contributions to Katrina and Rita evacuees also have affected Lubbock programs.

Contributions and volunteers are always needed, Hindman said.

"One thing [Lubbockites] can do is help support the organizations that are already in place," she said.

It's also important to treat the homeless with respect, Hindman said, and to give them a chance.

"So many people have the idea 'if those people would just get a job they wouldn't be homeless," she said. "Well, some of those people are working two jobs, and they are homeless."

Hindman tells the story of a man who came to Family Promise of Lubbock for help who told her he was scared to apply for the program.

"I asked 'what frightened you?'" she said. "He said 'I was so afraid of what you would think of me.'"

Mary Guetersloh, who works with the outreach ministry for St. Matthew's Church, said the way many homeless are treated makes them feel like they're "not worthy, they're trash, throw-away people." This often affects their ability to accept help.

"It's hard for them to trust in anything that comes their way," she said.

But for those who do, there is hope.

Hindman said when families leave Family Promise, they move into homes of their own. Most of them will keep these homes.

Moore enrolled in a program offered by the Lubbock Regional Mental Health Mental Retardation Center, which paid for his first month's rent. He is currently looking for a job.

J.D. is living in the dorms at Salvation Army while he works at one of their stores.

And Cook? A formerly homeless friend, who just got off the streets, offered her a place to stay.

For more information about volunteer opportunities to help the homeless in Lubbock, contact Hindman at (806) 744-5035 or Hudson at (806) 765-9434.

This is story one of "Lubbock in the Dark," a five-part series on social issues in Lubbock. Tomorrow's topic: Drug Abuse. Copyright 2006 Daily Toreador

filed: social.issues

Self-Worth and the Idiot

There's nothing worse than a confident idiot.

Ben, Official Friend of the Brink

This thought, along with corollaries like the Bible's "Even a fool is considered wise when he opens not his mouth", make a brilliant case that modern society (and especially our public education system) should focus less on convincing people of their self-worth and more on education so that some of that self-confidence might be justified.

filed: etcetera

RealFrogger in Austin

In a melding of robot-vacuum technology with classic video games, individuals with electronics skills, alcohol and time on their hands have created and deployed RealFrogger on Austin's 6th Street.

Follow the link for pictures of this momentous event, and descriptions like this:

The impact of the technology on Austinites has already been deep. During the nerve-wracking initial crossing, which took place below the balcony of the Herald suite at Austin's Driskill Hotel, passers-by were heard to exclaim, "Dude, it's Frogger!"

Will RealFrogger survive? Will the police arrest anyone? Will Austin's traffic be slowed any further than it already is? Is that even possible?


RealFrogger Technology Revealed at SXSW


filed: etcetera

Geekonomics, The Matrix, and Happiness

In The Matrix, the machine character Agent Smith tells us that humans cannot survive in a utopia--they need pain and struggle or they will not accept their surroundings as real. It seems that a similar idea holds true in (semi-)real life with the economies of online games. This Wired article gives examples of experiments and incidents that prove that unlimited resources in a world lead not to universal happiness but instead cause all of the players to leave for lack of a challenge. The lesson: if you had all the money you could want you would be...bored.


Wired.com: Geekonomics


filed: economics

Original Column: Valentine's Day is Coming

This is one in a series of columns I wrote for a local newsletter in the past few years. The column was called The Brink of Normal and it was mostly about public service, as you can see from the following article.

VALENTINE'S DAY IS COMING.

This announcement is important, gentlemen. If you are married you need to realize this now and begin preparing. If you are feeling sad this year because you don't have someone to share the day with, read on so you can laugh at the predicament of the guys who do. And ladies: do your guy a favor and subtly leave this column lying around somewhere where he is likely to find it and read it. In fact, forget subtle: Tape it to his windshield with a note that says something like "THIS IS UNIMAGINABLY IMPORTANT TO ME XOXOXOXO".

Let's look back at the origin of the holiday known as Saint Valentine's Day. Saint Valentine was someone who became famous for love, and this is his day. That's all I know, and that's all you need to know. Let's not confuse the issue.

I would like to address the feeling that Valentine's Day is actually a conspiracy cooked up by greeting card companies, florists and chocolate makers. Here's the deal, guys--it doesn't matter. I wonder about this myself, but sharing these thoughts can only get you in trouble. The best thing is to think of this day as an opportunity to share your love. In fact, as sappy as it sounds, you can actually get points by just saying that out loud. Unless it comes off as sarcastic, which will ruin everything.

Let's talk about expectations. What are you supposed to do on Valentine's Day? The traditional things are flowers, chocolates, cards and romantic dinners. Do all of those things. Yes, all of them. Why, you may ask? Let's imagine your wife talking with a friend on the day after Valentine's Day. She is so happy, because it was perfect. It was exactly what she hoped for, everything that she never dared dream. She has that enraptured smile, the look that says "The one for whom my heart beats has declared his undying love." Do you think you can achieve that with only a card that cost you $2.49, or even one of the really nice ones for almost 5 bucks? The answer is no, no you cannot!

Men, Valentine's Day (which always falls on February 14th, every year) is an investment. It is expensive. It requires planning. Like anything worth doing, it is worth doing right. You can do it. You must do it. You will do it! Success is the only option; the alternative is unthinkable.

As for specifics, I know what you're thinking about flowers: Why would I pay some stranger 50 hard-earned dollars to bring plant clippings to my wife? There is an actual reason deep in the feminine psyche related to conditioning by social influences and mass media, but I don't want to get into that. The point is that every time your wife sees them she thinks happy thoughts about you. This is nothing but good and it is the only point.

Keep in mind that ordering flowers on Valentine's is like shopping on Christmas Eve--nothing good is left. Plan ahead; plan very far ahead. Also, the flowers must be accompanied by an appropriate note. It should be flowery, sappy, and between five and twenty words. If you do it right you will be extremely uncomfortable reading it to the florist.

For the romantic dinner you'll want a nice restaurant. You're looking for candles, tablecloths, and extra pieces of silverware by each plate. You'll need to get a reservation now--they fill up long before, and they laugh at you if you call February 14th. It will be outrageously priced, but you can use this to your advantage. Every time you think about the bill or about how much it would actually cost to prepare each entree, compliment your wife. It should work out just about right.

As for the card and chocolates, yes, you still need them. The card is always good. Chocolates are usually good, but there are exceptions. If she is dieting, has some health issue, or hates chocolate then you should find out beforehand if she still wants them. The last words you want to hear coming out of your mouth are "I didn't get you chocolates because you said you were fat."

Before I finish I'd like to address the single people. Many now celebrate Single Awareness Day (SAD) on February 14th. If you feel this way and you are a guy, I would suggest a SAD party. Invite all of your likeminded friends and watch some ridiculous chick flick, mocking it the whole time. Then watch a couple of guy movies, eat all the food you can hold, make stupid jokes, and scratch your belly. You'll feel much better.

If you feel sad and you are a girl, you'll want to focus on the positive. Think about the things you can only enjoy while you are single. And notice the things you don't have to put up with. The very best way to do that? Go to the guys' SAD party.

filed: humor

What's My Headline?

Here's a cool web thing from the Official Brother-In-Law of the Brink. You've got a map, by continent, of newspapers across the world. Roll over the dots to see the front pages of today's paper there. Highly cool.


Newseum.org: Today's Front Pages


filed: cool.web.stuff

Answers to Creationist Nonsense?

Below is a piece in Scientific American by John Rennie, that magazine's Editor in Chief. A pretty involved and well thought-out crititique of creationism, it exposes flaws in some lines of creationist thought but also reveals weaknesses in the evolutionary doctrines it defends. For instance:

...Creationists, though, dismiss these fossil studies. They argue that Archaeopteryx is not a missing link between reptiles and birds--it is just an extinct bird with reptilian features. They want evolutionists to produce a weird, chimeric monster that cannot be classified as belonging to any known group. Even if a creationist does accept a fossil as transitional between two species, he or she may then insist on seeing other fossils intermediate between it and the first two. These frustrating requests can proceed ad infinitum and place an unreasonable burden on the always incomplete fossil record.

This is a valid point--how can an evolutionist prove evolutionism to a creationist? I'm not a scientist, but I can see that while two similar species would be obvious examples of evolution to an evolutionist, they would simply suggest a shared creator to a creationist. Both viewpoints are valid and possibly unimpeachable given the disparate paradigms involved. Now, examine Rennie's hypothetical suggestion of how that evolution could be disproved:

If we could document the spontaneous generation of just one complex life-form from inanimate matter, then at least a few creatures seen in the fossil record might have originated this way.... But no one has yet produced such evidence.

How could a creationist establish the spontaneous generation of a life-form to the satisfaction of an evolutionist? Assume for a moment that a creationist found a fossil of a life-form in a stratum indicating that it appeared suddenly, with no apparent ancestor. Would the evolutionist accept it as proof of non-evolutionary creation of life? Of course not. He would simply point to the "always incomplete fossil record" and expect future discoveries to bring to light the ancestors of the "spontaneously generated" fossil. Or, the evolutionist might believe that this "later" fossil shows that the stratum in question cannot be considered as old as was thought. Either way, the evolutionist would place the same "unreasonable burden" on the creationist's evidence that he complains of the creationist putting upon his own.


Overall this article asks some pretty interesting questions that honest thinkers on this subject must answer.


ScientificAmerican.com: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense


filed: science

My Friend, the World's Largest Sock Monkey

I like monkeys. This is a very large monkey, but he's not real, but that's OK. Plus he has his own MySpace account, which I think means that he is so smart and relationship-oriented that he doesn't bite or throw poo. These are the main reasons I'm not allowed to have a real monkey, so hopefully I'm getting him for Christmas.


The Incredible Mr. Buttons


filed: etcetera

Happy Holidays from the House of the Future

You haven't seen a house party until you see this one get down. I got an email claiming that this is in my hometown, but I haven't seen it. Apparently this house transmits a low-powered FM radio signal that you can receive on your car radio, and the lights/decorations dance/shimmer/move in time to the music. The song is Wizards in Winter by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra (who are neither from Siberia nor an orchestra--they're actually more like Mannheim Steamroller, but with more electric guitars).

So, to recap, we have a three-minute video of a decorated house set to weird holiday rock music. And yet it is strangely captivating.

note: this video is best at no greater than double size--set the zoom with the drop-down button on the bottom right.


Google Video: The Wizards of Winter


filed: etcetera

Embryo Survives Skydiving Accident

OK, the embryo was inside it's 21-year-old mother, who was diving solo for the first time. Sounds like mom did a good job of dealing with her chute not opening. The moral of this story is: always listen to those stupid safety rules.

Wired Furthermore: Born to be Wild


Update: FoxNews Video and Interview with the Skydiver
(scroll down to mid-page for the story and link)


filed: etcetera

Bono and World Government

I made an offhand (and offline) comment recently linking U2's lead singer Bono with proponents of a worldwide government. I haven't studied this too much or chatted with Bono about it, but actually just made an inference from some perusal over at Wikipedia. So here it is:

The Wikipedia article on Federal World Government notes that "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is often referenced as the best expression of the most fundamental values motivating FWG supporters." The Wikipedia entry about Universal Declaration of Human Rights notes that "U2 projected the UDHR onto an enormous screen after performing their song 'Running to Stand Still' during their Vertigo 2005 world tour concerts. Their presentation also included individuals from around the world speaking selected articles of the UDHR."

So all that to say that I don't know Bono's take on the pros and cons of worldwide government, and his interest in the UDHR could be completely different from that of supporters of a Federal World Government, but I would tend to doubt it.

Sadly, I'm pretty sure that Bono won't be able to bring peace to this rock, as much as I'm sure he'd like to do so. And he can't walk on water, either.


filed: world.politics

The caricature of Bono walking on water is from this blog.

Original Column: 'Tis the Season

This is one in a series of columns I wrote for a local newsletter in the past few years. The column was called The Brink of Normal and it was practically an underground phenomenon that left a gaping void in the hearts of legions of fans at the end of its run. Or so I tell myself.


Every year as the retailers of America kick off the Christmas Buying Season I am caught off guard. I look around at the telltale signs—the unmistakable weather, the shopping frenzy, the expectant children’s faces—and I wonder aloud, “Is it August already?”

While I notice the buildup, I traditionally wait until later in the season to do my actual shopping. Usually much later. In fact, I am here to tell you that many merchants who claim to be “Always Open” will unceremoniously kick you out at midnight on Christmas morning, whether you are done with your shopping or not.

With these things in mind I have decided to bring you some helpful hints I have gleaned from my own quarter-century of holiday experience and a generous helping of the wisdom of others.

I know some of you craft-oriented people out there are still holding on to your dreams from last year about how you will hand-craft personalized knick-knacks of oak and ribbons for everyone on your Christmas card list, to be sent with a thoughtful letter conveying the activities of the family and the spirit of the season. Here’s the deal: if that was going to happen it should have been done back in the late summer when they first started selling Christmas decorations. The time has come to save your sanity, and the way to do that is not by affixing little felt baby Jesus cutouts to little felt manger cutouts until 3am every day for a week.

One important yuletide principle is that you should never give gifts in anger. Family lore has it that one year my grandmother gave Lincoln Logs to her sister’s kids because she was upset with their mother. I guess if you step barefoot on one in the middle of the night you might get the message, but the whole thing just doesn’t seem that malicious. I think it is because in a world where you can buy eighty-decibel bike sirens, plastic pellet guns and the Bucket’O’Slime, a few hundred Lincoln Logs in the dark would be a sweet relief.

As you go about buying gifts in love, keep in mind that an important part of the holiday experience is eating like a little piggy. I recommend that a large quantity of holiday goodies be on hand in case at any time a family member experiences a lessening of that overly stuffed feeling that the songs refer to as “good cheer”. On the other hand, I have now reached that point in life where my metabolism has slowed down past my appetite and I find that my body can store good cheer so that it lasts all year. So, while holiday snacks from cheese to chocolate may taste great, I must soberly change my recommendation to celery.

Now for some shopping tips for the new slimmer, trimmer, celery-powered you: It’s December; if you haven’t finished your shopping you should have. If you are nodding in agreement because you have already finished your shopping I don’t even want to hear about it. As for everybody else the best thing is to pace yourself, get lots of fluids and just shop till you drop.

For those of you who have not kept up with the spectacular advances of the toy industry, here is a rundown: Everything takes batteries. Of course the remote-controlled cars and trucks will probably drain their own weight in batteries on Christmas Day. Then there are the battery powered dolls and animals—without batteries they don’t talk, giggle, cry, squirm, spit up, roll over, fetch, jump, sing or order pizza. They just kind of sit there until you pick them up, which is obviously a completely ridiculous situation. To calculate how many batteries to buy, simply take the number of batteries you think you need and square it, lest you be confronted by a mob of children whose toys won’t play with them.

But of course shopping and eating and gifts are not really the point of Christmas. As our family has grown up I have come to appreciate the joy of giving to the ones I love. Even with all of the emphasis on receiving gifts, and as hard as it would have been to believe as a child, there really is more joy on the other side of the exchange.

The gifts should be a reminder of what we celebrate at Christmas, the greatest gift of all time—Jesus, as he came to earth so that we might have life more abundantly. So take a break this year during all of the hustle and bustle and busyness of the season, and consider what we commemorate—the coming of the Prince of Peace.


Merry Christmas.


filed: humor; column

Geologists Find the Cause of "The Great Dying"

The article below describes a time in ancient history (252 million years ago) when"life on the earth nearly ceased to exist--as much as 90 percent of marine life and 70 percent of terrestrial life died out." Sedimentary rocks from Italy (which were once on the bottom of a shallow sea), seem to indicate "that a great flood of ... terrestrial organic matter reached the sea and essentially swamped it, suffocating marine life."

The researchers believe that this, apparently the "earth's greatest mass extinction", was caused by ... a million-year-long intermittent Siberian volcano eruption. It seems the volcano, with its acid rain and pollutants and stuff, killed all the plants which were then washed into the sea. Humans and soil erosion are killing the planet again, by the way, so that may be "what is in store for us in the years ahead."

Seems to me that a worldwide flood would be a pretty good explanation for this Great Dying...


ScientificAmerican.com: Geologists Link the "Great Dying" to Volcanism


filed: science

The Bliss of Ignorance

Someone once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. Our schools are depriving millions of students of that kind of knowledge by promoting "self-esteem" and encouraging them to have opinions on things of which they are grossly ignorant, if not misinformed.

Thomas Sowell

I think that this quote encapsulates my discomfort with efforts like Rock the Vote. Voting is great, but I think it is important for voters to have a clue, and I fear that a voting bloc which rises as one on command from MTV may not represent a well-informed voice on the important issues of our day.


filed: us.politics; social.commentary; random.quotes

Original Column: How to Be Funny

This is one in a series of columns I wrote for a local newsletter in the past few years. The column was called The Brink of Normal and was full of humor and truly fun for all ages--and now it's back in convenient blog form!

As I searched desperately for a topic for my second column in this space, I thought about my rapid ascent to the heights of comedic expression. I suddenly realized that as a Humor Columnist I am now in a prime position to give hope and inspiration to the many young comedians out there. I’m all about public service, so this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

You might think that those closest to you will appreciate your jokes. In fact I have found the opposite to be true. Often after a stunningly funny comment, my father will say, “Don’t give up your day job”—while obviously stifling his mirth. Sometimes I will reduce most of a group to tears of laughter and one of my siblings will shout, “Don’t laugh—it only encourages him!” My theory here is that a person can’t take too much of a good thing. If you are too funny too often for too long, people just get desensitized to it.

Now if you are just getting started being funny, you may be asking, “I’m just getting started. How can I be funny?” Well, I’m glad you asked.

Jokes

One popular way to make people laugh is to tell jokes. There are many jokes, so I won’t try to cover them all here, but good jokes have two things in common: cleverness and surprise. Let me demonstrate with an actual joke:

Q: What did the mommy bullet say to the daddy bullet?
A: “We’re having a BB!”

The cleverness is the BB/baby pun, and the surprise is the ending that most people don’t expect. Both are vital for the comedy of the joke. (Please note that plausibility is not a necessary element of good jokes like this one.) Here is the joke without the surprise:

Q: What did little BB’s mommy, Mrs. Bullet, say to her daddy, Mr. Bullet?
A: “We’re having a BB!”

The joke is still clever, but there is no punch to the punch line. It bores us. The same effect can be achieved by asking your audience, “Have you heard the one about the little BB?” before you tell the joke.

Now, here is the joke with the cleverness removed:

Q: What did the mommy bullet say to the daddy bullet?
A: “We’re having a giraffe!”

This is not funny. The end is surprising, but the joke is not clever. It frustrates the listener. You will hear questions such as “What does the giraffe have to do with anything?” Believe me, it has to make sense.

Puns

If telling jokes isn’t your bag, perhaps you should try puns. Puns are a personal favorite of mine, but they elicit more groans than any other form of comedy you can use. In fact, that’s the best result you can ask from puns. If you don’t believe me, just pop a simple pun into a conversation, like “That soccer player really gets a kick out of his sport” and then just watch what happens. Often nothing will happen. At this point you can simply repeat yourself until someone realizes that you have made a joke. When they roll their eyes or groan or throw something at you, they’ve gotten it.

After you master the pun, try making several in a row related the same subject. For instance, you could follow up the soccer pun with “I wonder if his parents toed him to play”, “They probably had to put their foot down”, and “He’s probably still waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Again, some people find this less funny than others, so be ready to hoof it.

Physical Comedy

Often seen as less intelligent than other forms of funniness, physical comedy has been employed by everyone from the Three Stooges to America’s Funniest Videos. However hilarious it may be on TV, it is often less so if you personally fall out of a boat or have someone whack your nose with a serving tray. In the same way, practical jokes (the home version of physical comedy) are usually funnier for the joker than the victim, and if you accidentally get your parents they can find ways of spreading the pain, if you know what I mean. I speak as someone who has soaked my mother with water and coated my father with baby powder. I guess I forgot to mention that when noting that my family doesn’t think I’m funny.

With these tools in your bag you know enough to be dangerous. In fact, as I write this I realize that having an aspiring humorist in the house could be as maddening as living with someone teaching themselves the violin. And I didn’t even talk about the more advanced comedy techniques such as Running A Joke Into The Ground.

I’m sorry to the families of the amateur comedians I’ve encouraged. I didn’t mean to create a monster. But just think; after only a few years they may actually have their own column, and then it will all be worth it.

Right, Mom?

filed: humor; column

The Fork System

Have you ever planned to go out for lunch to a place you've never been, only to wish that you knew what kind of a place it is? Maybe a friend told you it was "kind-of fast food" or "a little bit nice," but what does that mean? Just as measurements were invented when somebody realized that "itsy-bitsy" and "great big" weren't going to cut it, the world needs an objective rating system for eating establishments. And so, World, I give you The Fork System.

The theory here is that you can tell what kind of restaurant you're dealing with from their eating utensils. The Fork System does not attempt to rate restaurants, but rather to categorize them. While you may have a good experience at a nice, clean fast food place or a bad time at a dumpy, badly run one, they are both fast food eateries and will both have the same Fork designation.

Here is the system, with categories ordered by price from lowest to highest:


No Fork/Plastic Fork: The cheapest form of restaurant, Fast Food. If you don't need a fork, you don't get one; if your order requires one it is plastic and sometimes packaged in a plastic baggie with a knife, paper napkin and paper salt/pepper packets. Variation: The Spork, the plastic offspring of a spoon and fork, is probably my favorite utensil. If you get a spork, you're at a fast-food place.

Wrapped Fork: A step up in from No Fork, this is the Casual Dining category. Here you get a fork made of real metal, along with a spoon and a knife, wrapped tightly in a napkin. At this level the Waiter makes his first appearance. This is a fairly wide-ranging category, with prices from just above No Fork prices and all the way up into Single Fork levels. To further differentiate inside the Wrapped Fork category, take a look at the napkin that wraps your fork. A cheap paper napkin is low-end, heavy paper is nicer, and cloth napkins may tell you that your Wrapped Fork restaurant wants to be a Single Fork restaurant.

Single Fork: This takes us into the Fine Dining category. The fork is unwrapped, to the left of the plate, and the knife and spoon are on the right. The napkin is cloth and may be folded into some sort of origami. The food is no longer cooked by cooks, but is instead prepared by chefs. The prices are higher but are still on the menu. Gentlemen, this is generally the lowest level acceptable for marriage proposals, Valentine's Day dinners, and anniversaries--and call ahead, because you definitely can't just walk in and be seated on February 14th.

Multi-Fork: Like Single Fork, but more--definitely Fine Dining. At this level the more utensils you see, the fancier the restaurant. Salad Forks, dessert forks, several glasses. Maitre d's, tuxedos, studied unobtrusiveness by wait staff--the sky is the limit here. If you can't find a price by your entree you can't afford it.


So there you have it. I hope you're asking yourself "How can one guy come up with a system so brilliant, so revolutionary, so useful?" However, you are more likely asking yourself "Why would somebody spend their time making this stuff up?" All I can say is that the whole fork thing was a random thought, and I had to flesh it out and write it up to get it out of my system. This is why I have a blog.

And there's more where that came from.


filed: etcetera

This Just In: Old Food is Great

If you throw out perfectly good food just because it has passed it's expiration date or been left out overnight or sat in a Mormon's basement for thirty years, you must read this article.


Wired News: Oatmeal From '70s Still Tastes OK


filed: etcetera

Random Thoughts and Manufactured Music

You know how sometimes seemingly random thoughts just pop into your head? Usually these thoughts aren't all that helpful, like when I find myself singing twenty-year-old commercial jingles for no apparent reason. Occasionally I will come up with something more interesting, though. For instance, here's a very strange line of thought that has occurred to me:

A bat "sees" by emitting a noise and then listening for it to bounce back, and surely too much surrounding noise would hinder that capability. What if our own vision worked similarly? What if, instead of passively perceiving ambient light, our eyes could only process light they generated--like a flashlight in the dark except that we could each only use our own light, and others' light interfered with our own? What would be the effect on human social interaction? Maybe it would be rude to look steadily at anything in public since nobody else could see it while you look at it. What would rock concerts or church services look like since nobody could see if everybody was looking at the same people? It would probably put a premium on one-to-one and aural interaction.

Wow. I hadn't really tried to put that into words before. Like I said, very strange.

Anyway, I recently had a bunch of old Backstreet Boys songs stuck in my head. I find the best thing to do when this happens is to listen to the songs again. Now I have never actively listened to the Backstreet Boys (but I heard plenty of their work back in the day when they were everywhere), so I don't have the albums, but thanks to the magic of Rhapsody I listened to some of their hits. Here are some of my thoughts from that experience:

First of all, this is not good music. On this point I must agree with Ben, who is a music snob and was nearby during my Backstreet marathon. In fact, as he noted, 99 percent of my enjoyment of the whole experience was watching his reactions to it--anger, revulsion, snide commentary, depression, begging for mercy...

Some of it actually doesn't sound too dated--in fact, some of it sounds like Britney Spears. In fact, I think if you dropped Spears voice into "Larger than Life" you could almost pass it off as her latest. This brings me to a point about "manufactured" music-- most of the lyrics aren't written by the idols themselves, but by middle-aged English majors on caffeine and a deadline. Either that, or by a computer program (Love + heart + baby + forever = POP HIT) or by 10,000 monkeys with typewriters (this is Ben's theory). I think the music is handled by all of the same computer jockeys, which would explain why the Backstreet Boys from the nineties sounds similar to Britney Spears of today, or why all of Spears' hits sound the same.

Finally, Josie and the Pussycats has some very funny things to say about manufactured music. It features a boy band called Du Jour which is funny because du jour means "of the day". They're the boy band of the day! Get it? (Warning: It's rated PG for "sensuality and language", kids, so be advised.)


filed: etcetera; entertainment

Trash Talk and Dominoes

"It's funny to hear an 80-year-old man talk smack."

Friend of The Brink Ben S.

Ben was a passerby the other day in a small town at a particularly zesty game of dominoes. I'm not exactly sure what kind of put-downs you use to get in the other guy's head in that game, but whatever they are they must seem strange coming from somebody's Grandpa.


filed: random.quotes

The Gatorade Dunk

Have you ever wondered who started the rather strange custom of throwing a bucket of Gatorade on the coach of a winning team? Seems that it was back in 1985 in the NFL, when New York Giants defensive lineman Jim Burt decided to exact revenge on coach Bill Parcells, who had been "motivating" him all week about his matchup with Redskins offensive lineman Jeff Bostic. At the end of the Giants' 17-3 win, Burt took his life in his hands and dumped the rest of the sideline cooler of Gatorade on his notoriously, uh, hard-nosed coach. But Parcells apparently accepted it good-naturedly, and the team kept it up as another superstitious tradition. TV viewers loved it, as the cameras focused on the sideline near the end of wins to catch the big moment.

And of course the Gatorade people couldn't have been any happier.


ESPN.com: How the Dunk was Born


filed: sports

Gentlemen, Start Your Pregnancies?

A Canadian woman has given birth to a 4 pound, 13 ounce baby at about 8 months. This, in itself, is not unusual. The surprising part is this: the baby gestated outside of the mothers' womb, growing instead in her abdominal cavity with the head against her liver.

Doctors say that there is a theoretical possibility that anyone, even a man, could carry a child. But before signing up to be the first human male to bear a child, take note that there are some complications. The baby was born with dislocated hips and club feet, and the new mom says that "“it felt like razors cutting me up from inside every time she moved."” That's in addition to the usual stuff--weight gain, morning sickness, strange food cravings...

But hey, seahorses can do it.


GlobeandMail.com: Miracle baby gives men pregnant pause


filed: health

Germany: Too Much Welfare?

It's interesting to look at the issues in Germany's upcoming election. Incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is in grave danger of being ousted in spite of his popular anti-US views, largely because of large and growing economic problems.

It seems that Germany's generous social welfare programs are being burdened by an aging poplulation and high unemployment and have become unaffordable, dragging the country ever further into debt. Also, German industry has sky-high labor costs because of laws ensuring high salaries to workers and because of powerful labor unions. Autoworkers, for instance, make $41.37 per hour. Employers are downsizing and moving jobs to other countries, causing further unemployment problems.

Challenger Angela Merkel describes the problem this way: “What do I do in an economy where 1,000 skilled jobs disappear every day and where, at the same time, my entire social security system, pension, unemployment and health insurance are financed by this shrinking pool of full-time jobs?” So in the perverse irony of big government, all of the social programs and mandated employer benefits designed to take care of workers are strangling the economy and erasing their jobs, and the only solution--lowering those benefits--will harm the workers in their time of need.

Americans beware: This is how a welfare state bottoms out, and it isn't pretty.


FoxNews.com: German Election May Revive U.S. Relations


filed: politics.world

Control Outside the Box

Nintendo is giving a sneak peak at the controller that will ship with the new Revolution game system next year. It looks and feels a lot like a TV remote, which may come as a relief to those daunted by the multi-button, multi-joystick remotes on current systems--it seems that Nintendo is reaching out to those outside the traditional hardcore gaming demographic. But industrial-strength gamers can easily add a secondary pod with all the buttons and joysticks they need, in a configuration called the "nunchuck controller". Plus, the controller is motion sensitive, making possible games where you use the controller as a gun or a fishing rod and the action translates to the screen.

Nintendo seems to be leading the way in the gaming space with some prooty cool human interface products--their handheld gaming system Nintendo DS has two screens and a stylus, also not standard fare in the video gaming world. I guess we'll have to wait and see if they can get people to buy all of their creative ideas, but they look good to me. As someone who can't hit the broad side of a tank using an analog joystick I'd love to try that nunchuck setup. And release my inner ninja.


Wired News: Hands On With the Revolution


filed: technology

Hurricane Devastation

I'm sorting through feelings today about the hurricane aftermath. I can't begin to comprehend the pain and suffering, the human toll being experienced not too far away from me. I feel guilty because the only suffering it has caused me is high gas prices. I am proud that Texas is able to help out, both officially and privately. And I feel like an idiot for talking about my own feelings as if they are at all relevant to the situation or worthy of notice in such a time.

I am disgusted by the political posturing that is going on while the bodies of dead Americans still float face-down through our own streets. There are political points to be made, but let's save the hyperbole until after we save the dying, shall we?

I am also trying to come to grips with what kind of people would shoot at rescue workers. I might expect this from some insane warlord trying to oppress his people, but here..? It seems that there are desperate people "taking pot shots at police and at helicopters, telling them, 'You better come get my family.'" Also shooting at authorities is apparently the same criminal element that the police in New Orleans fight every day. I heard a Louisiana resident on a call-in show today characterize the flood-ravaged 9th Ward as a dangerous neighborhood. This first-person blog entry describes the 9th Ward as "desperately poor", the "New Orleans no one wants to see", with burned out cars, wooden shacks and liquor stores scattered about. It stands to reason that this area is no less dangerous after the breakdown of law and order, and with everyone there experiencing the same desperation that all of the survivors must be feeling. Also, with looting and rape and other illegal activities there would surely be violence as well. Still, why would you shoot at rescue workers?

This CNN story/blog has lots of first-person accounts of various situations in Louisiana and Mississippi. The New Orleans Times-Picayune weblog (featuring tons of local content and commentary on the situation) mentions that many homeless are "drunk on looted liquor in a city without drinking water". Seems hard to blame them too much, I guess. It also notes that the situation today seemed to improve markedly.

If you have resources to give, think about the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected. May God be with you.


filed: current.events

Superpower? China Makes Its Play

Have you been wondering what country will challenge the globe's current one-superpower structure? Meet China.

A superpower must have enough economic and military clout to get other countries to align with them. While China's economy is relatively small per-capita compared with western nations, it is growing, and they seem to be doing a better job than the old Soviet Union of mixing socialism (which is an economic wet blanket, to say the least) with capitalism. While both China and the former USSR are/were socialist states, they had very different economic structures starting in the late 1970s. The Soviet Union was very similar to North Korea in that a tremendous percentage of their resources went into the military while their economy at home was always teetering on the edge of disaster. Their manufacturing was shoddy, even for their military equipment, and their collective farms were terrible. (They were really good at espionage, however, and extremely successful in stealing information from the West.) China, on the other hand, shouldn't suffer from manufacturing problems, as that is an area of expertise for them. This excerpt from the CIA World Factbook entry for China paints a picture of their economic progress:

In late 1978 the Chinese leadership began moving the economy from a sluggish, inefficient, Soviet-style centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented system. Whereas the system operates within a political framework of strict Communist control, the economic influence of non-state organizations and individual citizens has been steadily increasing. The authorities switched to a system of household and village responsibility in agriculture in place of the old collectivization, increased the authority of local officials and plant managers in industry, permitted a wide variety of small-scale enterprises in services and light manufacturing, and opened the economy to increased foreign trade and investment. The result has been a quadrupling of GDP since 1978.

As they grow economically they are plowing resources into their military as well. China's military has historically been long on manpower but short on technology--in WW2 the much smaller Japan had their way with China. But obviously they are trying to change all of that now.

As a growing power both economically and militarily, China is embarking on the next step toward superpower status. It appears that they are trying to cultivate satellite states among the bad actors and despotic regimes of (resource-rich) Africa.


FoxNews: China, Africa Dictator Links Ring Alarms


If they get their gear together, with a population of 1.3 billion (US: 0.3 billion), they might make quite a powerful superpower.


filed: politics.world

Original Column: The Emperor Has No Clothes

Note: It has come to my attention that some of the content of this blog may seem a little dry to certain groups of people, nay, to entire swaths of the population. To you I say this: You will continue to get what you pay for. However, I do have some stuff that's a little more fun, and I'd like to mix it in here and there.

This is one in a series of columns I wrote for a local newsletter in the past couple of years. The column was called The Brink of Normal, and was full of humor and truly fun for all ages. I have wanted to start republishing the columns here, and this seems a perfect time to start. This one's for you, America. And really for the whole english-speaking world.

The Emperor Has No Clothes!

Yes, I said it, and I’m not sorry. This has gone on long enough, and somebody had to get the truth out there. That’s how it always is. It always falls to those of us on the edges, at The Brink of Normal, to do the dirty work and be the first to say what you and everyone else is thinking.

Now the reason you don’t think I know what you were thinking is because somehow I started this column at the end and you have no idea what I’m talking about. You’re challenging me to tell you what you were thinking. Gotcha.

OK, here’s what we were all thinking: There is a no real difference between things that are stupid and things that are cool.

Most of you out there are probably freaked out that I read your mind. For those of you who may not have actually been thinking this exact thought, let me explain.

Here is a little boy in his front yard after a rain. He is inquisitive, he is young, he is eating snails. Is this cool? “No!”, we all shout! “This is disgusting! Someone stop the little boy and teach him not to eat snails!"

Meanwhile at a downtown restaurant whose name has more vowels than consonants a man is looking at a menu written completely in French. He summons the waiter, pronouncing his name easily, and expertly orders escargot for himself and the lady. She is impressed with his sophistication.

What is wrong with this picture? They are eating snails! The boy in his yard and the man at the restaurant are engaged in the same activity, and while one is taken to the doctor as a precaution the other enjoys his meal in high style. How can this be?

The answer lies deep in the human psyche. With our built-in desire for acceptance we try to choose a herd and follow wherever they may go. If someone is able to convince a leader that something is cool, the entire group will likely follow right along without a peep lest they be found unworthy of membership. This has been going on since long before the emperor was scammed by the people with the invisible clothes, and there is always a need for people like little children and yours truly to tell the herd what is what.

Now that I have exposed escargot for what it really is, I’d like to move on to that bastion of unthinking herd behavior we call fashion. From your local department store to designer runways in Milan the entire industry is all about leading-but still being a part of-the herd.

The problem with fashion is that you can’t escape it because you have to wear clothes, and no matter what you wear it makes a statement about who you are. That’s not a big problem if you like to make a statement, but I’m pretty much past that now and I just wear clothes because it separates me from the animals. My clothes are beginning to tell everyone that I haven’t cared about fashion since sometime in the last millennium.

Are you beginning to see what a racket we’re dealing with here? If I don’t pony up and buy whatever the fashion herd has anointed as cool, I am perceived as a cave-dweller or fuddy-duddy by everyone I meet. Fortunately for me my wife makes me stay reasonably fashionable, but what about all those people who don’t have someone to keep them in line? It’s an outrage.

For the people at the top of the fashion food chain things aren’t exactly hunky-dory either. How many actresses have attended a glitzy awards show wearing a $100,000 gown by a big name designer that appears to have been crafted from facial tissue and fishing tackle? Everybody stands around and says how the dress flatters her and the designer is a visionary, but in the back of their minds they’re wondering if that’s actually Kleenex and fishhooks.

And what about art? Perhaps you’ve seen one of those exhibits that appears to be a canvas salvaged from a paint factory explosion. The museum guide reverently explains that it was from a very bitter time in the artist’s life and that this work reflects a deep angst and anger unparalleled in any paintings of that period, which explains why it was appraised at 40 bazillion dollars. You suspect that it was created by a monkey on a motorcycle, but you say nothing.

So it seems that the only thing that separates the acceptable from the ridiculous is the majority’s belief that something is indeed acceptable. And this is why, when I see the latest crazy new thing, I again think to myself that the emperor does indeed have no clothes.

So now that you know the secret, you can change the world. The new world will be based on substance instead of style, reality instead of perception, steak instead of sizzle. I wish you luck in your quest.

If you need me I’ll be in the basement trying to make 40 bazillion bucks with my angst, anger and tempera paint.

filed: humor; column

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Bird-Plane?

Here's the question that's been nagging at us all: why has nobody since Wilbur and Orville looked at our feathered friends when they designed a plane? The Wright brothers, of course, daydreamed about flight while watching birds and managed to get into the air themselves using observations they made. But in the first 100 years of flight almost all heavier-than-air flying machines have been more or less rigid structures with fixed wings. With very powerful engines, planes travel much faster than birds, but have almost zero maneuverability comparatively.

While that has fit our needs for aircraft up until now, there seems to be a developing market for low-speed, highly-maneuverable small craft as mini-robotic drone planes. So it's back to the birds. While this little prototype hardly flaps it's wings (watch the video to see it slowly move its wings) it has obviously taken a cue from the avian world. And I think we can all agree that that's long overdue.


MSNBC.com: Futuristic Spy Plane Maneuvers Like a Bird


Bonus science news: I include this interesting tidbit mostly because the headline is so fun to say. Say it out loud for maximum effect. (Anemone must be pronounced correctly)

MSNBC.com Enemy Anemones wage all-out war


filed: science; technology

Free Speech and Stupidity

This whole free speech thing is a messy business, what with all of the idiots clogging our public discourse with idiocy, but what is the alternative? You could follow in the footsteps of Turkmenistan, which has outlawed lip-synching and opera, or maybe North Korea, where long hair for men is definitely bad.

While I am not a big fan of opera or long hair, I have begun to see the advantages of lip-synching. If we are going to continue to churn out singers whose main talent is actually sexiness, we must not let them perform without the benefit of electronic assistance. The screeching hurts my ears.

However, the main point here is this: One of the most important freedoms we have is the freedom to be stupid. If you outlaw dumb behavior or idiotic opinions then you have some government committee or official deciding what is criminally stupid. Given the corruption that comes with power, "criminally stupid" quickly devolves into "disagrees with me", and we might as well be some two-bit dictatorship.

Of course there must be legal limits to stupidity. One handy line to draw is that your stupidity must not harm others. You don't have the right to falsely yell "FIRE" in a crowded building. However, sometimes even stupidity that hurts others should not be interfered with. For instance, if a parent believes and teaches their children that the earth is flat, should the children be taken away? Teaching lies to kids is harmful, but what can you do besides set up a "Truth Committee" to police parents? And what lies are harmful enough to take away children? How about "Santa Clause brings presents?" Or would the Committee allow "The government is wrong?"

I think not.


filed: politics

It's a Documentary - It Must Be True

We commented recently in passing about Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me documentary, which blasts McDonalds' food as unhealthy to the point of deadliness. This article takes issue with some of his claims:

FoxNews: Spurlock Food Scare a Super Size Scam

Whaaaat? A "documentary" film with an axe to grind that skews the facts? Say it isn't so. Michael Moore must be livid right now that the integrity of his chosen medium is being dragged down by shoddy fact-checking and inattention to the rules of logic. Oh wait. It turns out Moore's own filmmaking methods are being called into question by ANOTHER documentary called Michael Moore Hates America, and here's an old article (from Slate magazine??!?!) that picks apart the logic of his Fahrenheit 9/11 movie into little bitty pieces.

No real point here, I guess, except that it's clear the documentary movie business seems to be dominated by idealogical partisans with a point to make, rather than by unimpassioned observers seeking to find the truth. Or maybe these are the only kind of documentaries that make the news...

filed: media; us.politics

An American in Japan

I found an interesting blog written by an American guy living in Japan. It's kind of a chronicle of his life there, and features, as he says, "fantastic and unremarkable stories from afar". It makes for surprisingly engrossing reading, featuring as it does so many normal, mundane, slice-of-life stories and observations. I don't know how much we have in common--for instance, he is a semi-militant vegan, while I only eat meat as much as possible--but it's cool to see another perspective, and also an American-eye view of Japan. I've often thought that you can't really see a country unless you leave the tourist spots and live with the people somehow, and that's exactly what he's doing. Note: Don't visit if you're offended by the occasional profanity.


Japanatter: Ramblings from my life in Japan


filed: etcetera

I'm Back!

After a few weeks of work-induced silence, I'm ready to keep bringing all of my fans (both of my fans? Hello? Anybody?) the stuff you just can't get anywhere else. Or at least links to it.

In that spirit, here is some news you can use about cheerleaders doing their part for society.


ESPN.com: Cheerleaders foil hit-and-run with help of chant


filed: etcetera