American Realistan

As the father of two sexually mature daughters, the onset of their sexual activity would be of concern to me as it would to any adult. But unlike too many parents, I refused to fall into the trap of just promoting saying “NO!” when sexual activity beckons. Why? Saying “NO!” won’t work with teens and sex any better than it did with Bush and the invasion of Iraq.

I still remember what it was like being that young, in spite of my advanced years, maybe because that part of my life is still more pleasant than some of my later experiences.

But that aside, I still remember the issues involved in deciding when I was going to begin sexual activity. One thing that I also remember is that those girls I knew who did get pregnant early tended to have very religious parents who stuck very closely to the “NO!” paradigm.

One has to wonder why the daughters didn’t listen. Could there have been a better course for the parents to follow?

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Despite the pain that they feel over the murders of five of their children, the Amish community of Nickel Mines, PA, has taken the family of murderer Charles Carl Roberts IV under their wing.

A statement released by the Mennonite Disaster Service from one elder asked “Who will take care of the family? It’s not right if we get $1,000 and they get $5. We must set something up for these children’s education.”

The Anabaptist Foundation, which is assisting with collections at several Pennsylvania banks, received $14,623 in two days. Yesterday’s collections had not yet been tallied by afternoon, when tellers were still wading through some 500 pieces of mail, said foundation director Rich Lauer.

“The Amish are not asking for the funds, but they know they can be used well, and that sending them is part of the healing of other people,” Mr. Lauer said.

The money will be used for expenses including medical care and the transportation of families to see children hospitalized in Philadelphia and Hershey.

The Amish are as grateful for the help as they are unaccustomed to it, according to Elmer Stoltzfus, an Amish bishop from another part of Lancaster County. “These are innocent victims. It’s not their fault, it’s not their doing and they’ll be going through some suffering and grieving,” Mr. Stoltzfus said.

“It’s been a lesson in receiving help graciously. It’s part of life and it’s a lesson we all need,” he said.

Could you ever expect to hear something like this coming out of the loud mouth of a Jerry Falwell or a Pat Robertson?

Me neither.

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I happen to be in the middle of reading Woodward’s State of Denial, and he reports (p.45) that on June 3, 2001, Saudi Prince Bandar had dinner with George W. Bush, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice for the express purpose of explaining to them how the Arab world viewed the United States.

Bandar spent five hours to try to hammer into their thick heads that ” … moderate Arab countries, as well as the US, have lost the media war and the Arab public opinion. What the average Arab sees everyday is …Women, children, elderly … being killed by the Israelis” with American-made and -provided arms.

The specific phrase of Bandar’s to remember for this post is “lost the media war”.

Bandar did what looked logical to him. He went to the leader of this nation to protest that the Arab side of the story wasn’t being heard, and that there would be dire consequences. He was wasting his time. To explain Bandar’s specific problem, I’m going to paraphrase a stanza from Jesus Christ, Superstar:

Mohammad in 700 had no mass communication

Unlike the Arabs’ opponents, who have mastered the use of mass mail along with the political usage of the rest of the media world.

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“What becomes alarming is when you see bones and start counting ribs.”
- LINDA WELLS, editor of the beauty magazine Allure, on runway models.

Despite the importance to women of this issue, this isn’t going to be a post on the unhealthy appearance of clothing models, but about how a national economy can be seen as taking on an appearance similar to that of such a model.

For over thirty years now, the American economy has been in the shadow of its prodigy, Japan. After almost three decades of rebuilding from the ashes left behind by Curtis LeMay in 1945, Japan surpassed the American economy in just about every economic sector across the Seventies and Eighties, most notably in the automotive and consumer electronics categories.

I’m sure it’s JUST a coincidence that the decline of the American Dream for the working class began about the same time. (more…)

What would you say if you knew that your tax dollars were going to fund a violent video game that your kids can play over the Internet - for free?

One of my major pet peeves is violent video games. Degenerate crap like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are chock full of dangerously anti-social and grossly immoral violence, which studies indicate numbs the players to the consequences of their violent game actions so much that they are more susceptible to blithely commiting violence and property crimes in real-life.

We all know of a couple of these screwed up kids for whom violence became deadly entertainment:

Columbine Diaries Contain Video Game References

[D]iaries and assorted papers of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold contain a handful of video game references among the 946 pages made public by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

[I]t’s clear that Eric Harris … was an angry young man, full of hatred and contempt for many of those he knew. Of the planned massacre, Harris wrote, “It’ll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together. … I want to leave a lasting impression on the world.”

id Software’s Doom series is well-known as a favorite of Harris and Klebold. Harris wrote a fan letter to id, which can be seen here

The “Duke” reference refers to Duke Nukem 3D, a bawdy, 1996 first-person shooter from developer 3D Realms.

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How’s that old saying go? Ah - yes! Rich man wins, poor man pays!

It’s no secret that the American auto industry is on its last legs. What is secret is why. But like all good secrets, the evidence is out in plain view for all to see: the managers of American corporations have lost control of the ship and are throwing their workers overboard while their luxuriously-profitable Titanic plows ahead into the long-predicted economic iceberg.

At least they are offering life preservers for the icy conditions ahead.
It would make it easier to collect the bodies afterwards:

Ford Offering 75,000 Employees Buyout Packages
By MICHELINE MAYNARD and NICK BUNKLEY
September 15, 2006

The Ford Motor Company agreed Thursday to offer buyouts and other incentives worth as much as $140,000 each to its 75,000 hourly workers in the United States to persuade them to leave their jobs. It is also the latest sign that Detroit has decided it needs to shrink to survive.In all, Ford has about 110,000 employees in the United States.

By my rough count, that’s almost all of their US hourly workforce. The white-collar Ford executive may well be feeling some heat this morning as well, considering that Ford Motor Co. said [9/15/06] it’s cutting its salaried work force by one-third — or 14,000 jobs. (more…)