Dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood

I've never been one to compromise my values for a buck, but sometimes life gets a little bit more complicated than that. Case in point, I start my first of hopefully many interviews tomorrow for my current research project. While I'll spare you the boring details, the interviews are going to be mostly with members of the criminal justice field. These folks are notoriously tight-lipped, and they're probably even less likely to open up to a guy with a 6-inch long mohawk.

So tonight I am cutting my hair in the interest of professional advancement.

To be fair, I'm kind of getting sick of the haircut anyway, but still, my main impetus for the new 'do is most assuredly a vain attempt to look professional. Right now I'm justifying it by telling myself that it's a greater good type thing, i.e. my project will do more to advance critical thought than an obnoxious haircut. But it still stings a little bit.

I think it's just a little bit more of a bitter pill to swallow because it's emblematic of a larger struggle in my life right now. The problem for an anti-materialist li'l punk like myself is that the vast majority of our culture's signifiers of adulthood center around consumption and the ceasing of deviant behavior. Think about it--a good job, a home, a car, marriage, children...all of them require money and leave little time for anything else, especially radical politics.

Normally, this wouldn't be such a big deal. I more than used to rejecting society's norms by this point in my life, but being the youngest of a youngest child and always by far the youngest child in my grade throughout all of my school life (up to and including grad school), I've developed a bit of a complex about being accepted by the older kids. And doing radical scholarship, it's extra infuriating when people write it off a youthful phase that I will most assuredly grow out of once the weight of the world has crushed my spirit, much like it did theirs. It's been getting to me even more lately, as I'm in a profession that on its outset looks pretty left-leaning, but in reality is just as shallow and careerist as any other field. And the folks in the my department, most of whom make little to no effort to disguise the fact they respect neither my research nor myself, put a great deal of pressure on one to become more respectable, only adding to my little pocket of anomie. And it doesn't really help any that I look like I'm about 14 years old, which certainly doesn't make me feel very adult-like.

So as soon as this post is done, the clippers are coming out and I'll be a respectable looking young chap once again. Now I'm a firm believer in the notion that one does not need to abandon their youthful ideals simply because they're not in college anymore and their girlfriend/boss/parents all tell them they should settle down, but finding the balance is becoming a bit harder than I thought it'd be.

Becoming Minnesotan, step by step

Growing up in the middle of nowhere, I missed out on a lot of things, good music being cheif amongst them. Sure, I could find things here and there on travels and hear about things form friends, but this was pre-internet, and it's not exactly like I could walk down to the nearest collective and pick up the latest issue of Chunklet. So needless to say, I've been in the dark about a great number of things.

For example, local heroes Dillinger Four. I had gained a passing familiarity with their music while in college, but had noweher near the love for them that most Mpls folks do. I mean, I knew that one of them ownd my owned one of my favorite watering holes, but I didn't even know that the crazy huge bartender there was another member of the band.

But after winning free tiickets to their latest show through the Arise! punk dating game, I can say I'm finally a convert. According to some witty inter-song banter from Paddy, D4 is apparently ranked 22nd on some list of bands you should see live before you die. So, as he pointed out, I guess I can now die a little less disappointed with my life.

And a little more Minnesotan...

Some political ramblings

Two good bits form Tom Tomorrow that should be getting much more attention.

First, here's one soldier's description of what a typical house raid is like. Keep in mind, hundreds of these raids are going on every night in Iraq:

Raids normally took place between midnight and 5 am, according to Sgt. John Bruhns, 29, of Philadelphia, who estimates that he took part in raids of nearly 1,000 Iraqi homes. He served in Baghdad and Abu Ghraib, a city infamous for its prison, located twenty miles west of the capital, with the Third Brigade, First Armor Division, First Battalion, for one year beginning in April 2003. His descriptions of raid procedures closely echoed those of eight other veterans who served in locations as diverse as Kirkuk, Samarra, Baghdad, Mosul and Tikrit.

“You want to catch them off guard,” Sergeant Bruhns explained. “You want to catch them in their sleep.” About ten troops were involved in each raid, he said, with five stationed outside and the rest searching the home.

Once they were in front of the home, troops, some wearing Kevlar helmets and flak vests with grenade launchers mounted on their weapons, kicked the door in, according to Sergeant Bruhns, who dispassionately described the procedure:

“You run in. And if there’s lights, you turn them on–if the lights are working. If not, you’ve got flashlights…. You leave one rifle team outside while one rifle team goes inside. Each rifle team leader has a headset on with an earpiece and a microphone where he can communicate with the other rifle team leader that’s outside.

“You go up the stairs. You grab the man of the house. You rip him out of bed in front of his wife. You put him up against the wall. You have junior-level troops, PFCs [privates first class], specialists will run into the other rooms and grab the family, and you’ll group them all together. Then you go into a room and you tear the room to shreds and you make sure there’s no weapons or anything that they can use to attack us.

“You get the interpreter and you get the man of the home, and you have him at gunpoint, and you’ll ask the interpreter to ask him: ‘Do you have any weapons? Do you have any anti-US propaganda, anything at all–anything–anything in here that would lead us to believe that you are somehow involved in insurgent activity or anti-coalition forces activity?’

“Normally they’ll say no, because that’s normally the truth,” Sergeant Bruhns said. “So what you’ll do is you’ll take his sofa cushions and you’ll dump them. If he has a couch, you’ll turn the couch upside down. You’ll go into the fridge, if he has a fridge, and you’ll throw everything on the floor, and you’ll take his drawers and you’ll dump them…. You’ll open up his closet and you’ll throw all the clothes on the floor and basically leave his house looking like a hurricane just hit it.

“And if you find something, then you’ll detain him. If not, you’ll say, ‘Sorry to disturb you. Have a nice evening.’ So you’ve just humiliated this man in front of his entire family and terrorized his entire family and you’ve destroyed his home. And then you go right next door and you do the same thing in a hundred homes.”

And, in what I'm sure is completely un-related news, it turns out that even Republicans don't like the Republican nominations for president. According to a recent Ipsos/AP poll, 25% of registered Republicans had no candidate in the field they liked, which was well ahead of the number that supported any particular candidate. If only we could find a Democrat who will actually end the war...

How is this not America’s most popular sport?

Recently, the trib has run several critical stories on the upcoming hockey fighting camp, in which youngsters are taught the finer points of the only reason to watch hockey.

I'm really fascinated by what this says about us as a nation--Americans are always branded as violent thugs, yet this game of violent thuggery is fading and could soon be dieing. Major newspapers across the nation are dropping their coverage of their local hockey team's away games because the sport is fading so much that they don't want to waste the couple hundred bucks to send a staffer out on the road. Some newspapers are dropping coverage all together, and it doesn't look like the NHL is doing much of anything to reverse the tide.

Maybe I'm just too wired into negative case examples because of the current project I'm working on, but I can't figure out why hockey is losing popularity so quickly. If it's true that Americans are so drawn to violence (which is a fairly difficult claim to prove, but seems to have some face validity) why is the most violent of the major professional sports declining? Yes, we still have gruesomely violent football, but if you get into a fight in football, you’re suspended for several games. In hockey, it’s two minutes in a box unless you really mess up the guy.

In fact, take a quick perusal of Rule 56, a/k/a the "fisticuffs" rule. in addition to being the only thing written after the year 1920 to use the word "fisticuffs" earnestnly, it outlines the rules and punishments that govern fighting in Hockey. Not only do most of the rules only focus on the instigator, but some rules even reduce punishment for a fella who makes the fight even. For example, check out Note 4:

"If a player penalized as an instigator of an altercation is wearing a face shield, he shall be assessed an additional Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty.
(NOTE 4) Should the player who instigates the fight be wearing a face shield, but removes it before instigating the altercation, the additional Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty shall not apply."

Think about the equivalent: what would the reaction be if Major League Baseball said that a player wouldn't be suspended if he took off his helmet before charging the mound? I can't help but believe such an announcement would be met with all forms of righteous indignation, but in hockey, it's just par for the course.

As for Mr. Boogaard's camp, I think the outrage shown over a hockey player teaching children to fight is a bit misplaced at best (I would wager that an illegal and immoral war that has taken over 600,000 lives teaches children much more about the acceptability of violence as a solution to our problems than does a one-afternoon course on hockey fights), but the outrage alone speaks volumes about the complex relationship we have with our violence, especially in relms where violence is not only accepted, but encouraged as the only way to win. I'd like to think it signals a shift in our collective attitude about the acceptance of violence, but with the surging popularity of "ultimate fighting" and other such blood-sports, I must dejectedly admit their must be some other force at play here.

I'm fairly certain Clinton inhaled as well...

In a story that's getting shockingly little local coverage (read: zero), Norman Kent, a Ft. Lauderdale-based lawyer and former college buddy of conservative local Sentaor Norm Colman, recently published an article on Alternet alleging that the currently harshly anti-drug Senator once smoked plenty of pot. And given most of the legislation the esteemed Sentaor supports, I wouldn't doubt that he's still using it quite frequently.

Sentaor Colman has yet to respond to the accusation of former pot-head-ness, but it's a pretty believable story: man smokes a bunch of pot during college, goes on to successful private career, and then gains easy votes by denouncing his former pasttime. And as most social survey ecidence shows that many Americans are regular marijuana users and the majority of Americans have at least tried it, this story serves as a great exemplar of a disturbing wider societal trend--while many, if not most, Americans are using marijuana, we are at the same time incarcerating folks at the highest clip in the world, most of whom are just coincidentally poor and/or ethnic/racial minorities.

At this point in the "debate" I basically feel like we're arguing with the anti-evolutionists. If all the evidence in the world points to the fact that marijuana is non-harmful (or at the very least, far much less so than two other widely-available and legal drugs you may know of) and completely non-addictive and yet you refuse to believe that and argue for its continued legal ban, then there's obviously nothing that can be said to convince you otherwise.

But man, when they discover new dinosaur bones next to primitive dinasuar-sized bongs, Norm Coleman and the rest of those folks sure are going to be pissed.

Those damn kids and their music

I often feel like my generation is the America of generations. The analogy is a bit tortured, but quite apt on a certain level. While it seems all other generations have had outspoken leaders and activists working to make the world better, while my generation has a couple of those, try to name one. This is much in the way American's tend not to care much for even talking about social equality issues, while most of the rest of the world at least pays attention to, say, a certain illegal and immoral war that has killed well over 600,000 people.

But more to the point, the analogy came to me the other night while I was thinking about the Beatles. I've never really been into the Beatles, and while I don't deny that they're a good band, I would probably call them the most over-rated band in history and I really prefer most of their solo stuff to Beatles music (of course with the exception of Paul's music, because nobody has ever liked Paul's music. Linda was just faking it to push her vegetarian agenda).

Nonetheless, those Beatles did make a huge impact on both pop music and pop culture. To think that they went from wanting to hold your hand to having blisters on their fingers in such a short time span simply amazes me. The only equivalent for my generation would be if all of a sudden N*Sync had switched from glossy, over-produced boy band music to openly experimenting with illicit drugs and radical politics while pushing the definition of pop music in strange and new directions.

Think about it--until they started with the jazz cigarettes, the Beatles were just an N*Sync that played their own instruments. Depressingly, that would make Justin Timberlake the John Lennon of my generation. I guess that would mean that Cameron Diaz is our Yoko, and Britney Spears is…uh…the Pete Best of my generation.

Yep, that seems to sum it all up. My folks had John Lennon and I have Justin Timberlake. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm quite glad that sexy has finally been returned to its rightful place, but it's just that exhorting a crowd to rock their bodies seems somewhat less meaningful than asking them to give peace a chance.

Et tu, Flaming Lips?

For those of you who are not in the Twin Cities area, you probably know nothing of Myth, the suburban rock club. And not sub-urban, as in some witty play on an underground theme, but rather in reference to the place you go to live so that you don't have to be near black people.

I have long refused to go the subrubs for any but the most important reasons, and usually those involve getting arrested outside the headquarters of major weapons manufacturers. However, I begrudgingly recognize that in a capitalist state we need those rascists and their money to keep our neat little city humming. It's sort of a Faustin bargain that those of us with morals/ideals have to make--major cities just can't survive without assholes, it seems. Myth, however, takes it all to a new level. Not only is it trying to ramove the last of any reasons racist suburbanites would come to the city and give us their ill-begotten money (e.g. in exchange for actual entertainment), but it's also now owned by local ego-maniacal car-magnate Denny Hecker, who in addition to purchasing apparently everything he can, always appears to be a cheeseburger shy of a heart attack, which only adds to the reasons to boycott (his ego-maniacal purchase of everything in the Twin Cities area, not his imminent stress-induced death).

As for now, it's been a preety easy boycott to maintain, with the majority of concerts featuring people you would expect at a suburban night club, with the exception of what were probably some decent shows, such as the recent Nas appearance.

However, the bar has been re-set. It was recently announced the the only Minnesota tour stop of the Flaming Lips will be at Myth. Fortunately, I got the chance to see the Lips do a show with Sonic Youth at the State Fair last year, so again, it won't be much of task to keep myself from attending. But it does mark the start of what could be a disturbing trend of good bands playing at there. The suburbanites have already damaged us enough with the massive pollution from their hour-plus daily commutes, their repeated elections of right-wing nut jobs to national offices, and their constant production of wealthy ersatz-punk teenagers clogging shows with their latest Hot Topic purchases. Must they steal our last vestiges of hope by taking away our good alt-rock psychedlia as well?

Paging Dr. Freud...

Pardon the cheesy post title, but there's really nothing else that could adequately cover this story.

It turns out, the Pentagon has recently confirmed it attempted to develop a "gay bomb," which would deploy a chemical causing the enemy combatants to become so aroused they would instantly turn homosexual and be so in love with each other that they would be unable to fight.

Yes. This is actually what the Air Force requested $7.5 million in funding for, to develop and test such a weapon. This request came in the year 1994. 1994!

Again, I cannot emphasize enough the fact that I am not making this up. Only 13 years ago the Air Force was petitioning our government for funding to develop a bomb that turns our enemies gay, because sissy gay people can only make out and not fight.

Well, if nothing else, this should be an interesting conversation starter for folks at this weekend's Pride Fest.

Your dog fucking hates marijuana

By now, pretty much everyone is familiar with the nearly $200 million U.S. Gov't campaign Above the Influence and it's incredibly idiotic commercials that really appear to have been done by stoners, ironically. One could go into an extended rant about how conservatives who complain about excessive government spending seem to have no problem with throwing away millions upon millions of tax-payer dollars to poorly-conceived anti-drug ads, but that would be small and petty.

Me, I'm more reminded of the brilliant episode of Strangers with Candy, in which the drug counselor brought into the school to teach children the horrors of marijuana says something to the effect of "Oh sure, you may have heard of the 'scientific studies' proving that pot is 'not addictive' and 'not harmful,' but if you choose to smoke weed, you're going to be spending a lot of time laughing and having fun with your friends. Are you prepared to deal with that?"

Well, sadly, our government has hit about the same level of discourse. After being finally forced to admit that marijuana does very little physiological damage (especially in comparison to alcohol or cigarettes), the brilliant chums down at the ONDCP have turned to telling us that our pet dogs won't like us if we smoke up.

First, they started with a poorly drawn cartoon:


Seeing as that brilliant gem apparently failed to stop our nation's youth from the deadly clutches of the vile weed, the ONDCP has cooked up a new live action version, in which a weird talking dog informs a young lady that she's different when she smokes and that he misses hanging out with her. Unfortunately, this version hasn't been youtubed yet, but if you turn on your t.v., you'll surely see it within 5 minutes.

For a scholar of deviance such as myself, these commercials represent an interesting break from the commercials of the past. Whereas in my childhood we were told our brain would be fried like an egg if we used drugs, today's kids are receiving a bit less fear-inducing message. It's an interesting shift of strategy, no doubt in response to the increasing field of medical studies on the subject, and could almost be seen as a positive devlopment (at least they're not out-and-out lying about the effects of marijuana anymore).

But on the other hand, we must remember that while 50 million Americans have no health insurance, an illegal and immoral war has already claimed over 600,000 lives and counting, and our public schools are crumbling, your goverment sees it as a top priority to inform you that if you use marijuana, your dog will not like you anymore.

Unfortunately, we have no information on how your cat feels about your rampant marijuana use yet.

News you can use on the 5 second rule...

A great article appeared in the Strib today on the long-held yet controversial 5 second rule. Two seniors at Conneticut College have performed a study testing how long food can sit on the groud before it goes bad.

And as usual, it turns out the stoner kid in the weird-smelling room at the end of the dorm hallway was totally right. The pair of researchers found out that food can usually sit on the ground for up to 30 seconds before it becomes infected with any more germs than it would sitting on your table, and more solid foods (such as the Skittles they used) could often last up to 5 minutes before one could distinguish them from those still safely on the table.

So the next time you clumsily knock your food to the floor and the person next to you snarkily says "You're not going to eat that, are you?" you can tell them it's not only your right as an American to follow the five second rule, but that it has scientific backing as well.

The trials and tribulation of a hardcore skate punk

After months of borrowing my brother's, I finally went out last week and bought my own long board. The long board is basically just a really big skateboard designed more for going long distances and maneuvering around tight spots that it is for the jumps and tricks of the skateboards most people are used to. They're also really, really fun.

The great thing about skating in general is that it's humbling sport. Whenever you're starting to get cocky about what you can do, something comes along to knock you off your high horse. For example, on only the second day I had my own board, I was trying to navigate around some folks hogging the sidewalk when one of my wheels caught the grass, stopping the board and sending me flying. But at least it was a quality wipe-out, complete with full head-over-heel 360 and flailing limbs and all that.

But unfortunately I landed on my elbow, which swelled to the size of a grapefruit that night. Only now 4 days later can I even move it about 20% of its range and I still can't carry any weight in that hand.

But that's all in a day's work for a hardcore sk8 punk such as myself...

A must-hear

Not since noted Republican-party fundraiser Ozzy sang Working Class Hero, has a match-up this odd come about:

At a recent BBC live show, Marilyn Mason sang a quite haunting acoustic version of Justin Timberlake's recent hit "What Goes Around.../...Comes Around[sic]" (download it here).

Now, as anyone close to me knows, I have a fascination with JT that goes far-beyond my latent homosexuality, though it's more for his business-savvy in the industry (another post to be sure, but it is fascinating, I assure you), as opposed to the music he makes. Though, to be fair, he does make some good booty-shaking music.

But I think it's a bit more surprising to think that Mr./Mz. Manson has a similar fascination. It obviously can't be just a publicity stunt like so many ironic covers, because even ironically it wouldn't go over with his fans, but also because he sings it with such earnestness that you have to believe him when he says he genuinely enjoys the song.

Anyway, it's too late to think of a snarky way to bring this whole post home, but do yourself a favor and listen to the song and ponder the sheer oddity of the situaion you experience in both the unlikely event of Marilyn Manson singing Justin Timberlake, but also your enjoyment of such a seeming abomination...

I could be a #2 draft pick

Inspired by some interesting musings from the lawyer about the current state of the world...

So, by now pretty much all sports fans have heard about how sure #2 pick in the NBA draft Kevin Durant failed to bench 185 pounds at the pre-draft camp. Now, 185 pounds is a sizeable amount, but one that even your humble neighborhood blogger can manage a couple of times. Sure, mine aren't pretty, precise reps, but I can at least move the bar up and down, somehting Durant failed to do.

But you know who else can do it, reportedly 5 full times? That's right, everybody's favorite president. This could really explain a great deal, though. I mean, if you're working out enough that you can purportedly bench a theoretical max of 213 (my max is 234, but I've got a good 30-40 years of youth on my side) and run a 6:45 mile, you really don't have the time to read all those stupid security breifings or look for weapons of mass destruction or any other such pesky thing that might get in the way of your workout.

As for Durant, I would like to note that I, too, am available for the 2007 NBA draft. Or alternatley, even though I have my B.A., I still have all 4 years of my collegiate eligibility out there, in case Texas needs someone to replace him. Just putting that out there...

Happy 300!

This post, my internet friends, is my humble 300th post. Each time I put up another hundred posts, I always feel it to be a good occassion to stop and recollect on life and whatnot, for as this humble li'l blog has grown, so too has the humble li'l blogger who writes it.

Sadly, this blog is actually a pretty good descriptor of my life. When I began blogging low these 2 and a half years ago, it's amazing to think of how different I was then. I suppose it's mainly a function of the lifecourse, in that I'm at an age where people probably change a bit more rapidly than they do in later years.

When I started the blog, my original goal with it was to make it a touchstone for the local political scene, that scene being the Waterloo/Cedar Falls (IA) area, so it really wasn't that big of a goal. But over time I learned what many before me have found; namely, that political diatribes are not likely to gain much attention. So, in my blog life, as in my real life, I've (hopefully) learned how to balance the politics with the rest of life, so as to hopefully be a little less "that guy" and a bit more entertaining, or at least, less annoying.

In my time on the interweb, I've been the subject of right-wing attacks, had a call from Jesus on his way to jury duty, been visited by the feds, came to yet another school, and of course, previously reflected on my own blog.

I've laughed, I've learned, I've cried, I've become somewhat computer literate. And according to the site tracker on my blog, I have gained a regular reader in India.

Not too shabby for something I initially started because I was bored at work...

A story so hackneyed it would make Tommy Chong and John Kerry blush simultaneously

A few days back, a pair of friends of mine who will be labeled "Sheryl" and "Scott" (to protect their identities) were under the influence of a widely-available and non-lethal, yet illegal, narcotic often known for increasing one's propensity towards food consumption whilst under its influence.

Anyway, they were late on their way to a semi-important meeting when a stranger approached them on the sidewalk. It turns out that this stranger was actually the owner of the coffee shop they were passing and wanted to know if the two of them would be interested in judging a pastry competition.

While one of the pair depesrately wanted to stay and consume a large amount of free pastries, the other felt incredibly compelled to get back to the semi-important meeting and poured so much guilt upon the other that the ideas was dropped, and both went to the meeting with empty stomachs.

In the end, I have to chalk up stories like this to the my counsel's old theory that many of the events in our lives are far too cartoonish to be believable in fiction. I mean, imagine it. If I were to pitch a story to Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong in which two young people are baked out of their minds and receive an impromptu offer to be participating judges in a pastry contest, even these two veterans of illict substance use would be forced to share a knowing look, sigh loudly at the precociously false tales youngsters always tell, and state loudly that this has not and will never happen in real life.

But it did, and my ignorant friends turned it down in a move that could only be compared to say, someone running for president and losing against a guy with an approval rating of 30% who is widely regarded as the worst president in history even by members of his own party. Yes, my anonymous, hemp-smoking friends reached a new height of stupidity that can be described as only Kerry-esque.

And that my friends, is a completely true and yet completely unbelievable story.

Children ruin everything

I'm in no hurry to have children in life, mainly because they're parasitic creatures that do nothing but spend your money while ruining what little life you have. I mean, I'm sure I'll have one or two sometime as old-age insurance (much more relevant now that social security will be gone soon), but I'm certainly waiting on that for quite some time.

Case in point of how children ruin your life: Bat Girl is shutting down her blog in what could be one of the saddest days in the short history of blogs.

For those who don't know, Bat Girl (née Ann Ursu) built up quit a following in Twins territory for ehr exhaustive re-caps of every game (a pretty impressive feat for a 162-game season), as well as coming up with a great roster of nicknames, the concept of the Boyfriend of the Day, and of course, Legovision, the only true way to enjoy baseball. The greatness of her blog was pretty much summed up in her slogan "Less Stats, More Sass," the kind of slogan that could only make sense in a baseball blog.

How is this relelvant? Bat Girl has had to step down because her newborn child is simply taking up too much of her time. It's truly a sad day to see Bat Girl hang it up, because she was probably the most entertaining baseball analyst I've ever come across, and she created not only a great lexicon, but truly a familial feel amongst Twinkie fans. She will be sorely missed.

A walk down memory lane...

In my anual retreating-from-the-world fest I always have at the beginning of summer, I journeyed back home to my folks place, which is pretty much like cutting off all communication with the world, especially with a 28.8 modem on dialup (it's perpetually 1997 in Fort Dodge). But currently, the folks are trying to get me to clear out the last vestiges of my stuff that is still stored there, which is actually pretty fun, because it's like looking into the deep recesses of my past, but all conveniently located in the attic.

For example, I found my most beloved child-hood stuffed animal, a unicorn named Mr. Unicorn (I wasn't a very creative child). For years now I thought he was lost to the ages, but this was a momentous find, for my love for unicorns cannot be overstated, but that's another post for another day.

But even more exciting was cleaning out a box of stuff from college in which I found my first-ever anonymous death threat, another great artifact I had feared lost. Not only is it the first, but I would argue it is the best, and not just for sentimental reasons. I found it stuffed under the door handle of my car one day. At that point in my life I was driving a very tiny Ford Festiva that I had festoned with all sorts of spray-painted messages against the war. I bought the car for $100, so I figured I might as well make it into a driving billboard of my political beliefs while I'm at it. Well, this letter came from someone bravely identifying themselves as "Anonymous USAF" (funny thing about death threats is that the cowards never have the guts to use their names, just further filling out the ridiculousness of their actions).

Highlights of the letter include the author claiming that "I die so people like you can bitch about things you don't undertsand" (which again makes this one of the best threats ever, because it apparently came from a ghost) and a great number of factual innacuracies, such as "SADDAM HUSSEIN [sic] has killed millions of people including Americans on Sept. 11th," although to be fair, this was only a year into the war, so the fact that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 was information only a year and a half old.

By the end of my undergrad years I ended up getting a good number of death threats, but none are ever as special as the first, which now sits in a beautiful frame next to my computer, reminding me that I must be doing something right with my life...

Art imitating life?

Recently, Ted Mondale, son of local hero and former vice-prez Walt Mondale, just plead guilty to durnk driving charges. As his punishment, he has suggested community service coaching little league baseball.

Now, at first I was tempted to rant on about how crazy it is that the wealthy and powerful not only get such slap-on-the-wrist punishments, but the even more ludicris notion that they get to set their own penalties as well.

However, this got me thinking of a similar situation in which a powerful Minneapolis businessman was sentenced to coach little league hockey as a slap on the wrist punishment. He knew nothing of coaching, but he and a ragtag band of kids with nothing but spunk and moxie on their side won not only the local little league championship, but went on to "sequel" such wins by taking the junior olympics and later a state high-school championship. That man was of course Gordon Bombay, and his team even went on to the Stanly Cup playoffs this year, although Bombay has long since retired from coaching to run a sporting goods store founded by an old family friend.

Now, I have no idea if Ted Mondale is haunted by the fact that he failed to bring home the championship on his vaulted little-league baseball team, but it certainly seems like he's setting the stage for something great. It certainly makes one ponder if we soon could be witness to the rise of the Mighty Nazca's. It also makes you think Ted Mondale should work for a company with a more marketable name, like Duckworth or something to that effect.

Capitol campout today

If you're in the Twin Cities area today, head on over to the steps of the state capitol where those plucky Youth Against War and Racism kids will be camping out to raise awareness and try to re-energize a flagging peace movement.

It'll be good times, with music, speeches, games, food, and all sorts of general activism-type things going on, so...be there, or risk missing the anti-imperialist event of the year.

Comedy is for flops and dandies...

Illustration provided by the Father of Frances

On the bottom of my paper grocery bag, it has a stamp of approval from the "Paper Bag Council."

This is beyond my ability to make a joke.

A group of wealthy business associates get together once a month in high-powered meetings to decide the agenda of the paper fucking bag council.

What are they deciding in there?

Chairman: "Well, gentlemen, as you can see from the numbers, paper is once again king for the proper carrying of light items!"

rest of council: "paper! paper! paperpaperpaperpaper!"

Chairman: "But gentlemen, it must finally be decided: handles or no handles?"

half of council: "handles! handles for e'er! handles or DEATH!"

other half of council: "Nay! Handles be the plaything o' the devil!"

And that is the story of the great Paper Bag Council Split of 1782. It was exactly 200 years later that the council was finally re-convened under the gentle but stern guidance of John Papercouncil the IVth.