American Madness

Guantánamo Detainees Stage Hunger Strike
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/us/09hunger.html?hp

Torture continues. Say what you want about the Khmer Rouge, the Hutu/Tootsie massacres, even the Stalinist purges, at least many of these atrocities were carried out in hot blood. Not so the current U.S. policy for Guantanamo detainees, which reminds me of a line from the movie Payback: “I’ll make this last 3 weeks,” says a mafia boss to a man from whom he is trying to beat information. “I’ll give you a blood transfusion to keep you alive.”

Even as detainees attempt to protest their horrendous, inhumane, sadistic treatment with hunger strikes, as they perhaps attempt to end their lives, our government does not allow that to happen. While not bringing charges against these men, they instead strap them into full body restraint chairs and force feed tubes down their nostrils. Does anyone doubt that this is yet another form of torture?

You know what? If this is what we’ve sunk to, if this is the state of our democracy, maybe we deserve what we get.

…to feel better about the direction of humanity.

Today we learn that:

The Irish are getting along
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/opinion/27tue3.html

Cruelty against animals may no longer be chic in corporate America
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28burger.html?hp

New York has beaten back the Wal-Mart monolith
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28retail.html?hp

and…

The White House is running scared from what appear to be its own lies
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/opinion/27tue1.html

I was in Greensboro, North Carolina when I noticed the man wearing a Waffle House camouflage tee shirt.

I asked, ?Is that from the Waffle House that makes waffles? Or is this a new code word for AK47s.?

The Waffle man laughed, put his gun down, and said, ?yernot from roundhere, ryoo??

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I thought that once you publish a book, the next order of business is to propel yourself into the life of the touring author: parties, book signings, adulation and groupies (with teeth, preferably).

What has surprised me about the launch of Stooples: Office Tools for Hopeless Fools (St. Martins Press) is the complete lack of sock-em, rock-em excitement. Yes, you conduct interviews, but they are by telephone, which you can do in your underwear while your dog farts next to you (a picture of this very thing is on page 63 of Stooples: Office Tools for Hopeless Fools, St. Martins Press).

And yes, you do sign autographs in stores, which the publisher encourages you to do. But unless you are a BIG author, no one shows up to your book signings, and you end up sucking on Cheese Doodles with very bored looking cashiers who want you to stop telling them what?s on page 63 of Stooples: Office Tools for Hopeless Fools (St. Martins Press).

So what?s the upside? Well, when you go to your class reunion, you can say ?I?m a writer?, to which the reply might be, ?great, did you bang Cameron Diaz?? Always say yes, except when talking to Cameron Diaz?s father.

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Good news! Now you can help advance the cause of medical science, even after you’re dead!:

A biological anthropology professor at the University of Northern Iowa, Tyler O’Brien, envisions turning some prime pasture in the Midwestern state into a body farm, where human bodies — buried, stuffed in car trunks or exposed to the elements — can provide scholars and criminalists with new benchmark data on human decay.

“This idea has strong scientific value,” O’Brien said. “To answer the question of how long a body has been dead, how long a person has been missing, is critical to criminal investigations.”

O’Brien is seeking a grant of $400,000 to $500,000 from the National Institute of Justice and other organizations to obtain the land and set up the project.

This is big! And it brings up a number of valid concerns:

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Ever eat a lemon?

Picture a series of lemon-eating, funky-lip faces, a wonderful Andy Warhol montage. I would pay $400 Zlotys to see it at New York’s Whitney Museum. I would pay $280 Zlotys to see it at the San Antonio Museum for the Arts. In Burkina Faso you might have to pay me to see it, as there is no direct flight and the rebels have captured all the artists.

I once read that Texas dentists were trying to get children to stop eating lemons. There is a tradition of Southwest lemon eating that goes back generations: cut a hole in a lemon, shove in some dried, salted piece of fruit called “Chinese candy,” and then squeeze the tangy, salty juice all over your tounge and your fringed rodeo shirt and your alligator boots and everything else you?ve got on.

Well it seems lemon eating plays hell with your tooth enamel, and Texans have been urged by their dentists to cease and desist and watch Lemony Snicket movies instead. Which is not to say that Jim Carey is a favorite of Lone Star dentists either, but at least he doesn?t promote tooth decay. They think.

On the other hand, a chat room poster I know named Green Hell reminds us that ?lemons rock, brilliant when your slamming tequila and you just eat one! Gobble…?

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Distill America down to one core concept and you are not left with “democracy” or “freedom.” These are derivative concepts that only have meaning in a country and in a world that absolutely protects the individual rights of citizens against the tyranny of government. America was the first to introduce a bill of individual rights into our constitution. This is our legacy and our singular defining quality. If we do not protect human rights, as a nation, then we are nothing.

From Human Rights First:

Keep Bush True to His Word on Torture

President Bush recently declared: “We do not torture.” That is exactly what the world needs to hear.

Yet Vice President Dick Cheney is working behind the scenes to gut a Senate-passed ban on torture and abuse of prisoners. Why is the White House saying one thing and doing another?

Tell Pres. Bush to call off VP Cheney’s attempts to insert loopholes into McCain’s anti-torture amendment.

EndTortureNow.org

Thanks for the link Craig.