same shit, different day
st paul, mn - a couple have been charged with counts of unreasonable restraint of a child (a misdemeanor). apparently, they locked their 11 year old (at the time) daughter in a chain link dog kennel (12' long, 3' wide, 6' high) as punishment a couple times. and, while that's nota great idea, certainly, but, the thing that got to me in the article i read about it was a quote from the county attorney prosecuting the case: "It's so incomprehensible that a couple would think it was OK ... appropriate ... to confine a young girl in a dog kennel"

seems obvious, i suppose. it's incomprehensible. who would dare think to imprison someone in a cage for several days? who would dare think to imprison someone inside something that's just chain link. we want our bad kids locked up in juvy, in cells of concrete and iron, not chain link. we save chain link for animals, duh

in other news, seattle's got a mandatory recycling law going into affect next year. and, apparently, madison, wisconsins and the entirety of connecticut already have such laws... and, apparently, so does pittsburgh, and my wife (from pittsburgh) never mentioned it, that i recall, even when we watched the bullshit! episode about recycling

and, for those still keeping score, the associated press estimates 1453 us military killed in iraq since the war began (1100 from hostile action, 1315 since bush's "mission accomplished" bit)

iranian president mohammad khatami vowed no iranian government would ever abandon the progress they've made in developing peaceful nuclear technology

same guy also said iran would become a "scorching hell" if aggressors (ie, our soldiers, duh) come marching in. the crowd to which he was speaking started chanting "death to america." bodes well, don't ya think?

israel's peace with palestine already hit a kink when the latest meeting was cancelled following a mortar attack on a jewish settlement in gaza

los angeles police killed a 13 year old boy after a car chase (he in a stolen car). might want to mention he was black, another dead black youth at the hands of the police, like the point is that he was black, and not that stealing a car is an offense punishable by death (regardless of skin color)

it's all good times at home and around the globe. the cultural cancer festers and spreads but at least we can drug ourselves to, as they say, make ourselves "comfortable" as we die. we can watch our television and take our prozac and worry about the latest fad diet and the abovementioned recyling (a tiny gesture that is occasionally useful), and not worry about deforestation or environmental poisoning or the lives lost in iraq (note, even i didn't mention the iraqi losses in my score above). we just get ourselves a little metaphorical morphine and rest our eyes (lest we actually see our world for what it is)

no point in dwelling on the negative when we can make ourselves feel good for now, right?