I’ve always enjoyed the Teletubbies. They’re kind of like marijuana without the paranoia of forgetting how to breathe. That said, it appears that they have a new member (yes, it’s the Allahpundit pic).

Come on, sing it with me:

Tinky-winky. Dip-sy. La-la. Po and John. Teletubbies. Teletubbies! Say, hel-LO!”

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked whether he had seen Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11″.

“I don’t need Michael Moore telling me what happened on September 11.”

The Chicago Tribune reports (reg required) that the Amish kids come off much better than the city kids. I tried watching the show, but it just brought out the parent in me. I kept thinking how embarrassed I would be if one of one of the brats on that show was one of mine. Ariel, the resident loopie girl, is stupid - I don’t know what else to say- and if my son came home with her I would have her spayed to keep her from reproducing.

That said, I was quite confident that the “plain people” would come out on top. All the criticism levied against the show now seems rather patronizing. The Amish don’t need protection from being exploited - we do. It was an uncomfortable 10 mins of TV that showed the worst of LA - and American culture. Not that it matters, because I doubt the show will make it through till the end.

The Pentagon has released the latest enlistment oaths.
Has the military gone PC?
You decide…

I caught Michael Moore on The O’Reilly Factor last night (transcript here). It wasn’t a good performance for either of these men, but much of the interview centered on Iraq (big duh, I know). The gist of the segment:

Michael Moore: Bush lied because WMD weren’t found, and therefore soldiers are dying for no reason since the War was justified by WMD. We should only have gone into Iraq if you are willing to sacrifice your own son in the effort.

Bill O’Reilly: Saddam had connections to terrorists and needed to be toppled.

What Bill forgot to mention was the presence of Abu Nidal and Zarqawi in Iraq. Terrorist training grounds in N. Iraq. Saddam’s “blood money” to the families of homicide bombers. The invasion of Iran and Kuwait. The gassing of the Kurds and Iran.

He also failed to call Moore on the carpet for this mythical belief in the power of Special Forces or “shock troops". Moore and Nader both have this pathological belief that war isn’t necessary because special forces can do the job.

Have we raised a generation of people to believe that James Bond and the Delta Force are real? Now I know for a fact that the Special Forces have their place in warfare and counterinsurgency, but they have limits.

Take the genocide happening in Sudan. As I write this today, the Sudanese government is threatening the world community to not intervene. So I would love to ask Michael Moore and Ralph Nader this question:

Imagine you are president. What do you do?

Diplomacy hasn’t worked. Why? Because the French, Chinese and Pakistanis are blocking any significant sanctions against the regime. Even if they were put into force today, it took decades for sanctions to work in South Africa. By the time they did work, the bones of the people of Darfur would have been bleaching in the sun for years.

Send in special forces? To do what? Assassinate the president of Sudan? Take him hostage? We are talking about government backed militias - tens of thousands of armed troops raping and killing thousands of innocents. How is the Delta Team going to stop them?

I know: Magic.

Magic that only Michael Moore, Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich know. It can only be magic, because the only solution that I can think come up with is to put a military force between the killers and the victims in Darfur - and the killers won’t be too happy if that happens.

“What, you aren’t going to let me hack the 12 year old girl to death after I’ve raped her? Sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to shoot you.”

If someone wants something from you, and is willing to kill you for it - then you either have to give it to him or die. In the Sudan either we let the genocide go on - or we send in troops to stop it. What concerns me is that Rwanda happened after the “fatigue” of Somalia, and it is possible that the genocide in Darfur may be successful because of our “fatigue” in Iraq.

Maybe we could send in Michael Moore, Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich. Maybe the Sudanese would be willing to listen to Kucinich (since no one here does).

I caught Ralph Nader on the O’Reilly Factor. It wasn’t a bad show, and Nader had many good points - especially about the corporate sponsorship of the “coronation” of Kerry. However, since I wrote about feasibility yesterday, something that he said reminded me of the topic.
O’Reilly asked what Nader would do differently in the terror fight. Nader said that we were taking the wrong approach but O’Reilly wouldn’t buy it. “Are you telling me that you think Osama would be afraid of you?” Bill said.
Nader then made the error of going into specifics. He said that we should use the right of imminent preemption to go into a country with special forces and grab the terrorists. Bill let him off the hook, mercifully, at that point - but in my mind the damage was done.
I’ve checked the Net for a transcript of Nader’s exact phrase, but I can’t find one. The essence of his statement was that instead of invading Afghanistan, we should have left the Taliban in power and gone after Osama with special forces.
Was this a feasible option in Oct 2001? No - for numerous reasons. Special Forces don’t have the same leeway or enjoy the same freedom of movement as a SWAT team.
First off they have to get to the country - not an easy task in landlocked Afghanistan surrounded by regimes that were not all that friendly to the USA. Next, any type of SF operation of that scale would have necessitated a tremendous back up force of run-of-the-mill forces. If we didn’t provide those, the SF mission would have little chance of succeeding. However if we did add those, the result would have been a war with the Taliban - just without the numbers we would have needed to insure their defeat.
In the end, we did the only thing that was feasible: we sent in a large force, took out the government, replaced it with a friendly one, and maintain a large support force that supports the Special Forces as they go about their task of hunting down Bin Laden and Friends.
Nader is not a tactician. Worse, he’s not even a strategist. By his logic, I could beat his ass at Risk or Axis & Allies and it wouldn’t even be any fun. I can’t imagine him as actually leading this country. Or wait, yes I can….

I am a big fan of Steven Den Beste, and he doesn’t disappoint with this post discussing the differences between feasibility and desirability. One of the many reasons I like Den Beste’s writing is this point that lays at the heart of his essay:

“We engineers have an aphorism: The fact that something is desirable doesn’t mean it is feasible.”

The older I get, the more I realize that the art of becoming smarter or wiser is learning to tell the difference between dreams and reality, or as Den Beste plainly puts it, between desirability and feasibility. There’s even a glimpse of this in the Serenity Prayer that many of us have chanted at tough times:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

The essence of that prayer is recognizing the dichotomy between desirability and feasibility. At the times when I’ve been able to do this, I have achieved a level of understanding and peace that is as powerful as it is ethereal and fleeting.
Den Beste uses the dichotomy to discuss why infilitrating Al-Qaeda is a desirable goal, but one that isn’t feasible. He also compares it to such empty slogans as “winning without war". I would add that you could use this recognition of the differences between desirability and feasibility for just about anything.
Get out of debt fast without declaring bankruptcy? How many of us would love to do that. Too bad it’s not feasible. Lose weight without exercise or changing your diet? Riiiight… Achieve fusion at room temperature? End our dependence on foreign oil? Fix the health care system?
All of these are desirable goals - but none are feasible.
On the personal level, how many of us get frustrated with ideas or dreams that aren’t feasible? Instead of focusing on the dreams, why not change them to match what is feasible? For example, I have dreamed about seeing a book I authored in print. I even wrote a work of fiction, edited it and re-edited it, but when all was said and done - it sucked. Writing a work of fiction wasn’t feasible for me.
But non-fiction? Well I recently tried that as well - and while I didn’t get anything published, I learned that it was feasible. I could write decent, salable non-fiction - just not with the idea I had.
Feasibility also lays at the heart of this website, since Occam’s razor was all about the quest for Truth, and what is Truth but a desire made real?
Oooooh, too philosophical this early on a Monday. Brain hurting… Must… find… humor…

I’m a big Family Guy fan. I’m not sure why, but the show has grown like my disgust of Michael Moore over the past few years. That said, Cartoon Network aired what has to be one of the funniest episodes of the series last night titled, “Lethal Weapon“.

In the episode, Quahog is overrun by New Yorkers visiting to see the Fall foliage. At the same time, Lois takes a Tae-Jitsu class where she discovers the ability to kick major ass. Peter uses his wife’s new found ability to drive off the visiting New Yorkers. The show ends in a huge family brawl. Cartoon Network junkies will recognize the ending fight scene being used to advertise the show during the normal CN schedule.

Quotes:
Peter: Look at all the garbage the New Yorkers are dumping on our lawn. The New York Times, New Yorker Magazine, the New York Mets.

(Grabbing Peter’s crotch) Lois: This is mine… this is where my babies come from.

For more stills of this episde, visit this site.

… and weirder. It now appears the (free registration required for link)staff at the archives were so suspicious of Berger that they coded the documents they gave him.

All humor aside and speaking as someone who liked Berger (he was one of the few hawks in the Clinton administration), there are several aspects of the story that are worth considering.

First, Berger hasn’t said why he was examining the documents. Why did he need to access them?
Second, the New York Times seems to be trying to bury the story while other media outlets are running with it. You’d think that basic non-partisan curiousity - especially during a lull in the news cycle - would merit front page, above the fold coverage.
Third, Berger’s behavior is just plain odd. Anyone who has ever worked in a store recognizes this type of behavior as that of newbie shoplifters - people who want to steal, know it’s wrong, but are afraid they will get caught.
Fourth, John Kerry wasn’t aware that Berger was under investigation? Kerry isn’t some New Hampshire governor out of the beltway loop. He’s been in the Senate for 20 years. I have had numerous background checks for jobs, he didn’t run any on Berger? This doesn’t bode well for a Kerry presidency - which may explain the second point.

Here’s an excellent comparison between the two.

And here’s the Nazi Party platform of 1920. Thanks to Dean for the link. Money quote: “COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD.”

Story here.

Who gives a flying f*** what the disaffected, hormonally-crazed youth of a country that isn’t even a real country thinks?

Note to Canada:
The average American thinks about you maybe once a year - less if you aren’t in the Stanley Cup.

Fox News blurb: “FBI Grills Berger“
Thank you, thank you…
I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your server.

I can just hear the jokes now:
Hillary Clinton meets Sandy Berger and says, “So Sandy… Are those highly classified terrorism documents in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”

The French are mighty annoyed about Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s statement that urges Jews to leave France.

Quoting the Fox News link “The president of France’s National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, said Sharon “missed a good opportunity to keep quiet."… “These comments do not bring calm, peace and serenity that we all need,” said Patrick Gaubert, president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, known by the acronym LICRA. “I think Mr. Sharon would have done better tonight to have kept quiet."”

What is it about the French and their obsession with telling others to “shut up". Today it’s Sharon, a year ago it was the Eastern Europe: Chirac to Eastern Europe, “"It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet."”

???

Something must be lost in translation. Is this the Cheese-Eating-Surrender-Monkey equivalent to Dick Cheney’s comment to Senator Patrick Leahy that he could “F*** off” or “go f*** himself” “shut up"? If so, it sounds rather pathetic - like a kid being teased on the playground telling his tormentors to “shut up!". However in this case, the bullies are the French and the tormented are the Jews in France, who have suffered as many attacks this year as they had the whole of last year.

If the French want to tell anyone to shut-up, it should be their Arab allies who continue to produce the most incendiary anti-Jewish and anti-American propaganda imaginable. Or better yet, maybe Chirac should take a page out of a Dick Cheney speech and tell the Arab Jew-haters to “go F*** themselves".

Search For Bobby Fischer Over
I hadn’t realized we were looking for him.

While reading the story, a larger concept came to mind:
What is it about Jews and self hatred?

In radio interviews, Fischer praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying America should be “wiped out,” and described Jews as “thieving, lying bastards.” His mother was Jewish.

Fischer… Noam Chomsky…
So I began digging.
This article finds the roots of self-hatred in assimilation and more recently in transnationalism. It kind of fits with Marxism, I would add, since many of the leading Marxists were of Jewish descent.
Here is a discussion that ties Jewish self-hatred with American self-hatred as exemplified by Michael Moore.
Here is another excellent resource that examines the issue of Jewish self hatred, The Peace Encyclopedia. Hmmm.. . That’s getting linked to…

7/19 Note: Here is what Garry Kasparov has to say about Fischer.

I started off the morning behind a Kerry supporter in a Ford Excursion with three bumperstickers. The first was for Kerry, the second was “Peace: Back by popular demand” and the last was “Mission Nothing Accomplished” with the word “Mission” crossed out. The driver must have been an ex Deaniac judging by the stickers and the value of the SUV. There I was puttering along behind him on the Schukyll Expressway in my Honda, appreciating the irony that here was someone driving one of the largest SUVs in the country who thinks he’s a liberal.
Back by popular demand my butt… Here’s the truth:

Are we at peace?
Considering that the number of American casualties in Iraq have seriously fallen, one could argue it. But let’s indulge ourselves in a little morning mental exercise:

Say we pull out completely from Iraq.
Are we at peace then?
How about if we withdraw American troops completely from the Middle East?
The question becomes: Are you at peace while you have an enemy that wants to destroy you because you exist?
I don’t think so.
We aren’t at peace, and it isn’t back. And if I demand anything it’s action.
Currently there is genocide occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. People are dying under “Peace” - yet would that idiot in the SUV support military action to stop the genocide?

Peace kills. It killed the Armenians in 1915. It killed the Jews during the Shoah (WW2 was NOT fought to stop the Holocaust one should remember). It killed the Cambodians in 1975-79, the Tutsis in 1994, the Bosnians, the Kosovars and now the Sudanese.
Peace kills. I hadn’t realized how true that statement was until I saw that SUV.
Thanks for the insight, bozo…

No poem here, so you can relax.

Just a reminder to myself that the poem I started in 1995 needs it’s three lines today. Back then I decided to write a short poem on a date picked at random. I would then update the poem every year on that date. I started by backdating the poem to 1990 - the year I met my wife.

I lost two entries when the hard-drive crashed on my crappy Compaq laptop.
Today is the day.

!!!END POETRY ALERT!!!

July 15: Many of the millions of foreign labourers in Saudi Arabia suffer from extreme exploitation and work under conditions that resemble slavery, an international human rights watchdog said on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia said that the report exaggerated the experiences of a few of the more than six million foreigners working in the kingdom, and noted that millions of families around the world were dependent on remittances from such workers.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch, in its first comprehensive report on foreign labourers in the oil-rich kingdom, slammed Saudi authorities, the legal system and private employers for a range of abuses that sometimes led to death.

The hard-hitting report called on de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Abdullah to set up an independent commission to investigate the abuses and publicise its findings.

“Migrant workers in the purportedly modern society that the kingdom has become continue to suffer extreme forms of labour exploitation that sometimes rise to slavery-like conditions,” it said.

“This report is an indictment of unscrupulous private employers and sponsors as well as Saudi authorities, including Interior Ministry interrogators and sharia court judges, who operate without respect for the rule of law and the inherent dignity of all men and women,” it added.

Around six million foreigners, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, sweep the streets, build homes or run offices in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter.

Lured by promises of hefty pay, many workers often ended up at the mercy of de facto employers imposing 12-hour work days or more, the report said.

SAUDI SAYS REPORT EXAGGERATES

The Saudi embassy in Washington said the kingdom had effective labour laws to protect all workers, including foreigners, and there was legal recourse for victims of abuse.

“We disagree with the report by Human Rights Watch and do not believe it is a fair or accurate reflection of Saudi Arabia and grossly exaggerates the few instances which in no way reflect the positive experiences of the millions of foreign workers in the Kingdom,” the embassy said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch said despite its two-week visit to Saudi Arabia in early last year, the kingdom remained closed to foreign investigators, forcing it to interview workers mainly from Bangladesh, India and the Philippines at home.

The report noted that the kingdom’s highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, had already spoken out against the abuses in remarks published in a Saudi newspaper in 2002, asserting that Islam does not permit abuse of workers regardless of their religion.

It acknowledged that many foreigners reported no complaints about their experience in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi embassy said an independent human rights commission had been established. “The kingdom takes the issue of human rights very seriously and we continue to make progress in this regard,” it said.

The report said mistreatment of women was among the most disturbing findings. “Some women workers that we interviewed were still traumatized from rape and sexual abuse at the hands of Saudi male employers,” the report said.

Human Rights Watch also slammed interrogation methods in Saudi prisons and the country’s legal system, saying confessions were often obtained through torture and workers complained of being forced to sign confessions they could not read under the threat of more torture.

None of the workers interviewed had had access to legal assistance before their trials or to their embassies, and no lawyers accompanied them during trials, even in cases that resulted in the death penalty, the report said.

Yep the Electoral College is still around - much to my surprise considering what happened four years ago. Just found a place that consolidates the polls and shows the electoral results.
Visit Electoral Vote Predictor 2004.
Currently Kerry has a solid lead - 322 to Bush’s 205.
If that were to hold (doubtful) then Kerry would have a win similar in size to Clinton’s defeat of Dole in 1996.

Is it possible?
Absolutely.
Is it likely?
No.
My gut tells me that Bush will be re-elected.

I successfully ripped and burned my first DVD today.
Dennis Miller: The Raw Feed
I’ve always liked Miller - even when he was a comedian on SNL. Like myself he underwent a bit of a conversion, or what you victims of the Catholic Church would term a metanoia , after September 11. There’s something about seeing planes slam into things and Palestinians dancing in the streets that changes one’s perspective on things. He’s honest about it, and so am I.
That said, Miller is hilarious. He has the unique ability to mix the intellectual with the profane in a way that no other comedian can do.
He is known for his esoteric references, and there is usually a pause or two after these jokes when your mind chews on them until you burst out laughing. The DVD is only an hour long, but I haven’t had time to finish it. It’s not kid-friendly - and 7 year olds - even mine - would miss the humor but catch the naughty words. I have been doing my best to clean up my language, but it has been f(*&ing difficult - but the Wife is persistent, and having your kid swear like sailor does NOT ingratiate you with the inlaws.

Yes, I’m coming out.
No not this out - but out of the closet of anonymity. I am officially no longer Machiavelli@therazor.org . I am now Scott@therazor.org.
For those of you who have followed this blog, I do not in fact live in Ibiza Spain. I live in boring old Barcelona, New York.
For the record, I am pro-gay rights, pro-military anything, pro-Israel anything, don’t drink, don’t smoke and was no-one special in a previous life.
So there. It’s done. Flame away you bastards!

WTF is going on with the Bush team? They decide to pull a play straight out of Pappy’s re-election playbook in Aug 1992 (substitute “flag burning amendment” for “marriage amendment") , piss off just about everybody and are on the verge of having the FMA (Foolish Men Act? F’d-up Marriage Act? F’ing Moron Act?) laughed out of the Senate.

It serves them right. If marriage needs protection from anyone it’s Brittany Spears (1o minute marriage) and Larry King (married a billion times - ok, just 9).

Idiots. Bush deserves to lose for pulling this stunt.

Problem solved.
F***ing great. My first earworm of the day.
ED Note: Instapundit posted at 11am - 2 hours after this was written.

And Glenn Reynolds doesn’t report it.
Here’s Dean’s take on it.
I think that Reynolds and Instapundit have gotten too big for us lowly bloggers. I’ve noticed over time that he links to traditional media much more now than he used to. That’s why I’ve been linking more to Dean Esmay, because he’s a hardcore blogger and honestly, I don’t need Reynolds to tell me what’s in the traditional media because I find the stuff myself.
That said, Atlas Van Lines has some explaining to do.

Here’s an entry in today’s Ha’aretz Daily ticker:

12:52 Iran`s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei: U.S., Israel are behind kidnappings, killings of foreigners in Iraq

I’m a friend of Bill W. If you know what that means, you’ll realize that I am repeating myself when I state that I can’t drink anymore. Well, I can - but I also can put a loaded gun to my head and pull the trigger and get the same results, only much quicker and with less mess.

We’ve just discovered that one of our family has 1-2 years to live. A housewife with 2 kids, expensive house, trips to the Caribbean, nice cars… My wife and I were jealous being that we can’t even remember our last vacation, our house is small (but it’s an oasis as anyone who has ever visited knows) and our cars old.

For those of you who have never dealt with this disease, it’s the only one that convinces you that you aren’t sick. It then poisons your liver, your heart, your mind and then spreads out and infects your family with a condition called “co-dependence". Think of co-dependence as a condition like that used by cancer to encourage the growth of blood vessels to sustain itself.

Co-dependence and alcoholism create a vicious cycle of gradual decline -> crisis-> lies you want to believe -> return to normality -> gradual decline. The cycle occurs on a large scale and involves everyone. The cycle is insidious. It is invisible to those in it yet rolls forward, incorporating nearly every attempt to stop it into the cycle.

I was lucky. I broke the cycle without losing anything more than my self-respect. My wife and I tried to break the cycle of our loved one, and boy did we pay the price with the others. Tears on my son’s birthday, being kicked out of homes. Long silences. Tense meetings. Sharp words. We tried everything to help the loved one and the family - but both were in serious denial.

On Sunday there was yet another crisis and the blood-alcohol level was so high that denial evaporated. The level was enough to kill a college student, and here the tiny housewife was walking around with it. To achieve that level meant that it had been going on for years - decades perhaps. The wife ransacked the woman’s house and found alcohol hidden everywhere. In closets, drawers, even sports bottles in the garage.

There can be no more lies. The Truth is finally out - but it’s too late for her - and for our family.

I have been sober now for over 3.75 years. After so many years of internal angst and agony, I feel content - but I don’t overestimate myself. Yesterday I spoke to an “angel” who was there for me three years ago, and he told me about helping the family of a man who fell off the wagon after 12 years of sobriety. My demon is always with me; I see him in the corner of my mind. But he’s my demon - part of me - and I only get nervous when he starts to disappear. Friends of Bill W will know what I mean by that.

So here we are, our small family about to get smaller. But the lies are gone, the air is finally clear, and in a sense, the nightmare is over. The Truth is wonderful. It is liberating, and it is much easier than a life of lies. So why do we do everything to avoid it?

Proof the media is biased. Hat-tip to Dean Esmay:

Citing 1992 election data: “These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For example, in the Ninth California District, which includes Berkeley, twelve percent voted for Bush - nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eight Massachusettes District, which includes Cambridge, nearly nineteen percent voted for Bush, more than triple the rate of journalists. In the Fourteenth California District, which includes Palo Alto, 26% voted for George Bush, more than four times the rate of journalists.

See for yourself.

Let’s be blunt: we need an amendment defining marriage about as much as we need one defining marriage like we need one defining the word “coward” - which when you think about it would be an extremely short amendment:

Amendment XXVIII
The word “coward” shall be forever defined as the following: France.

Seriously, this whole debate is completely nuts. It reminds me of the one that took place 12 years ago about one to ban flag burning.

Any “Conservative” who support this amendment is not worthy of the term.

Here is a collection of recent postings by bloggers on Michael Moore.
James Lileks: Believing in Bush’s perfidy…
Dean Esmay: Lost it… dang…
Steven Den Beste: Muqtada al-Moore

The Razor is about Absolute Truth. Moral relativists like Moore don’t believe such a thing exists. He also hates America for the very reasons that I love it: freedom, common sense, patriotism.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sick of reality shows. Having been bitten by the fad during Survivor 2: Africa, I eventually gave up after Survivor X: New Jersey. For me, reality shows are navel gazing - a bit of “aren’t we interesting” TV that now show that, by golly, we just aren’t that interesting after all. Sorry, but if you want to contemplate your navel, try Zen instead.

That said, Amish in the City is yet the latest reality show to hit the airwaves. It’s about Amish teenagers, who get to visit the world of the English, to decide if their faith is right for them. Consider it a bit of “wild-oat sowing” for kids who do a lot of farming.

I like the Amish. I’ve visited Lancaster County numerous times over the years and respect a people who believe what they believe and aren’t interested in the slightest in making me believe it too. They are pacifist - but not in the Michael Moore way. Screw with them, and your liable to get a pitchfork in the ass - or worse. And they actually hold their beliefs sacred - unlike most of the Limousine Left.

According to the story linked to above, the kids will live with six non-Amish kids in a home in Hollywood Hills. “Among the landmarks: A visit to the beach, a resort island and a Hollywood movie premiere. The city roommates include “a fashion-forward party girl, a swim teacher and a club promoter.”

The show is premised on the assumption that the Amish kids will be overwhelmed by the “culture” of the life they are missing. How much you want to bet that the Amish kids end up showing how shallow the other kids, the producers, and more importantly the viewers are?

The fact is that the vast majority of Amish kids returns to their community after their “rumspringa” and seemingly don’t miss the supposed “culture” they are cut off from. It makes you wonder, considering the Amish have been in America for a good 200+ years and are still going strong.

“It’s time to duel!”
If this statement conjures up two guys standing back to back with pistols raised, then you obviously don’t have boys under the age of 12. If you did, you would know that this is the signature line of Yu-gi-oh! A card game that spawned an animated feature - or was it the opposite - and is the latest fad to infiltrate our society from Japan. Yes, Japan lost the war (or so they want us to think…) but the Japanese are slowly taking over our society with their addictive fads - and Yu-gi-oh! is the latest to drive parents insane with overpriced merchandise ($30 for a single “Egyptian God card"? Are you f$^&ing nuts?)
I collected baseball cards: my kid collects Yu-gi-oh! He carries his deck with him wherever he goes, and discusses the cards with just about any kid near his age.
He met one of his friends yesterday at the pool. They began talking excitedly about the cards when the kid’s mother interrupted. “Peter! You know that those cards are the devil’s work and you are forbidden to talk about them.” The kid looked crestfallen, mine looked puzzled.
It turns out that the kid’s mom has evidently swung to the fundie side of things. She’s pulling her kid out of public school to homeschool him - against the kid’s wishes judging by what my kid reports. And she obviously isn’t keen on Yu-gi-oh! (Neither are other fundies judging by this link.)
Now I’m not pleased with our kids’ school (see the previous post), and last night I had to explain to my kid why the woman thought the way she did without telling him “Son, contrary to what you believe now - but will believe soon - some adults are screaming nutcases.”
I am still amazed at how fragile some people’s faith is as to be threatened by something as innocuous as trading cards. I’d hate to see what Dungeons and Dragons would do to this woman’s faith. Probably have her frothing at the mouth and barking…
Of course hearing this, I wanted to run out and shower the kid with $4 packs of the damned things.

Ed Note: I am the source of this story. I am not making it up because a) I don’t have time and b) The Razor is about Truth - and making stuff up kind of defeats the purpose of the online journal I write, design, debug, rebuild (after being hacked) and pay for with my own cash. The school is Carrcroft Elementary in Wilmington DE. Ms. Norman is the Principal there and supposedly told my friend, the kid’s mother, that there was no way to get in contact with the teacher over the Summer break. -SK 7/7/04
The following essay was written by a second grader at a public school in suburban Wilmington Delaware this past May. It was read by the student in front of the class. After it was read, the teacher - who has been teaching for a very long time - said the following: “If you ever write anything like that again you are going straight to the principal’s office.” The kid started to cry, and ran from the room after being humiliated in front of his classmates. He came home upset, not understanding what he had done wrong.

So Will I

My grandfather remembers when he was in the Navy. He fought in World War Two. When I play GI Joes with him he would always take the gun he used when he was in the war. He would always tell me about the gun he use to use. When I grow and go to war I want to have the same gun and do the same things too.

I have wanted to be a warrior since I was four. The reason why I want to be a warrior is so I can help others and be remembered. My dad doesn’t want me to be a warrior, but I am still going to be one. If I was alive when they had the Vietnam War I would have been in it.

My grandfather was a warrior and so will I.
The End

The parent of the second grader brought the matter up to the teacher. She turned to the student and berated him for telling his parents about the incident. The parent also brought the matter up to the school principal, who has ignored the issue by saying that she has no way of contacting the teacher during Summer vacation.