Scott Sommers on Blogspot

2007-04-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

Asia as the new Mexico

2006-11-19T02:21:00.000-08:00

It used to be that when you got in trouble that you couldn't handle, you went to Mexico. Everyone who has seen Extreme Prejudice or Revenge knows that Mexico is a lawless out of control zone of the world where money can buy you anything and power is the only thing that matters. The amazing world of cinema has now brought us a new tale of anarchy, it's called East Asia. That's right, I just watched The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

F&F is the story of a high school delinquent who gets kicked out of the USA because of his reckless driving habits. He ends up in Tokyo with his estranged father. There he meets an exiled Japanese-American who runs a crime organization, and before you know it, he's racing cars and driving recklessly.

To you and me, Japan may be one of the richest countries in the world: a high-tech nation that is extremely well regulated. For F&F, Tokyo is a city of clones that never smile and laugh or do anything except what they're told. Hustlers roam the streets selling personal goods like iPODS, laptops, and Nikes. The only people with any character are people involved in crime gangs. They race the streets and underground garages of Tokyo with impunity. Races occur in the open through the streets of a city with more people than the whole nation of Canada. And there's not a cop to be seen. Chases end in death. Cars are destroyed. Yet the gangs that race their muscle cars in the streets have nothing to fear. As long as you're traveling fast enough, we are told, the cops won't even try. And that speed has a number - 180 kmh.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Japan is a new destination for our riffraff criminal element. They can live their untouched by a police that make no appearance. As long as they use their slick Western style to speed past all those Hello Kittys and Darling Donalds - or whatever his name is - Japan is an oyster just waiting to be plucked. It's a place for all the new bad guys to hang out. It's a name now that means wild, out of control, and fit only for the worst segment of the truly civilized world.

Pets

2006-08-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

I have always been hesitant about pets. I have never had my own. In fact, I have never raised even a single plant on my own. The whole idea of pets bothers me, which is why I refer to them as 'animal slaves'.

My wife likes cats. She is obsessed with cats. She has to have cats around or she doesn't feel happy. When we got married, she didn't have a cat. I refused to allow her to get one. Then something happened that changed my life. You single guys won't understand, but if you're married, you'll know exactly what I mean. I lost something important and my wife started harassing me about this. After all, it was important. Finally, she promised to stop bothering me if I let her get a cat. She swore that she would look after it and I'd have nothing to do with it... Sure, but we started looking for one anyway.

My wife doesn't like purebred cats. I personally am deeply bothered by the idea of manipulation with the nature of an animal solely for human pleasure. I refer to purebreds as monsters because there is no way such a thing could arise naturally. We agreed that if a cat was to enter our lives, it should be a stray mongrel.

The first cat that my wife found came from a veterinarian's clinic near my BJJ club. As it turned out, the cat had worms and - really - bubonic plague. That was the only time I've missed an adminstrative meeting of my school. When we found this out, the first thing I did was head up to the infectious disease clinic at Cathay Hospital. I did not have the plague. When my wife took the cat back to the clinic, they destroyed it, leaving open the question of how it ever got given to us in the first place.

The second cat lasted about 5 minutes. It came from one of the numerous temples in our neighbourhood. They even gave us one of those pet cages to take it home in. As soon as we released it from the cage, it went bonkers. It started throwing itself at one window after another trying to get out. Finally, it found its way into our bathroom which had an open window covered with a bug screen. It knocked the screen off and hurled itself out of our 3rd story apartment. End of story.

The third cat is our last cat. He was recovered homeless from Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Park. Actually, my wife's friend found it and originally promised to help raise him with us. This is another one of those solid cat promises my life is made of.

Anyway, that's all history now. When we first got the cat, I couldn't stand it. It was quite vicious at first, having grown up in the park. It scratched my legs, arms, and hands until they bled. My wife discovered his fear of the spray bottle and soon we were on the way to making him a perfectly reasonable house cat.

I have come to be quite fond of him. During the challenges to his health that we have battled through, I felt genuinely concerned. Recently, he got a fungal infection on his skin. We had to feed him a liquid medicine that he did not like. Feeding him the medicine became quite a battle. At one point, he stopped eating all together and ended up loosing more than 10% of his body weight. I found myself feeling terrified that he might die.

This week we moved our house. The Freebi is still over in the old apartment. We're going to pick him up tomorrow afternoon because my wife has it off. We're worried that the move to a new house might be a bit traumatic for him and we want to be able to both give him our undivided attention. The old house is quite empty and he doesn't have much to do there. So everyday, 2 or 3 times a day since we changed our residence, I've been going over there just to sit with him and let him know he hasn't been deserted.

Matial Arts as Spectacle

2006-08-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

One of the strangest transformations of the modern age has been occurring in the martial arts. Originally developed as forms of training to prepare soldiers for combat, what we now call martial arts has become a spectacle. The conflict now is not about the preparation for war, but rather, over what the nature of this spectacle will be. Will the spectacle be a cultural experience or will it be sport.

What we now call 'traditional martial arts' has little to do with tradition in the colloquial meaning of the word. 'Traditional martial arts' training was invented in the relatively recent past. The kind of training that you will receive if you attend a club or school that teaches 'traditional' Kung Fu or Karate has little to do with the combat training that was practiced by such groups as the White Lotus Society. The focus of martial arts as solo hand forms (or kata as they are called in Karate) is an innovation that has occurred within living memory for some people.

In sharp contrast to the solo hand forms of 'traditional martial arts' are the newly emerging mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts (MMA) are a form of full contact fighting that allows for the use of techniques from any system. MMA is becoming increasingly codified as the rules systems of leagues. The most well-known of these leagues is the Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC in the USA and the Pride Fighting Championships in Japan.

The highly codified versions of MMA are fairly recent introductions to the sport. The first events, such as UFC 1 and UFC 2 featured fights with no weight classes or weight limits. Each match consisted of an unlimited amount of five minute rounds with no judges to stop or decide a fight. Competitors could only win a match by submission, knock out, or throwing in the towel. Despite being billed as having "No Rules" there were limitations on what the fighters could do, including no biting or eye gouging, but groin strikes were permitted. In addition to these major events, there are Vale Tudo events in Brazil which permit head butts, gouges, and pretty much anything.

MMA is about as close to real fighting as most educated, middle-class men and women are going to get. No one has ever been killed in an MMA match, but this probably has more to do with the way matches are officiated than with the danger inherent in the events. There is no standing 8 count used in boxing to let hurt fighters regain orientation and continue fighting. If you are hurt and go down, you're going to take a beating. But the ref will stop the fight before you get hit enough times to die.

Make no mistake of it; MMA is first and foremost a spectacle. The UFC, for example, was devised by Dana White to make money. It was made so that people would want to watch it. The entrance of fighters into the UFC Octagon is modeled after pro wrestling and the music that's played is produced by the UFC's very own music company. The girls who carry cards announcing the rounds are carefuly selected and marketed as a product of the UFC. everything is very carefully designed to maximize the spectacular affect of the fight.

'Traditional martial arts', on the other hand is combat turned cultural form. Get in touch with the East. Develop your chi. Learn secret stuff handed down for generations from father to son.

The bifurcation of martial arts into sport and culture has lead to some very interesting differences in definition of the activity. For example, martial art as sport points becomes a competitive endeavor. Competition and failure are necessary stages of development. Competition is a professional activity and the best competition is to found where there are the most competitors. Striving for excellence means moving to an urban center and looking for the popular training centers. Things are pretty much the way they seem to be. The best coaches are the ones with the most successful fighters. The best fighters come from well-known coaches and training camps. Training is hard and fighters must be athletic, powerful people. Performance peaks at a relatively young age and after that, ability goes down hill. Some fighters take drugs.

Martial arts as culture leads to a totally different description. Combat is technique. Technique is not always publicly available. Sometimes it is secret and sometimes it just hasn't been identified as excellent. New doesn't necessarily mean better. In fact, mastery of original forms is a necessary key to success. Excellence may be found in a cosmopolitan urban center, but there may also be excellent form practiced in an out-of-the-way place. A lot of form is kept secret in places that no amount of money can buy, handed down by word of mouth from master to student. Some forms can not be described in conventional terms and needs apprenticeship as a guide. Excellence does not need competition to be cultivated and the best ability is sometimes attained either through self-study or private instruction from a master. Age is not an obstacle to form. While some forms may become impractical for older practitioners, they are not neccesarily an obstacle to overall performance. Age only poses an obstacle, but with better form, outstanding performance is possible at any time of life.

The proponents of 'traditional martial arts' often point to the codified rules of MMA as to why the secrets of their techniques do not appear as impressive as the anecdotal stories told by instructors. It should be noted that the original UFC events had very limited rules and featured many leading martial artists from traditional schools. It seems very strange indeed that in the early days of the UFC, when fighters were paid peanuts, there was no trouble at finding 'traditional martial artists' who would fight but now that you can win millions, there's not even one 'tradition martial artist' willing to fight Tito Ortiz or Chuck Liddel. Not even one.

Of course the claim continues that solo hand forms are an effective way to prepare for fighting. It's important to remember that combat in this sense does not mean war. Almost always what is refered to here is a street fight or mugging. But still there is no credible evidence that the practice of solo hand forms alone is generally better preparation for a street fight than Irish Folk Dancing, body combat training, or for that matter playing basketball. Individual clubs and trainers can usually provide you with anecdotal stories about how their training saved them in a real life and death fight, but you will almost certainly never see any of these instructors in an actual fight.

There is no doubt truth in some of this. I don't doubt that 'traditional martial arts' training is better preparation than nothing. It can even be fun, fitness enhancing, and a social event. But it is simply not the best preparation for a fight. Some traditionally trained people may be good fighters, but the idea that dancing with yourself prepares one to fight seasoned and trained combat athletes is ridiculous.

And more significantly, this is an opinion held almost exclusively by people who have never fought a seasoned and trained combat athlete. In fact, many if these peoplen ahve never had a real fight at all. They have never been attacked even by a drunk, much less a fight-hardened athlete who has been involved in simulated fights with non-cooperative opponents every day for years. There are lots of opportunities for such match ups. Even limited fights can be arranged easily. Many MMA fighters are constantly on the look out for new opponents. If traditional fighters wanted to to fight MMA competitors, or should I say if they wanted to try this again, such match ups would have happened. They don't.

I think it's because they learned their lesson in the early years of the UFC not to talk in public. But that doesn't change the fact; there is no demonstration of the fighting efficacy of 'traditional martial arts' except for endless anecdotal stories. If the traditioanl guys want to prove me wrong, they can do so. When they do, maybe I'll change my mind. Until then, their words should be treated as what they are - simply talk.

What's a Conspiracy Theory

2006-07-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

I was recently exposed to the idea that the Denver International Aiport is part of an intergalactic plot to take over the world. You can find a summary of these ideas here on Wikepedia. I know this sounds bizarre, but the idea is that when the airport was constructed, a secret base for aliens was built under the airport that you and I see. For some strange reason, the aliens constructors of what is called the New World Order left all sorts of clues that they had taken over the world using the DIA as their base. If I haven't already lost your interest, you can read more about this here and here and here, and here you can read the perfectly reasonable explanations of airport officials brushed aside like they were nothing.

Of course I think this is hog wash, but that's not what I want to talk about. Instead, I want to address the issue of what all of this says about what a conspiracy theory is and how one gets spread. My contention is that conspiracy theories are just bad journalism. If the investigation is done correctly, then the conspiracy disappears and becomes news. When a conspiracy theory exists for more than a little while, it is because the logical investigative leads that should be followed have not been. Let's look at what's being said about the Denver International Airport and try to get my meaning.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Denver International Airport is its murals. The airport provides this information on the murals, but this site has better pictures of some of the more controversial portions. I'm not sure what the mural evidence is supposed to prove, but they are a part of the theory that attracts a great deal of attention. While I agree that they are "pretty freaky", I also think their role in a conspiracy of any sort could be handled by talking to the people who painted them. I've had it suggested to me that the painters were impossible to find investigators had attempted this. This is not true. In fact, based solely on the names provided by the airport and an Internet search, I was able to find extensive information about all of the painters, and I'll send it to anyone interested in it.

The most controversial of the murals involves figures that appear as stormtroopers. This mural was painted by Leo Tanguma. Mr. Tanguma is a well-known artist in the Colorado area. His granddaughter is also an artist. He has taught at School of Education and the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and a number of websites describe him as a "professor" at the University of Northern Colorado, although I looked through the school's site and could not find him listed. There are a number of photos of him on the Internet, including this and this. Apparently, you can view an interview with him here, but I can't view it on my computer, so I can't verify this. Interestingly, the racist organization Stormfront has not commented on Mr. Tanguma's alien connections, but members of its forum have expressed their outrage at the anti-White statement's of his murals.

The point of this is that if someone wanted to find out why Leo Taguma painted what he did, it would be easy. I bet that if you really wanted to talk to him, all you'd have to do is walk into a high school anywhere in Denver and ask one of the art teachers where you could find him.

And if I really thought there were aliens living under the Denver International Airport controlling the Earth, you can bet I'd be down in Denver doing this as fast as I could.

Another problem is this claim by Steve Snyder who is Public Affairs Office at the Denver International Airport. Steve states that

It is important to keep in mind that this airport was the largest, most scrutinized Public Works project in American history. There were cameras and reporters here documenting every single inch of dirt ever moved. If something strange was going on out here, hundreds of media outlets would have been all over it by now.

This is problematic because the interview published on this website states

AC: Well, we think that area is one that leads to deeper levels underground at the airport. But, it is surrounded by a chain-link fence and you can't get in there. We think this is the area that one of the electricians kind of stumbled into that went down about six levels below the fourth level, and ran into some really weird stuff. He won't talk about any of it now.

But this should be pretty easy to solve. The airport is really big and it would take a large number of people to have constructed and to maintain the underground portion. Either that, or it's being maintained by alien workers and then a lack of accountable maintance would be just as suspicious.

Returning back to the letter from Public Affairs Officer Steve Snyder, Steve claims another one of aspects of the airport's construction that attracts attention is just a coincidence. Why is the airport called "New world" if it's not part of the alien-run New World Order? Steve tell us that

As for the "new world" designation, the New World Airport Commission was simply a group consisting of local business and political leaders who sponsored and organized a number of pre-opening events at Denver International Airport. The airport was to usher in a new era making Denver a world-class city, thus the New World name.

Is this true, though? It should be easy enough to confirm. All we need to do is, once again, locate those businessmen and ask them what's going on. And since they're local Denver guys, I figure they'd be pretty easy to find.

In fact, there should be vast numbers of people with little pieces to this puzzle. The hundreds of baggage workers who Steve claims work down in the tunnels should have seen something. They should know that there are areas that no one has ever been in; they should know all kinds of strange things about the deeper levels of the airport just by having been around there. For example, has anyone ever died or disappeared?

And it's just not good enough to say that people keep quiet. Groom Lake and Area 51 are another installation rumoured to be associated with space aliens. I doubt this is true and believe that the area is a test facility for new military aircraft. Regardless, I can still tell you all kinds of stuff about the place. The Internet is full of photos of the place. I know the names of some of the civilian contractors who have worked there because they have tried to sue the US Air Force. Investigators have followed civilian contractors and identified all kinds of interesting things about them. Code names for the flights they take to and from the base have been identified and are regularly watched. I even recall reading news naming the hotels stayed at by Groom Lake contractors.

While there is something going on at Groom Lake that I don't know anything about, at least I know who's doing it.

So let's compare this with Denver International Airport. I know the names of countless officials and artists associated with the place. I know how to find them if I wanted to. I know an endless amount of information about the layout and organization and official story about the airport. On the other hand, I have not seen one piece of real evidence that would counter this explanation. All I see is pictures of strange art in the airport waiting areas. No one knows anything about the aliens. I do not know the name of anyone who has reported strange things. I do not know any of the strange things that anonymous people have reported. That's it.

There are real voices that should be speaking about this and they could be easily identified, yet no one even knows their names. Great reporting that is. And just think about how powerful the claim is. Aliens right in downtown Denver. Wouldn't you want to be the reporter breaking that one?

But then, think of what the real claim is because it's not just about aliens. The real claim is about what you need to do to find out what's really going on and what the news that's affecting your life really is. It doesn't matter that the Republicans mismanaged Hurricane Katrina. It doesn't matter that almost half of American has no health insurance. In fact, it doesn't matter where you live or who you vote for. No sir, you don't need to excuse the fact that you're lazy and would rather surf porn than read the paper. The real stories aren't in the news. The real news is badly researched, two-bit claims that no one can verify. And so little is know about them, because no one talks, that it takes about 5 minutes to read everything there is about the most important news ever written.

Wow, the world really is simple, isn't it. And that's what a conspiracy theory is.

Movie Review: A History of Violence

2006-07-24T00:09:00.000-07:00

You know the movie; the one where the small town quite guy turns out to a seasoned killer. Something happens to turn his world upside-down and when he starts killing the professional turns the bad guys into slaughter house. If you've seen one of these, then you've seen David Cronenberg's History of Violence.

In a movie of this kind, that everyone's seen at least once, the stories not important anymore. Instead, it becomes technical matters like the quality of the script, the ability of actors and actresses, or even how well the film is directed. And that's why you watch a Chronberg film. You want to see how he turns a piece of sloch like Scanners into a cult film. But History of Violence just doesn't do it.

The transformation of Tom Stall from coffee shop proprietor into Philadelphia hit man Joey Cusack misses the whole point of this kind of film. While it all starts out well, by the end of the film, it's just the action movie sloch that you can find in a million different places. In fact, I watched it with my wife and following the first fight in the coffee shop, she immediately commented that she knew something was up because there was no way an ordinary guy would know how to fight that well. And it was a good fight. But a coffee urn in the face would really hurts and people who got hurt stayed hurt. By the second major fight scene, the bad guys moved in slow motion and there's always enough time to hit people. By the time the transformation was complete and Joey's brother tried to have him killed, the metamorphosis is complete. Joey Cusack has taken on the powers of a mythical kung fu master; touching your opponent is enough to break their leg, and when there isn't there's always the trusty head spin that breaks one's neck and sends blood spewing out of the orifices.

Sure, the movie tries to shock you with heads blown out the occipital lobe and gallons of blood draining across the floor, but this is 2006 and none of the graphic images seemed at all shocking to me. Attempts at that Cronenberg brand of weird fell lame. What was the point of ravishing his wife in the stairwell following the reemergence of Joey Cusack? Or the brief pussy shot in the bedroom. Neither of these scenes led to anything and made no statement at all about the Edie, John, or Joey. It was almost like Chronenberg needed to kill time.

In the Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood is transformed from a quite farmer grieving the death of his wife into the angel of death. The change is catalyzed by the murder of his best friend, but transformation does not turn him into a superman armed with the touch of death. The Bill Munny that Clint Eastwood becomes is not even a particularly interesting personality. His only asset is that he can stare down a gun barrel and not even blink. In fact, the entire movie is built around explaining why the ability to kill is neither meritorious nor heroic and that cold-blooded killers are cold-blooded.

A History of Violence lacks any of this inner reflection. Joey Cusack is a superhero. Even if you get him by surprise or outnumbered him or drew first blood it wouldn't even slow him down. But really, even if you could hurt him, it wouldn't matter. And because of this, History of Violence is just another Arnold movie without the Arnold. It's just another Rambo movie without Stallone.

So if you're looking for another one of those mindless action movies that feature GI Joe, I highly recommend a History of Violence. If you want something to think about, don't waste your time.

Kinds of Fights

2006-07-20T03:52:00.000-07:00

There are three different kinds of fights and each has its own best form of preparation.

The first type is the Gun Fight. In a Gun Fight, two people face each other across an open space. They must cross that space and fight with each other. Sometimes there are obstacles or dangerous objects around them that have to be avoided or used, but the main defining characteristic of a Gun Fight is that fighters have to cross space to engage in combat with their opponent. The Gun Fight is a classical school yard fight. It is also the form of much sport fighting, like boxing or wrestling.

A well-prepared Gun Fighter can end a fight with a well-placed punch or kick. This is possibility especially when fighting untrained fighters. As mentioned above, the Gun Fight resembles sport fighting, and in fact, these are excellent ways to prepare for this kind of fight. Other forms of preparation for this include Thai Kick Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and what is current practiced in many Mixed Martial Arts clubs. While much of these systems is consisdered grappling, they also include highly effective methods of covering space and engaging in their more well-known close range fighting techniques. Some classical forms of training found in Kung Fu or Karate also provide useful techniques, but generally, these forms of training do not provide exposure to the excitement and chaos that characterize a fight situation and therefore even the well-prepared can not accurately judge which techniques they knoware useful.

A second type of fight is the Bar Brawl. This is the form of fight that occurs in small, closed spaced. It is characterized by a fight situation almost exploding around you. It is also common for the the presence of obstacles to be an issue. There is often no warning that a fight will start until someone is hit. The Bar Brawl is type of fight most often depicted in movies and TV.

Preparation for a Bar Brawl often comes from repetition and experience. Once again, sport fighting, such as boxing and MMA offer good preparation because they involve stricking and grappling techniques that take place in a limited space. Traditional martial arts training is also useful in these situations because their training involves repetitious action that becomes reflexive. In the chaos and confusion of a smoky room, such reflexive response can make the difference between winning or losing.

The third type of fight is a variation of the last type. The Ambush is a Bar Brawl in which you are the intended target. It does not erupt around you. Rather, it is aimed directly at you.

Experience is the only preparation that will have any effect in an Ambush. Experienced street fighters gain what is needed for survival in an ambush situation. Also, if one is a long-time member of an MMA or boxing club, you will eventually get enough fight experience to handle an Ambush reflexively. But both of these situations involved involve extensive fight experience and the dangers incurred in this. Another less dangerous but highly effective method of preparation comes from the traditional training methods of Kung Fu, Karate, and other traditional styles. The highly repetitive drill method of training is an effective way to prepare even the most timid mind for a dangerous Ambush.

The importance of studying the fight in this fashion is that it appears very different from the usual description in which teachers of traditional martial arts describe them. Traditional MA teachers often describe the utility of their techniques in a Bar Brawl, but especially the Gun Fight. This is not correct. Even practitioners of strong striking styles such as Shaolin Long Fist or Hung Gar Kung Fu will find themselves in a disadvantage in a Gun Fight. While the drills of these styles will create reflexive response useful when you are suddenly attacked, by far the best preparation for a Gun Fight is to become well versed in the full contact techniques of sport fighting found in boxing, wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

The Biggest Spider I've Ever Seen

2006-07-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

When I was young, I really like spiders. I used to let them walk all over me: up and down my arms and hands. All kinds of spiders. I lived in a place with a lot of spiders; big ones, small ones, ugly ones, and beautiful ones. And none of them ever bothered me.

But then something happened. It was a switch in my mind. Suddenly, they scared the be Jesus out of me. I couldn't go anywhere near them. And then I was in Taiwan, in a room with the biggest spider I had ever seen.

I was upstairs and I heard a noise in the back room on the first floor. I couldn't have really heard anything, because when I went down there, all that was down there was a huge spider. That room has a back door that leads outside, so I had thought maybe some kids had got in. I put on my hiking books and went downstairs to see. I opened the door and there it was, as big as a grown man's hand, right in the middle of the room.

I've lived with the Buddhists for a long time, and their ethos does brush off on you. Besides, I've never much liked killing things. I went and got a broom, opened the back door, and sweep it outside.

Then I got an idea; we had a cockroach problem in the house. If I killed some of the roaches and left their carcasses in the room, the spiders would come back and wipe out all the roaches in the house. So I did it. And one day, I looked in the room and the roach bodies were all gone.

Bad move. At least it was only roaches. Now there were man-sized spiders in the house. I had to tell my roommates, but first I had to go to work. I came home and found Ann to warn her about the spiders.

"It's too late," she said. "We already had a found them." And this is the story she told me.

She had come home, and there it was, the biggest spider she had ever seen on the living room wall. She called Ray, our gigantic Mexican-American roommate, to kill it. I guess they don't have spiders like that in LA because Ray tried to kill it with a broom. He whacked the thing. But instead of dieing, and when hit floor out popped a small ball made of something that looked like tape. Thousands of baby spiders poured out of the thing, all over the floor.

They were everywhere. And the mama spider was still alive. On she crawled. On toward Ray. He turned and tried to climb the stairs. That's when the web wrapped around him like something from a horror movie. And on the mama spider crawled.

Really, his life was never in the danger of the story he told, but he was sure scared. He ran to kitchen, grabbed the Raid, and started spraying for all he was worth.

But the mama spider just wouldn't die. On it crawled. Pulling itself through the lake of poison. Fighting for the lives of it babies; for the future of its species. But finally, this was too much even for the biggest spider in the world, and it died.

There are no movie spiders as big as a house, with the power to destroy a truck. The biggest spiders in the world aren't much bigger than your hand. For all I know, that was the biggest spider in the world, or the biggest spider of its kind. And so, Ray may have slain the biggest spider in the world on that day. No one will ever know the truth of that gargantuan battle fought in the heart of Yung-ho. It wasn't recorded by a movie or by a book. It was just killed and then forgotten.

And while movies end neatly with a conclusion that finishes the danger or sets the story up for a squeal, reality is never so neatly organized. Mama spider, baby spiders, what's missing? We searched the house for days looking for the daddy spider. We found it, and we found it much as you'd expect, dead for ages, sucked dry like an old sponge. A sorry end to this story of mythical battle for survival.

A Graduation Speech

2006-06-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

My wife's kindergarten class is graduating this week, and she's been asked to make a brief statement. I suggested that she read this.

Mothers, fathers, colleagues, friends, and students,
We stand here in the twilight of a great time. For more than 200 years, we have lived the greatest moments of all human history. Every man and woman has been born knowing that their life would be better than their parents. Not just could be better, but would be better. There would be more money, more rights, more goodness. Literacy has brought words into every mind. Capitalism has filled our wallets and our homes. Democracy has given us the power to shape our destiny.

But all that has ended. The poets among us say that it ended with the New Millennium on September 11, 2001. This is Sophistry. The roots of our darkness were sown decades ago in the greed and selfishness began even in the 1960's: The Manson Family and the Weathermen, Michael Milken and his billion dollar bonus, a World Bank and Free Trade disguised as prosperity for all but really a source of protection for the rich.

It is twilight now and soon all around us will be darkness. But I ask you, have you ever stood alone in the wilderness without even a single candle and looked about you? Even in the nightfall, there is so much to see. In the blackness of the darkest night, there are a thousand points of brightness that light up the sky. There is never a time without light, without hope.

I look across this world, across this country - Taiwan - across this room and I see 31 different points of light. I see Steve and I see Mary. I see Robert, Virginia, and Amy. And I know that with their brightness, their talent, the gift that each of their lives has brought to everyone around them; I know there will be hope in the future.

Dick Cheney Dodges Draft Then Shoots Man

2006-05-23T02:23:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, it's not really like that. He shoot the man 30 years after he dodged the draft and it was a hunting accident. But what the heck was VP Dick doing pointing a loaded gun in the direction of a person?

Dick Cheney is supposed to be a very experienced hunter. He has owned and used firearms since he was a boy. Despite this, he messed it all up. This article from Yahoo (yes, I know we're not supposed to be using it.) tells us he was careless and totally responsible for the accident in which a fellow hunter was wounded. Cheney also broke a whole pile of other hunting regulations.

You'd figure the vice-president would know better. But he evidently didn't. He just doesn't have the firearms safety training that other presidents, like Bush Sr. or John Kerry, have. And why would he? Bush Sr. and Kerry are both combat veterans with distinguished service records. Cheney, on the other hand, is a draft dodger who somehow managed to winge his way out of Vietnam.

Really, why would you expect more from the guy?

For more Dick Cheney jokes, check out CNN.

Abstainance and the New Conservatives

2006-05-23T02:22:00.000-07:00

I just found this article by US senator Sam Brownback and Ed Feulner, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation. The article addresses the emphasis that US public education places on condom purchase and use, rather than abstinence. It states that in spite of the demonstrated efficacy (or lack there of) of abstinence education, schools continue to focus on condom use and birth control. I don't have the same interpretation of this research as Senator Brownback and Mr. Feulner, but that's not what's bugging me today. I can say that the conservative argument about sexuality is increasingly becoming an aesthetic reconstruction of the struggle against nature.

It used to be the Marxists who argued for the struggle against nature, but our days are seeing increasing numbers of conservatives arguing for a radical battle with biology. Citing the Heritage Foundation, the article states that, "when compared to women who begin sexual activity in their 20's, girls who initiated sexual activity at the age of 13 or 14 were less than half as likely to have stable marriages..." and a whole bunch of other bad things. They then go on to advocate the promotion of sexual activity among primarily women who are far past the age at which nature has prepared humans for sexual activity. It is the conservatives who are now arguing that reproduction should be reserved for a period of time so late that the health of mothers and their infants is becoming questionable.

I'm not saying this is wrong. I don't know what's really right or wrong when it comes to questions like this. It's just the nature of their point is quite surprising to me. Here are people who call themselves conservative, but whose moral position is quite clearly one that opposes natural processes. Historically, it's been radical groups, often associated with the writings of Karl Marx, who have spoken about the struggle against nature. Today, in 21st Century America, it is the so-called 'Conservative Right' arguing aesthetic reasons that nature is wrong and they know better. In a sense, the conservatives have become the radicals.

Perhaps they do know better because I sure don't. But I can say, it sure is interesting what 'conservative' has come to mean.

That Silver Ring Thing

2006-05-23T02:20:00.000-07:00

Come on, you must have heard of it. That Silver Ring Thing is the newest thing in the high-tech battle to stave off the ravages of teen pregnancy and venereal disease. As the program's website says,

The Silver Ring Thing is the fastest growing international teen abstinence program. The Program offers a high-tech presentation style incorporating music, laser lights, humor and solid Gospel presentation.

I'm not making this up. Check it out for yourself. The plan is that you start their 7 step program, get a ring to remind yourself that you've promised to marry as a sexual virgin, and then wait for Mister or Misses Right to show up. If you're interested, check out their on-line picture gallery of the really fun events they've held all over the country - the USA that is. But hay, it might as well be the world.

The nagging problem with these abstinence programs is that no matter how you look at it, they're right. Who can argue that abstinence isn't 100% effective and that it's the only thing always more effective than Vatican Roulette or hormone pills? But I sure can argue that that's not the whole story. In fact, religion and all that moral stuff just doesn't work anymore. I don't mean as birth control; I mean as ideology. It doesn't even work for the people who really, really believe in it. And for those people, the Silver Ring Thing is just plain really, really dangerous.

It's old news among the anti-abstinence crowd that these programs only delay first sexual experience. In the most complete study to date of this phenomena, 12,000 teenagers who had pleadged to remain virgin until marriage were tracked. Abstinence pleadges only delayed first sexual experience. Almost everyone one of them did not marry as a virgin. But that's not the really important finding.

Abstinence pleadgers were much, much less likely to use contraception when they finally do have premarital sex. And, as I have said, almost all them do.

None of this is new news for me. For years, I have been running into fallen Christians who are now sexually active. The strange thing is that most of them are young men. While men's fantasies are full of young Christian girls gone sex crazy, I haven't met any of them. It's the young men I see all over the place, drunk in bars with pregnant girlfriends and illegitimate children.

This is no joke. One of the most tragic stories that I know of involves a young Christian man. The last weekend before he moved away from the small town of his upbringing, he and a friend went out for a couple of beers. He ended up in the bed of a local woman who contacting him a couple of months later with news that they liason had not been completely without consequences. As it turned out, both he and his family have accepted this problem and kept their strong Christian convinctions in tact by helping to raise her baby. But my point is that proper instruction in contraception would have avoided this problem all together.

So why is it mostly young men? It's true that the ideology of the Woman's Movement has become more pervasive than ever before. Women increasingly have access to the kind of opportunity to accumulate power and money that has historically only been available to men. Women's behaviour is much less controlled than ever before. Women are much freer to make their own choices without social consequences. In short, women have much more freedom to enter the world of men and masculine rewards than has ever historically been the case. But freedom has a gender and it is masculine.

And in this masculine world, there's a lot of temptation. Why wouldn't there be. All that stuff that guys have been getting away with, but girls haven't, didn't go away. Temptation hasn't been removed and controlled as much as it has been made available to everyone. And in a world where good girls say yes, it's hard for boys to say no, even if they've done that Silver Ring Thing. And if you're one of those boys doing that Silver Ring Thing, you're not going to be asking your girlfriend if she's on the pill.

Silver Ring Things make a great promise, but they just don't cut it in this world of temptation gone wild. Kids have sex before they get married and that's just a fact of modern life. If they haven't been prepared to handle temptation like this, then the girls get pregnant. End of story.

The Battle for Taipei

2006-05-23T02:18:00.000-07:00

On February 14, 1942, the Japanese stood at the gates of Singapore. Histories of this event make it sound like the British were completely dominated by a machine-like Japanese army that could not be stopped. We are told that the Japanese had pushed British and colonial soldiers out of Malaysia. The implication is that had the Japanese entered the city and taken the battle to the streets, they would have slaughtered everyone. But British Lt. General Arthur Percival answered that questioned in a way that history would remember differently. The very next morning, he surrendered to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita.

Turnbull's authoritative history of the city tells us of another way this battle could have ended. Turnbull tells us that the Japanese were completely unable to finish the battle for the city. They were exhausted after fighting their way hundreds of miles down the Malay Penninsula. They were greatly outnumbered by almost a hundred thousand trained soldiers from Australia, Britain, and India. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce had armed large numbers of Chinese men who were ready to fight to their death. Most importantly, the Japanese were virtually out of ammunition. By the time Percival surrendered, the Japanese had fired almost all of their remaining ammunition at the city in one last burst in what was a successful bid to convince the British they were still up for the fight.

But they weren't. If the Japanese had entered the city, they would have been crushed. The 30,000 or so Japanese without enough bullets for their guns, would have been slaughtered to a man. Sure, the city would have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children would have died. The Chinese men of the city: husbands, fathers, shop-keeps, and school teachers, fighting against battle-hardened soldiers would have been massacred. The battle that would have started on February 15th would be remembered today as one of the bloodiest battles of all modern history.

And the Japanese would have been stopped that day. With the Royal Navy only weeks away, the Battle for Singapore would have changed everything. World War II would have ended right there. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of lives would have been saved, and Percival would have been remembered as the general who ended the War rather than as the coward he was. His soldiers would have gone down in to history as the men who broke the back of the Japanese army rather than as the men who built the Burma Railway. The Chinese men of Singapore, the husbands, the fathers, the shop-keeps, and the school teachers, given the chance that they wanted, would have choosen to save their families from years of brutal colonialism rather than from the ravages of war.

When the Communists come from China, as they so often say they will, everyone will be scared. On that day, no one will want to fight. The airports will be swamped and everyone will be looking for a way off the island. It will be the chance that the Chinese men of Singapore sorely wanted on the morning of February 15, 1942; that chance that Arthur Percival took from them. Unlike the men of Singapore, you will have the chance to choose whether you can make history or be forgotten by it. It will be your one chance to stand against the Communists and do what was robbed from the Chinese men of Singapore. And there is only one to do that; by turning Taipei into the battle that Singapore never was.