There's no such thing as an "ex" Marine

I think I have a new hero. Guy gets attacked by four people — one with a shotgun, another with a pistol. Armed with only a pocket knife, he manages to kill one of his attackers and put another in critical condition. Don't really know what happened to the other two, but here's hoping they go the living crap kicked out of them but declined medical attention. That is quite possibly the coolest thing I've heard. Ever.

Random musing #291

Ok so I haven’t blogged in a while, but this is the most time I’ve had in front of a computer since last Thursday. For those of you that are interested, I was in Georgia this past weekend for my brother’s high school graduation. No problems. Graduate with honors, blah blah blah. For what it’s worth, come August he’ll be continuing the family tradition of bulldog pride, so, uh, Go Dawgs, I suppose.

It was nice to get out of the District for a while and nice to be around a piano for once. I’ve decided that my next major purchase will be either a piano or some digital replica thereof practical enough for my apartment. The guitar just isn’t doing it for me anymore.

Also, for those of you concerned, Jackie can wag her tail and move her legs, so that’s progress. As it stands now, her legs are just so emaciated from being in a cage for the last month that they’re too weak to be used. She can support herself, but can’t stand up on her own yet. We’re working on it.

In other news, I have about three blog posts I’m currently working on, but I’m not particularly pleased with any of them, so they may or may not actually make it to the web. We’ll see what happens when I’m feeling a little less self-conscious.

I’m working on finding another job in D.C. I’m thinking I might do the Think Tank thing for a while. I’m supposed to have an interview at one such institution later this week with hopefully more to follow.

So that’s pretty much my life right now, since I can’t seem to manage to talk to all of you individually. Hope everyone is well. I’ll try to be a little more interesting next time.

Is it hot out here, or is it just A| Gore?

What poses more of a threat than terrorism? Well, according to V@nity F@ir magazine, global warming. Yes, that’s right. A radical, militant sect of Islam bent on the acquisition of incredibly devastating weapons and the annihilation of all things modern is somehow slightly LESS threatening than the gradual increase of the earth’s temperature over a period of several decades. Really? Fascinating.

I’ve commented on global warming before, but with A| Gore’s new ‘documentary’ on the subject being released this week, I thought it was worth another go around. First of all, given Mr. Gore’s well-documented agenda, we can safely assume that this ‘documentary’ contains all the intellectual honesty of a Michae| Moore hatchet job.

All that said, what bothers me most about the debate on global warming is the fact their isn’t one. If Time M@gazine and V@nity F@ir say it, well, then it must be true, right? Anyone skeptical of global warming, or at least the scope thereof, is quickly dismissed as either a shill for the oil or automotive industries, or a general ignoramus.

The truth is, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of such alarmism. Not the least of which is the fact that, thirty years ago, climatologists were clamoring about the coming ice age and how it demanded immediate action before we all froze to death. Granted, it would likely take longer than thirty years for an ice age to ensue, but all indications are that it’s not happening any time soon. Was the debate settled back then? Was anyone who questioned the coming ice age dismissed as an ignorant lunatic?

Now, I’m not saying that I don’t believe the data that the Earth has warmed fractionally over the last several decades. It obviously has. I do, however, become a little skeptical when temperature readings from, say, the 19th century are used and extrapolated out decades or centuries into the future to indicate a looming crisis.

Forgive me for not panicking over a one degree rise in the Earth’s temperature over the last century, but it seems to me that one degree could constitute a rounding error. I mean, maybe Ol’ Smitty McGee didn’t look too closely at his thermometer before he drove his horse and buggy into town to buy his spittoon. You’re telling me we’re going to use such imprecise data to make such precise predictions? Great idea.

There are four main questions that I, and I suspect many other so-called skeptics, have about the issue. First, is it happening? Second, is it as bad as we’re supposed to believe it is? Third, are we affecting as much as we’re supposed to believe? Forth, is there anything we can do about it?

As far as whether the Earth is warming, the obvious answer would seem to be yes. But, the earth is in a constant cycle of warming and cooling. A few million years ago, the earth was a sweltering ball of volcanic activity. Several thousand years ago, most of this continent was under a sheet of ice. Now we’re somewhere in between. All of this took place without the advent of the industrial revolution, the United States, George \/\/. Bush, or the Hummer.

Is it as bad as we’re supposed to believe? If the predictions of the coming ice age are any indication, I’d be inclined to say no. I’ve yet to hear a very convincing argument for the effects of global warming that warrants the kind of alarmism currently being exhibited by the extreme environmentalists. Ok, so the sea levels might rise and weather patterns might change. Such things are not immediate, and would likely allow people time to adapt. Are we supposed to get riled up over climate change simply for the sake of getting riled up over climate change? As I said, most of this continent used to be covered in ice. Is global warming inherently bad?

On the question of whether mankind is affecting global warming, I’m sure we are to some degree. But as I said, I don’t know why that’s necessarily bad. Even if mankind ceased all activity, the earth would likely still be going through a process of warming, though probably at a slower pace. What’s so noble about slightly postponing the inevitable?

Finally, is there anything we can do about it? Almost certainly. Which is the main reason I’m not overly concerned. Even without the ill-conceived and generally ignored Kyo+o Pro+ocol, I’m confident that technological advances will move us away from fossil fuels and thus reduce our ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions and thus reduce our fractional impact on the Earth’s warming cycle.

I’m a little curious to see, however, what’s going to happen when and if we greatly reduce our emissions and the Earth continues to warm. Who will we blame then?

In the mean time, can we please have an honest discussion on this issue? I realize that’s beyond the capacity of most people involved in the debate, but it’s worth a shot.

Something you don't see every day

Here's a picture Patrick took at some press event on the top of a building downtown. I don't even know what it was. They all run together. At any rate, I thought it was worth sharing.

America...

McDona|ds
W@l-Mart
The G@p
Baseball
The NFL
Rock n' Roll
The Internet
Slavery
St@rbucks
Disney Wor|d
Porno
Valium
Reebok
Fake tits
Sushi
T@co Bell
Rodeos
Bed B@th and Beyond
Liberty
White Slips
The Al@mo
B@nd Aids
Las Veg@s
Christmas
Immigrants
Popeye's
Democrats
Republicans
Sportsmanship
Books



...fuck yeah.

(I'm bored.)

Time to get over yourmyself

I have this horrible habit of placing enormous importance on trivial, or at best marginal, events. More often than not they do not go how I want or how I expect, and it is very conducive to disappointment, frustration and stress.

I really need to cut it out, lest I start taking myself too seriously. Whenever friends of mine are bummed out or whatnot, I always tell them that, whatever it is, it’s not that bad. It’s time I started listening to myself. I’m bad about that.

Anyway. Just an observation I felt compelled to share.

Hooray for drunken athletics

Not that you care, but I play on a UG@ A|umni softball team in addition to the Ex@miner team. It's actually a lot more fun than the Ex@miner team because the games are essentially just a warm up for the Flip Cup games afterward. It's pretty cool playing on the National M@ll around all the monuments. Makes me feel all patriotic to get trashed and run around like an idiot. It's what the founding fathers would've wanted.

At any rate, here are a couple of pictures from our games this Saturday against Tennessee (ewwwwwww). We were also supposed to play Vandy, but they didn't show up (as usual, am I right? [buh dum bum]) so we just played a screw-around game with Tennessee. There was entirely too much alcohol involved and it got pretty ridiculous.






Go dawgs.

See? Told you. I'm not allowed to think anymore. Nothing good ever comes from it.

It's a friggin' movie. Settle down.

I’ve been reading quite a few news stories recently about the controversy surrounding the novel-turned-motion-picture The D@ \/inci Code. Many Catholics, particularly Catholic pontiffs, have been worked into a lather because the film apparently portrays the \/atican in a negative light.

Ok. So what?

Truth be told, I’ve never read the book and nor do I have a particular interest in doing so. And while I’m not opposed to seeing the movie, I don’t feel particularly compelled to do so. I usually avoid things such as this simply because I’d much rather observe a fad than actually be a part of it.

Also, not having any vested interest in the actions of the fledgling Catholic church, it’s hard for me to enter the debate on one side or the other.

All that said, what little I do know about the D@ \/inci code can be summarized thusly: Apparently, Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, they had a child, and for some reason the Catholic church covered it up because it would somehow shatter the foundation of Christianity. Um, ok.

Ignoring for the moment that the D@ \/inci code is, as they say, just a movie, there are a few other things about this that I would like to address.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. What of it? If Jesus was — as is widely believed — a rabbi, there are certainly no prohibitions within Judaism against him being married. In fact, of the dozen or so rabbis I’ve encountered in my life, I would say that most, if not all, were married. And of those that were married, most of them had a litter of children. That’s what rabbis do.

I fail to see how this causes the foundation of Christianity to collapse. I consider myself at least somewhat well-versed in the text of the New Testament, and I don’t recall seeing anything that explicitly said Jesus was either married or unmarried. So it’s not as if him being married would render the New Testament, in and of itself, obsolete.

Moreover, if the foundation of Christianity is, as I understand it, the believe that Jesus is the son of God, died for the sins of mankind, etc. etc. etc., how would his marriage negate that? Maybe I’m missing something.

Moving on.

Supposing that Jesus was married and all the rest, what difference does it make if the Catholic church did try to cover it up? Again, maybe I’m missing the point, but it doesn’t seem to me that hiding the fact that Jesus was married has any real bearing on the foundation of Christianity.

As I said before, I’ve never read the book and I’m indifferent towards the movie, so don’t quote me on any of this.

What I find most curious about the whole ordeal is the reaction by many Catholics around the world that are worried people don’t have enough religious education to decipher the movie’s fact from the movie’s fiction. Really?

If people are so gullible as to treat a film starring Forres+ Gump — and directed by Richie Cunningham — as fact, the Catholic church shouldn’t want their business anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, Tom H@nks is one of my favorite actors and Ron How@rd does some fantastic work, but keepers of the truth, they ain’t.

Here are some other things from their movies that you might be shocked to learn:

-There is no Eastern European country known as Kyrkozia.
-A Fed Ex employee will not keep your package while he’s paddling around the ocean for two years with his best friend, the volleyball.
-Mich@el Clark Duncan cannot cure your bladder infection by copping a feel.
-Toys are not alive…or are they?
-You cannot age 20 years overnight by playing a carnival game.

Oh, and the Grinch really did steal Christmas. He just didn’t give it back. That was added later because the original story was so depressing.

Point is, those that are upset about this film are either giving the film far too much credit or the people of the world far too little. I highly doubt Tom H@nks is going to lead an exodus from the Catholic church. And if people do leave the Catholic church because of a movie, like I said, the Church is probably better off without them.

It’s a friggin’ movie. Settle down.

Racking up the bylines

Ooh ooh my name's in the paper again. That's exciting. Someone with a keen sense of the obvious once said that people should write what they know. (Fair enough. I suppose if people wrote what they didn't know, the Whi+e House Press Corps would be a lot bigger.) And if there's one thing I know, it's useless trivia. But there are two things I know, it's
useless trivia and stuttering.

At any rate, I wasn't particularly pleased with the edits made to my original piece, so here it is only slightly refined from the way it leaked from my brain:


Throughout my academic career, I would often spend the night before the first day of school lying in bed staring at the ceiling with clammy hands, a dry mouth and a nervous stomach, absolutely horrified of what was going to transpire the following day.

What could possibly be so frightening as to render an otherwise normal school kid into a neurotic, trembling mess? It wasn't the impending unbearable burden of a year's worth of school or even the prospect of a particularly sadistic professor with a penchant for unannounced quizzes and a disdain for grading curves. No, it was something much worse. Like clockwork, each teacher would inevitably utter the dreaded phrase "Let's go around the room and introduce ourselves." [Cue ominous music.]

Most people think nothing of such common occurrence. Yet, when I had the floor, something unusual happened. My eyes closed. My jaw clinched. My foot inexplicably jerked and tapped. My face contorted and blood rushed to my cheeks, adding a lovely maroon hue to an already curious expression. The words came out one painfully slow syllable at a time. It was certainly a memorable first impression, just not in the way I would've preferred.

Let me explain. Roughly three million Americans stutter — and I happen to be one of them. More specifically, since childhood, I have been diagnosed — several times, as if I needed reminding — as a severe stutterer.

Thus, I felt I was as qualified as anyone to inform the masses that this week is National Stuttering Awareness Week. It's like spring break, but slightly less fun and without the beach.

I felt inclined to address the issue because it seems to me that stuttering, as a disorder, gets little media attention. Admittedly, there are more pressing issues in the medical community — stuttering isn't fatal, physically debilitating or painful. It has many social effects, however, that people often don’t realize. And so, stuttering deserves at least as much attention as is paid to other — ahem — disorders that inundate prime time television with advertisements of various "enhancements."

Perhaps due to this lack of exposure, the most experience the general public has with stuttering tends to be through an animated pig with an apparent aversion to wearing pants. Brilliant.

This lack of public knowledge also begets several myths about stuttering that warrant quelling. First and foremost, stuttering does not indicate any sort of mental disability in the speaker. Stutterers are every bit as intelligent as fluent speakers. One study, in fact, found that the average IQ for stutterers is 14 points higher than the national average.

Nor is stuttering something children necessarily outgrow. Most children who stutter will not stutter into adulthood, but many will. I've been trying to outgrow my stuttering for roughly 23 years now. It's a safe bet to assume that it'll be around for 23 more.

Many well-meaning listeners believe it is helpful to remind stutterers to breathe deeply and relax, or to finish a stutterer’s sentence. Actually, this usually only increases anxiety. It is better to simply be patient and let us finish.

Perhaps the most pervasive myth about stuttering, particularly within the stuttering community, is that a stutterer can only be successful after he can speak fluently. There are many well-known, high profile stutterers who, well, don't. Bruce Willis, James Earl Jones and Senator Joseph Biden are just a few "recovered" stutterers that have gone on to have great success using their voices. Incidentally, Senator Biden has earned a reputation in D.C. as one of the longer-winded members of the senate.

Some in the stuttering community are uneasy about the message that this sends, particularly to younger stutterers. I concur. The idea that stutterers must learn to speak fluently in order to be successful is horribly inaccurate. Being a stutterer is indeed a challenge, but not a professional death sentence. Certainly, being fluent might make success more easily attainable — let's not sugar coat it. But most things worth doing are rarely easy.

For those looking for more information on stuttering -- particularly younger stutterers and parents with children who stutter -- may I recommend starting at the National Stuttering Association, found at www.nsastutter.org.

In the spirit of Stuttering Awareness Week, you may now consider yourself aware. Class dismissed.

More pictures

Here are some pictures taken by Patrick at the pre-party. He's a lot more willing to embarrass himself than I am, so his pictures are substantially more entertaining. I think they speak for themselves.





How the hell did this guy get through security?



Seriously. Who let him in? Can't we just let him fade back into obscurity?

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta

Ok, so that's not directly related to the subject of this post, but I like it so I'm going to use it.

As you may or may not know, Saturday night was the Whi+e House Corresponden+s' Dinner. It's more or less the Washington, D.C. equivalent of the Ac@demy Aw@ards. It's when a bunch of media types and celebrities get together and pat each other on the back and say how cool they are.

At any rate, I'm not quite important enough just yet to get a ticket to the actual dinner, but I was able to score entry to the pre-dinner cocktail party. Which, aside from the President's speech and S+tephen Colber+'s little routine, was probably almost as cool.

My friend Jessica was supposed to get in town later that night for a weekend visit, but I was able to get in touch with her the night before and convince her to change her flight so that she would arrive in time to come along.

(For what it's worth, calling a girl and telling her to change her flight and pack a formal dress because we're going to a White House function is probably the smoothest thing I've ever done, and quite possibly ever will do.)

At any rate, it was one of those times in my life that I just couldn't help but laugh at myself. It was like I was being let in on the inside joke. All of these famous, and in some cases enormously powerful, people were surprisingly normal. And in many cases were much smaller in person than I expected. Apparently the camera adds ten pounds and six inches of height.

When we first arrived at the Washington Hi|ton, we actually got to walk down the red carpet. Having press and other spectators on either side of us made me feel like a total rockstar. Nevermind the fact that none of the photographers took our picture and none of the spectators knew who we were and were likely wondering to themselves 'Why the hell do they get to go in?'.

The majority of the attendees congregated on the pool deck. It was quite a pleasant evening and there was quite a lot more room there than in the cabana rooms where various publications were holding their actual receptions. There really wasn't much food around, but there were literally 15 or so open bars within a 100 yard radius.

Here's a picture of Jessica and me in our formalwear. What a sexy bitch. And Jessica looks nice, too.



Some of the names on the guest list were actually quite impressive. I was trying to be discrete in my picture taking so as to not look like a total star-struck dork; thus, some of the pictures are a little blurry. My apologies.

Federa| Reserve Chariman Ben Bern@nke showed up. Some argue he's even more powerful than the president, and in many respects they're right. The president might be able to start wars, but Bern@nke can turn us into a third-world country with the stroke of a pen.



Ambassador Joe Wi|son and his wife also attended, despite being at the center of the leak scandal.



Former chairman of the RNC, Ed Gi|espie seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere and was apparently mildly inconvenienced by having to carry on this conversation.



Tucker Car|son was moving really quickly.



While mingling, accidentally bumping into other attendees was quite a common occurrence. After one such occasion, I looked up to apologize to the man into whom I had bumped. At this point, I realized that he was wearing an earpiece and lapel pin with a secret service insignia. During that apology, I bumped into another person. I turned to apologize to this person, at which point I realized that it was Justice An+onin Sca|ia. By the time I fished my camera out of my pocket he had worked his way farther down the walkway, so I was only able to get a picture of his back.



Not long after that, I bumped into (though this time not literally) into associate Supreme Cour+ Jus+ice and fellow Georgia native C|arence Thomas.



Massachuse++s governor and possible 2008 Presidential candidate Mi++ Romney also made an appearance.



As did Home|and Security Secretary Michae| Chertoff...



And Week|y Standard editor Bi|| Kristo|...



And for some reason, New York Gian+s defensive end Michae| S+rahan.



There were also sightings of Ac@demy Aw@rd nominee Terrence How@rd, Super Bow| Champion Ben Roeth|isberger (I probably spelled that wrong, but I'm too tired to look it up) and a few other notable people, but I didn't personally see them.

My crowning achievement for the evening, however, was meeting Ann Cou|ter. She was a guest of the Examiner, so I didn't feel completely ridiculous asking her for a picture. I still felt considerably ridiculous, but not completely.

And it might've just been because she saw me as a political ally, but despite her flame-throwing writing style, she's actually quite pleasant in person.



All in all, it was quite an experience. Maybe next year I'll actually get to go to the dinner. Here's hoping.