On writer's ghosts

Anyone who does significant writing in fiction ends up with these. A writer's ghost is a character that has taken on a life of its own. Not in the psychotic sense, but there is enough of a personality structure there to provide a semblance of sentience. This can get interesting when circumstances bring them to the peanut-gallery of your brain and they hurl comments. It can also be very useful while writing since the character in question doesn't need a lot of input to tell you what they'll do next in this situation.

But not for me in real life. One of my ghosts descends out of a series of writing I did back in my teens. The guy in question was a military commander in a fantasy setting, one who rose through the ranks during a protracted war. After the war a new military arm was created and he was selected for one of the higher leadership posts. Tada, yahoo.

As I've matured and grown up, I've come to realize that this particular character was, in reality, in charge of the dictator's above-board death squads. And also, he is a expert in what's now called, "asymmetric warfare," also known as guerilla warfare, and also state-sanctioned terrorism depending who who is doing the defining at the time. Though he is a very nice guy all things considered, he does condone torture; both physical and magical. Such an... interesting contrast between two cultures. In the context of this world this is all above-board stuff worthy of the odd parade. In the here and now, heh, war-crimes trial here we come.

So when I watch movies that involve pitched battles on any scale from the squad level up to division level in a fantasy setting I have another set of eyes watching with me. And making comments. And providing somatic details that the movie makers can't or won't show. When I saw First Knight for the first time, and they went through the sacked city, I was provided with hair raising 'memories' of what that is like. You see, he did something a lot like that. Specifically he and his squad were the first squad on the scene after a small city of about 15,000 people were butchered and routed, and came to the scene between five and seven days after the slaughter (the refugee train was something else). Wowzers. Not for the soft of stomach.

The other ghost I've heard a lot out of lately is an NPC I ran for a few games back in college. I really like the guy. Classic old geezer who knows too much and likes tormenting the younguns with what he knows and they don't. Stereotype I know, but it worked in the setting quite well. He has been providing advice to certain virtual situations in the game-system he grew up in. Sort of cryptic, I know, but I'm not about to reveal the guilty here. A lot of activity of late.

Many authors have commented on the phenomena. Many people who have been playing specific characters in long-running role-playing games have the same experience. A high imagination goes a long way for this. It certainly is interesting.

WalMart & civil suit

A gender descrimination claim has been filed against WalMart. This filing makes this case the single largest civil rights case on record.

NY-Times
UK-Guardian Observer

The filing cites that WalMart as consistantly and broadly preferred men over women in terms of promotions and wage increases. The Guardian points out that WalMart has stated that promotion and wage increases are largely at the discression of the store managers themselves and not Corporate HQ.

One interesting line from WalMart:

The company said it will appeal this latest decision, claiming the lawsuit ignores the fact that thousands of female employees make more than their male counterparts.

Thousands, eh? Then why is it that the class in this case is measured at 1500 thousand women? In case you missed your decimals, that's 1.5 million women. 'Thousands' in relation to this class is a small percentage. Which implies that a large percentage are being paid under what the men are.

Once this thing hits trial you can expect the WalMart spin machine to crank up sympathy for themselves. If this suit succeeds, prices at our stores will have to go up. And that will hurt these poor people who rely on us for cheap goods [picture of frowning poor people]. Higher prices are bad for the economy. Etc. etc.

I hope it does succeed, or at the very minimum a hellova settlement is extracted out of WalMart. The suit is claiming $8 billion in restitution, which oddly enough matches WalMart's entire profit for last year.

I will give them credit, though. The gal who started the suit is still working at WalMart and hasn't been fired for showing up to work one day with an untied shoe-lace. I guess if you bring a large enough suit, or otherwise garner enough media attention they can't get rid of you without a real reason.

Swearing on the Senate floor

Cheney swears at a senator

Normally I don't like to stoop to the level of taking joy in these sorts of things. Normally. But he is an overbearing person of such magnitude that it is nice to see this get the attention it has. Small of me, I know. But still.

US War crimes immunity bid fails

US war crimes immunity bid fails

This is a particularly interesting turn of events. In the wake of the Iraqi prison scandal sympathy for the US in its lone superpowerness, and the continual sniping the biggest kid on the block always gets, has diminished. The US has retracted a bid to consider US forces immune from the International Criminal Court. The reasoning is that US would be subject to frivolous lawsuits in this court and that we're special. We've managed to get this exemption for the past couple of years, but not this year.

There is a certain truth to the reasoning. We ARE a big target. And there was a bit of an international to do about a Belgan party suing certain US military officials for war-crimes in Belgan court, something their courts allow. This proved to be a problem because if those certain military officials landed in Belgium for NATO functions they would be arrested. This is exactly the kind of thing the US was talking about when seeking this exemption.

A permanent war-crimes tribunal is a good thing to have. We've had many such ad-hoc tribunals in the past fifty years since Nurenburg. A permanent court would provide consistancy and experience where it was previously hard to obtain.

The LRT finally runs

I've already gone on at length about public transit, but a milestone will be reached this weekend. The Light Rail will finally run public rides down the Hiawatha corridor. This is an event that is much anticipated by many people.

Twenty two years ago (that's 1982) I attended a rally with my parents at Minnehaha Park. This was a rally to support the idea of running a light rail train track down Hiawatha Avenue. I remember the T-Shirt that went with the event, as both my sister and I had one, and I think I remember one or both of my parents also wearing one for a couple of years after the fact (heck, they may still have it in a keep-forever box). It was a classic rally, with speeches, music on possibly more than one stage, and a general picnic atmosphere. It was also the place where I learned what a "LRT" was.

Getting the LRT onto Hiawatha has been a torturous series of events. The whole saga began in the 1960's and early 70's when Hiawatha was slated to become a four or six lane divided highway a lot like the new interstate (I-35W) that just went in a few miles west of there. The locals saw what happened to the neighborhoods that I-35W dissected, a block-wide swath was torn out of the middle of the City to get that interstate through, and trembled. A hue and cry went up, and the project was blocked before any real construction could begin. The land had been obtained, but any effort to improve it or do anything like put in that divided highway was resisted mightily by the residents.

Then the idea of putting a rail line down the middle of it surfaced. Just to the east of the existing Hiawatha Ave was a rail spur that fed a series of grain elevators that still are working today. The land was good for a track. And with the airport just on the other side of it, a logical connection between downtown Minneapolis and the Airport could be made. Advocates started lobbying to get something like that done.

The transit organization thought it was an interesting idea, just too expensive. Then the Federal Transit agency stepped in and offered a matching grant of umpteen million if we could create a plan and fund our half. After a bitter battle in the Minnesota legislature, the plan was approved and money appropriated.

The usual cost increases happened, and much acrimony followed. Residents in and around the LRT corridor came up in arms over the plan to redo Hiawatha, claiming that they were not involved. I have anecdotal accounts that the loudest people on this front were those who were not around for the first fight in the 60's and 70's. Yes, this battle has been waging for coming on forty years.

I still think that another LRT line will probably not get funded. This one will have to prove itself before that'll happen. The only saving grace is that it is a high capacity mover between downtown Minneapolis, and that temple to consumerism known as the Mall of America. It might come close to breaking even, but I doubt it. Far too many reports have said that mass-transit is, except in certain circumstances, unsupportable without government subsidy. The demand that the Hiawatha LRT line self-support is unreasonable, and will provide a means to sink further proposals.

Never the less, the thing DID get built. I am going to miss not getting to ride on it.

Minimum wage! Hyah!

Raising the minimum-wage is is a long-standing democratic stance. As the party that is more concerned with people as people, it only stands to reason. Especially when you can be working full time and still not make enough to afford housing.

From an economic point of view, these employed individuals are employed. They make money, and they spend every penny of it. They're cheap enough that small business can employ them affordably and thus further bolster the economy.

However, as we've learned in our own past and as we see in other countries, being paid peanuts doesn't help an economy along as well as it could. A healthy economy has a healthy and happy workforce behind it. And such is not possible if 75% of your income goes to keeping a roof over your head and keeping starvation at bay.

The Minimum wage was created in 1938 at $0.25/hour, which initially applied only to people involved directly in inter-state commerce or supplying goods for inter-state commerce. The wage was expanded to more areas in 1961 ($1.15/hr), greatly expanded in 1966 ($1.40/hr), and to the modern extent in 1978 ($2.65/hr).

As has been pointed out a number of places, the 'real value' of the minimum wage has decreased as of late. A good overview of the inflation-adjusted real value, and some other nice statistics, can be found here:

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html

One interesting statistic is the minimum wage percent of poverty graph, where a 40-hour-week minimum-wage earner is compared to the federal poverty level.

The minimum wage has varied from a maximum of 90% of the poverty level in 1968 and has been between 53 and 62% since 1985. This is the lowest percentage since the poverty level was established in 1959.

Democrats HATE this. As the party that the labor movement most identifies with, this just sticks in the ole craw. If you take a look at the Department of Labor's minimum-wage history chart you can see that the minimum wage was raised in 1981 to $3.35/hour, right at the end of the early 80's recession, and later increased nine years later to $3.80/hr during that recession. It was again raised in 1991 to $4.25. The gap between 1981 and 1990 created the longest gap between raises in the history of the minimum wage. This gap saw the percent-of-poverty-level drop from about 72% in 1981 to about 53% in 1989.

The arguments against the minimum wage are familiar. Businesses with thin margins will go out of business. Small business (a.k.a. small-margin) business will suffer. Job growth will slow.

Housing costs in particular have been insane in the last decade. Many areas saw a doubling (or worse) of housing costs, both in rental rates and in housing. Since this rate is well above inflation and the minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation, this means that minimum-wage earners now have to pay a much higher percentage of their income to keep a roof over their heads. You can help this out by having more than one earner under a roof, but that gets a little weird after a while; never mind that child-care costs about as much as housing does these days.

As WalMart states, their employees aren't there to earn a living, they're there to earn some spare cash. Retirees, teens who don't have to pay housing costs, and second-job people. The minimum wage isn't a way of life, they say. While they are right, the real world does state that people frequently are stuck earning minimum wage.

The minimum wage does need to be raised. Kerry has said that he'd like to raise it to $7.00/hr, and that would bring the buying power of a minimum-wage earner to about where it was when Reagan took office the first time.

Did that say.... impeach? Again!

The echoes of the Nixon administration are back again. Only this time it isn't domestic malfeasance, but something involving the military. Molly Ivans had a column in which the details of the torture justifications are brought forward again.

What stuck me is that we are indeed just shy of an election. This has a similar parallel with 1972 in which Nixon was waging a re-election campaign and managed to win. My previous rant about impeachment made the case that since we are going to have national elections real soon now, it is not reasonable to expect impeachment proceedings to start.

But if Bush does manage to win in November, we may just see that. We still need to have some form of smoking guns come out into daylight in order to get the super-majority needed in Congress to start the impeachment ball rolling. Bush has as much as said that Rumsfeld is going to stay on a head of DoD, and if the torture issues flare up high enough that a Chief of Staff head needs to role... he will be useful to have.

Control of Congress also has to be figured in. Which party controls the House has a lot of impact on any impeachment articles that may get passed, and the GOP still maintains a good margin there. The November elections may adjust the ratio one way or the other, but I suspect that the GOP will still have control. The Senate is another thing, and the Democrats may just get control. But, the Senate only gets involved in impeachment proceedings once the House has voted for it.

Constitutionally, it all works out. But to have two presidents in a row face impeachment proceedings sets a worrying precedent. For a while there it seemed like the first thing to do with a new president was to assign a special prosecutor to investigate him for any bad things. Since Bush came to office with his party in control of Congress, this neo-tradition was not continued.

With the GOP in control of the House, it would take a smoking gun with clear fingerprints in order to get any Articles of Impeachment through. Lets just hope the voters do the job first.

Kerry/McCain '04

A lot has been said about how this would be a killer ticket, and I think it would be too. It just isn't going to happen. No matter how nice it sounds.

The art of selecting a running mate is entirely in picking someone who will bring the most voters to you, and make the fewest enemies while doing it. It was politics that made Gore choose a democratic religious conservative for his running mate in 2000. It was politics that made Quale a good choice for H. W. Bush in 1988. It was politics that made Ferarra a good choice for Mondale in 1984.

On the 'bring lots of voters' front, McCain would be a good choice. As the poster child for moderate Republicans, it would permit the moderate wing of the Republican party an option to vote against the President but within party (sort of). This is why polls have shown that Kerry/McCain win by a significant margin over Bush/Cheney.

However, such a lineup violates the second principal. By selecting a running-mate outside of the party, Kerry would burn political capital that he'd need to get legislation passed. Also, McCain's "defection", for it would be viewed as such even if he doesn't renounce his Republican party membership, would greatly harm his aspirations to a further political career. So while such a move would sell to the voters really well, it wouldn't do either person good in the long run.

But it would be nice to see. Not that it'll happen.

Realities of the draft

The draft has changed since my Father's time. He managed to not go to Vietnam through a happy coincidence of a high lottery number and a PhD candidacy. Were he born one day either side of where he was and his numbers would have been really low, like 19 and 38. I do not believe the academic deferment was actually needed.

Not that it'd work these days. Take at look at the material hosted at the Selective Service website. After Vietnam it was decided to revise the Selective Service System to be more fair. Fair being, of course, a relative term. Women are still not required to register, and there is a Supreme Court case from the mid eighties that supports this disparity.

The old system worked something like this:

• Draft-age was 18-26
• When a draft was announced, a lottery was held for the birthdays in a year to determine the order in which the birthdays would be drafted
• When a date was called, all men in the ages of 18-26 with that birth-date would be called.
• Deferments or outright exemptions were granted for a number of reasons

The new system has some significant changes to it:

• Draft-age remains 18-26. No change.
• When a draft is announced, a lottery will be held to determine the order of call-up, based on birth-date. No change.
• When a lottery number is called up, all men aged 20 with that birth-date will be called up
• When a new number is needed, the next number's 20-year-old men will be called up
• Only after all 20 year old men are drafted will the lottery go around to pick up the 21 year olds, Then it goes 22, 23, 24, 25, and finally, 19, then 18.
• Draftees have the RIGHT to personally go before their draft-board to review their case
• The number of exemptions is dramatically reduced.

As you can see, significant differences. The key point to remember is that the "Age of risk," is no longer effectively 18-26, it is 19. A much smaller time-frame. For the potential draft to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the chances of calling up even 21 year olds is next to nil.

A new draft would need to increase force levels to the point where we're doing the job effectively, and also to accommodate the service terms of the existing volunteer forces. Stop-loss orders only go so far, afterall. We'll see how things turn out, and the events that drive the decision to start a draft will be played out in the second half of this year.

Homophobia

Traditional Values Coalition

This, boys and girls, is what homophobia looks like. This particular site is rather well constructed. The news articles on the front are frequenlty updated. If you take the time to look through the articles, the vast majority are aimed at hampering hate-crimes legislation, reducing funding for AIDS organizations (specifically, 'homosexual run AIDS organizations'), fighting gay marriage, and general calls to action to thwart attempts to mainstream homosexuality. All with a nice sprinkling of the same kinds of things for (or is that against?) gender-queers.

Oh, the evil of it all.

Checking up on sites like these can be a nice reality check. Yes, Virginia, people really do believe that sort of thing. Plus, they have a handy "rate this article" thing next to each article for the homosexual mafia to queer (heh heh) the results.

Define "torture"

In a move that harkens rather well to the Clinton impeachment proceedings in which Clinton famously uttered the phrase:

Define 'sex'

Documents are coming to the fore detailing the military administration's view of what is "torture", really.

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/06/07/0988582

The BBC also cites the Wall Street Journal article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3783869.stm

What is striking here is that the drafting process of defining torture and its legal usage seems to predate the actual invasion. The US has had a longish experience with Gitmo, so we did need to make some clarifications. Certain blocks of the text sound more like 'brainwashing' and not 'torture'.

The law says torture can be caused by administering or threatening to administer "mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the sense of personality." The Bush lawyers advised, though, that it "does not preclude any and all use of drugs" and "disruption of the senses or personality alone is insufficient" to be illegal. For involuntarily administered drugs or other psychological methods, the "acts must penetrate to the core of an individual's ability to perceive the world around him," the lawyers found.

The common sense definition of 'torture' includes the use of excessive pain in order to coerce the recipient into giving information. Substantive changes to the personality....? That's a new one on me, as I see that as more brainwashing. I do believe that such methods do need to be included in the anti-torture laws, but they are not the only methods.

Another thing that was very striking in the WSJ article is the brazen assertion that the Executive Branch has supreme command of all things military and all actions taken under orders from On High are not answerable to Congress or the Courts. What the heck?

[...]the memo presents "legal doctrines ... that could render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful." Foremost, the lawyers rely on the "commander-in-chief authority," concluding that "without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority" to wage war. Moreover, "any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the commander-in-chief authority in the president," the lawyers advised.

Likewise, the lawyers found that "constitutional principles" make it impossible to "punish officials for aiding the president in exercising his exclusive constitutional authorities" and neither Congress nor the courts could "require or implement the prosecution of such an individual."

Which would seem to indicate that even if Rumsfeld signatures are found on document giving the go-ahead to torture Abu Ghraib detainees, it is not possible for anyone short of the president to do anything about it. In fact, the only recourse seems to be to impeach the President and hope the Vice President gets the message. If such a document IS found, and Rumsfeld does NOT step down, and Bush shows no sign of sacking him, then Congress would have a very good case for an impeachment.

But, as I've said before, an impeachment is not very likely at all. Even with overwhelming evidence. The election to too darned close.

Which brings up another point. As this blogger cites from this source:

The key question for the next five months, then, becomes how far the administration will go. An elevated threat level justifying martial law and postponement of the election? No doubt such suggestions will seem too alarmist to those trusting that there is a moral line, somewhere, that the president and his senior advisers would not cross. I regret very much to note that their behavior over the past three years leaves me doubtful that there is such a line.

The doctrine of overwhelming executive power is something that, oh the irony, will catch in the craw of Reagan-era Republicans as a big intrusion of government into the running of the citizen's lives. I consider such a postponement to be politically unsupportable, to the point that even GOP House members would be calling for impeachment unless there was a damned good reason that everyone could see and agree upon. We don't have to worry about that much, but such would be the way a military dictatorship could be set up in this country.

Watching how this report's discovery plays in the media and in national discourse will be a very fascinating thing.

Number 40, 1911-2004

I was watching an WNBA game when the network broke in to announce the death of Ronald Reagan. On this day of historical awareness, it does seem appropriate we'd get a famous death. The anniversary of D-day is this weekend, and that has all the cable channels running WWII programming. There is a real chance at a triple crown winner in horse-racing, something that hasn't happened since before Reagan was president.

The years of the Reagan presidency saw me from kindergarten through to Jr. High. Impressionable years for a politically aware child like I was raised to be. Being the good democrats that we were, we witnessed the sinking of two hopefuls; including a president I had impressed upon at a very early age. Including the largest electoral-vote majority ever enjoyed by a winning candidate, though we resided in the one state that went blue in that election.

Now the eulogizing begins. When Nixon died suddenly he was a great power, a person who made a positive impression on the world. This continues our long tradition of not publicly speaking ill of the dead. Just as Nixon got us out of Vietnam, Reagan arguably set up the Soviet Union to fall as it did under H. W. Bush and relieve the world of the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction. Since Reagan hadn't been accused as Nixon had, there will be less history to dance around.

I'm fairly sure that this event will cause the Belmont to be dedicated to the memory of Ronald Reagan. I'm still not sure why he rated an airport, considering he fired all the Air Traffic Controllers while president. And so it continues.

Sex ed, or lack of it

Reproductive information has been taught a number of ways in our public schools over the years. From our grandparents day when the topic wasn't even touched until you were on a medical track, to the children of the 1980's when such education was at its most dense. Note, this was over a decade ago.

Yes, we've stepped backwards in the quality of education we provide our children. At least, when it comes to sexual health. The paranoia about all things sex has pervaded even this public health institution and rolled back gains that had been made in the past. It is now up to the parents to tell their children about sexual health beyond the current curriculum of:

• Contraceptive failure rates in both preventing pregnancy and disease transmission
• Reproductive biology
• Exactly what raving never-get-overs you can get from having sex, and what they can do to you

Note, if you will, what is not in that list:

• How to use contraception
• Where to get contraception other than condoms
• Transmission methods other than the obvious, and what can be done to mitigate them
• Information on how/where to get tested for diseases
• Resources for girls who find themselves pregnant

And that doesn't even include information that is useful to have, but even liberal parents would think twice about teaching in public school:

• What kinds of things happen, biologically, during sex
• Real data, it does exist, on the frequency of masturbation in teens
• More detailed information about the changes experienced in puberty
• Actual coverage of homosexuality

The overriding goals of public health when it comes to educating kids about sex and puberty are to prevent that sexual activity for as long as possible, and make sure that when it does happen it is for the right reasons. Abstinence is the only truly effective method, you just can't be safe any other way. In the end, things like the Pill, condoms, and diaphrams are just as effective as the rhythm method at preventing pregnancy and disease.

Which is complete hogwash.

The theory is: Since you can't be 100% effective, you may as well not do it at all

A noble goal, but reality says it doesn't work. Communism is a nice idea, but there are certain biases in the system and in humanity that make it not really work out when implemented. Kids will have sex. Some data:

Education Week. Washington: Feb 11, 2004. Vol. 23, Iss. 22; pg. 1, 2 pgs

The abstinence-only message does appear to be lost on some students, judging from an evaluation released last month of an abstinence program called Minnesota Education Now and Babies Later, administered by the state health department and financed in part by the federal government.

In the evaluation, 316 students who were taught the curriculum in 2001 completed pre- and post-curriculum questionnaires. The study compared the responses on those two questionnaires. Among the findings:

* Forty-one percent of students said on the post-curriculum survey that they would tell a girlfriend or boyfriend "no sex," compared with 54 percent of respondents to the pre-curriculum survey.

* Fifty-six percent on the second survey said they would avoid risky situations such as drinking or going into a bedroom, compared with 65 percent on the earlier questionnaire.

* Sixty-five percent who had completed the curriculum reported they would say "no" to sex, compared with 76 percent beforehand.

And the percentage of students who reported having sex doubled, from 6 percent to 12 percent, according to the evaluation, which was requested by the state and conducted by an outside data-analysis company.

Really, what's happening is that kids might be having sex later, but not scads later. And when they do have sex, it doesn't use the contraceptive techniques that reduce the risk of pregnancy and disease. The large majority of kids will have sex before they are 18, that just happens.

Clearly what we need to do is resume the teaching of safer sex techniques. No, it is not 100% effective, but neither are bike-helmets. They reduce the risk. They allow you to manage that risk. While the average age of first sexual activity might drop a few months, I'm willing to bet that the overall infection rate will actually be reduced.

SMUT!

Once again, a move is afoot to de-smut television. In an effort to better define the word, the FCC may reinstate a rule, the name of which escapes me, dropped in 1982 that defined a minimum baseline standard for decency. Presumably this move is being taken in response to criticism over what is decency on broadcast. The more important feature of this new rule is that it'll apply to Cable operators and not just broadcast.

Cable has always enjoyed certain freedoms not allowed to the big TV networks (CBS/ABC/NBC, and more recently, FOX, WB, UPN). In yet another move to Protect Our Children from that which is harmful to them, we get another round of censorship for our own good. The US maintains its puritanical roots in our culture, and wow does it show sometimes. The broadcast standards in most of the EU-countries are f-a-r more permissive than what we allow, and these nations are our peers and some are fellow G8 members.

Access to 'adult' material by adults is something that is greatly impacted by these moves. As a person in my majority I have the right to view pretty much anything without governmental interference. Problem is, I have to prove I'm an adult before viewing some of it and that barrier is a hard thing to really do effectively in media.

Bravo has recently run a mini-series called TV Revolution that details the evolution of several topics in television, one of which is sex and its portrayal. From the 1950's Ward & June sleeping in separate beds, to the 1990's Married: With Children. It is a very good guide to the evolution of how sexual relationships are presented in the media. Such as the first "both feet on the bed" bedroom scene was in the 1990's.

Unfortunately, until we get to the point where the cable-box can intelligently know the ages of everyone in front of the tee vee we're going to have to apply the 'most restrictive policy' to viewing. And that restrictive policy applies to that voracious sponge of a brain contained in your average 5 year old. And as we all know, knowing too much about sex or violence at an early age can cause harm.

*ahem*

To use the epidemiology model, sometimes referred to as 'memes', let me follow this one out. Knowledge is a communicable disease. There are more than one way such know-how can be passed on from person to person.

My parents, like may of their peers, tried to limit certain influences on my developing brain. Things such as gun play, no swearing, and other such GoodParent things of the time. It worked pretty good until my sister and I started coming into daily contact with other kids. And more specifically, other kids whose parents weren't as restrictive as mine. As such, while it took until fourth or fifth grade to learn what the Seven Dirty Words really meant, I knew what they all were by first grade (plus a few more that were depreciated with age, like 'fart'). Several uncouth characters on my bus to school further helped our cultural education, further helped by a good dosing of recess.

Kids these days have a few more things working against the parents:

• Marketers who learned how to market to kids (and not to the parents of kids, key difference) on me, and thus have decades of experience at it
• The wilds of the internet
• The fusion of Japanese Anime culture into the mainstream, something us adults didn't generally grow up with, and may not know how to deal with

On recommendation of friends, my sister and I used to sneak viewings of The Dukes of Hazard, a show both parents found morally disturbing on a number of levels. The underground information superhighway it still alive and well in our schools, trafficking in blackmarket information not approved by The Powers That Be. In my parents day it was the usual things plus a solid rumor mill regarding sex and its mechanics, something that is somewhat alleviated by Sex Ed in modern times (this alone is the topic of another rant).

Ideally, Parents would be the ultimate arbiters of what goes into their children's heads. But in this consumer culture that is patently, and absolutely, not possible. Until the time where we can V-Chip brains, we're not going to get that. The media will continue to be sanitized in order to preserve the rights of parents to raise their kids how they may, and thus greatly increase the barriers to consumption of the racy stuff for the rest of us.