Know Your (potential) Candidates, YouTube edition

Meet the Democratic party frontrunners,

Mr. Barack Obama:



Mrs. Hillary Clinton:



and for the Republicans,

Mr. John McCain:





I don't think any further elaboration is necessary. I did, however, take the liberty of playing all of them at once, and recording the result. Think of it as an audio landscape of the current political situation:

Listen or Download (but be warned, it sounds a bit like the screaming of a thousand superdelegates, so turn the volume way down)

The Notion of Sin?

In an interesting article, the Vatican speaks on the issue of sin as viewed in modern society: USA Today - Has the 'notion of sin' been lost?

"[Pope Benedict XVI] says the modern world 'is losing the notion of sin.' And not just personal sins such as greed, lust or the rest of the infamous Seven Deadlies, but social sins, too, such as polluting the planet or allowing injustice to flourish."


So, does this show the Vatican recognizing the importance and gravity of 'social sins,' congruent with their issuing new sins for the 21st century?

Or is it more worrisome that fewer and fewer people seem to be concerned with the notion of sin in the present day? In that case, is this just the Vatican struggling to remain relevant in the current era?

We may be a long way from the Holy Roman Empire and such extreme wieldings of Vatican power, but there's still a lot to be said for the power of religion on the international field. We here in a nominally secular nation all too easily forget the weight given to it in many other nations, and thus forget the power it can give and take if nudged.

Treating the Symptom, Treating the Problem

There's this increasingly disturbing trend- and, for disclaimer's sake, maybe it's nothing new and has been around forever. I don't want to accept it as simply human nature, though, because that makes it sound cemented, unchangeable, when this is something that can and does change.

We, as an American culture at the very least, have a bad habit of looking to the symptoms when we should be looking at the problem. To our credit, the symptoms are often simpler, perhaps easier to confront in a straightforward manner, but in the long-run they don't cure the disease.

The best example of this in recent moments is probably Iraq. We spent the first few years there trying to bolster our technology, our armaments, and when did it finally start working?
When we started making use of human resources- forging agreements with local leaders, giving out soccer balls to Iraqi youths, employing anthropologists to try to understand the local culture and conflicts therein.

To put it simply, when we started using our brains to delve towards the source of conflict, rather than our fists to go after the expressions of the conflict.


On a note that strikes quite a bit closer-to-home, the rash of school-shootings over the last year has been extremely disturbing (particularly to those of us, myself included, living in college dorms).

So what's being proposed to deal with it? more fists.*


"The lawmaker, State Senator Karen S. Johnson, has sponsored a bill, which the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week, that would allow people with a concealed weapons permit — limited to those 21 and older here — to carry their firearms at public colleges and universities."

The way I see it, this is outrageous. The way to change this problem is to look at the factors that seem to cause it, and I don't mean the stereotypical "rock music and violent video games" argument, but deeper causes. Look at levels of perceived isolation in college-age people from a variety of backgrounds. Look at interpersonal communication and conflict-resolution skills, the sort of things that our largely raised-on-TV generation has missed out on.

Look at options more meaningful, and more likely to be effective, than arming the people least prepared to respond in a confrontation. If you're going to address the symptom-side of things, do so by practicing evacuation and alert-messaging procedures.

Yes, the police take too long to respond, but the trade-off is that they're the ones trained to deal with that situation. Teachers, staff, and older students are not, repeat NOT, the ones who should be tasked with confronting that problem. They have neither the tactical nor mental training to do so, and allowing them to be armed without addressing the deeper social problems is only going to increase violent crime in schools.

Okay, rant over. I just had to get that out. Here's to a day when our kneejerk reactions will yield to reasoned and subtler reaction.


*: I'm fairly certain this is not a bill that would ever get passed, but the fact that it exists and is getting media facetime is worrisome enough in and of itself.

"New York City Example"

I'm about to run out the door to attend a lecture and lunch with a member of the Egyptian parliament, but have got time for one quick post.

This came to my attention earlier today. While it's surely made the internet-rounds before, the idea is too chilling not to re-post here.

The premise is a 150-kiloton* nuclear detonation in the center of Manhattan. They analyze, in what appears to be a pretty scientifically accurate manner, the damage done to human life and city infrastructure.

All in all, tt's fairly terrifying, and they have one for Detroit and one for San Francisco as well, here.

*: Consider that the largest U.S. warhead is capable of up to 1.2 megaton payloads. (Wikipedia - B83 nuclear bomb))



What's that old quote, about World War 4 being fought with sticks and stones?