RevSpork

Burning Questions - Now rated G

1. What, to you, is the perfect pop song? (This need not be your favorite song, or even a song you particularly like.)

2. Where *does* the time go?

3. You were born blind. Describe the concept of "green."

4. You were born deaf. Describe the concept of "James Brown."

5. Happiness is the splice of life. What the hell am I talking about?

6. Has the Democratic primary turned into one big snoozefest where the media is so desperate to spice it up, they'll dig up anything even remotely related to the candidates, as long as it's negative and will stir up American voters for a full three seconds before switching over to the Food Network? Or does the fact that nobody seems to care about the primaries anymore even faze the media anymore? Am I paranoid to believe the media is conspiring with the Bush administration to make the election so boring, Americans will throw up their hands in disgust, let Bush and Cheney cancel the election, and gladly live under martial law as long as the government promises not to axe "Dancing with the Stars?"

7. Or is it past my bedtime?

"But what about the children?"

What disturbs me most about the whole flap with Texas child welfare officials taking the 450-odd children away from the families at the fundamentalist Mormon compound in Texas are people's complaints about taking the kids away from their parents. "Why punish the mothers and children?" they plead. Yes, the Texas police and child welfare agencies could have handled this a little better, but they were caught in an impossible situation. How do you address a child abuse complaint when an entire religious community's laws allow, even sanction, sexual abuse of children?

Obviously, the situation is more complicated than that - far more complicated. And most people, when faced with a complex problem, tend to eliminate smaller but still critical elements of the problem in order to simplify it. I believe, however, these kids are better off in the long run outside of the El Dorado compound than inside.

Why do I believe this? First, a couple of questions:

Polite suicides

They're very considerate, these Japanese folk, even when committing suicide by inhaling toxic fumes.

There's something oddly touching about these people, which I think is not uncommon to those with suicidal impulses. Sure, there are those suicidal types whose self-absorption and narcissism are so complete, they don't care who they destroy, emotionally or literally, on their way out of the mortal world. But for many of us with (or, in my case, once had) suicidal impulses, we would rather simply disappear with as little inconvenience as possible. If we could simply vaporize while simultaneously selectively scrubbing the minds of those who knew us of any knowledge of our existence, we would take this route gladly. But that's simply not an option, so what these Japanese suicides did was give warning the only way they could. Is it pathetic? Sure. Does it come close to compensating for their actions? No. But hey, they tried.

Polite suicides are still suicides. But these suicides are somehow more poignant, more honest. Although there may have been suicide notes with the victim, the "Poisonous gas being emitted. Caution" sign reveals a simpler desire: one could translate it as "Don't join me." Or even simpler, "Leave me alone."

Life in prison sounds pretty attractive, but what's the point?

CNN.com reported this morning that the cheerleaders who beat the living crap out of another girl and taped it for YouTube could face life in prison for assault, battery, and kidnapping. Sounds good to me, but it won't happen.

Already there's been a copycat crime, indicating teens are not the least bit disturbed by the possibilities of serious jail time. Come on, this is exciting, and we can get on YouTube, and people from all over the world will see it. So what if we get caught?

Define "special"

This is a dating service?