”God Save the Queen!” A notable sentiment when expressed in red spray paint on asphalt in Utica, Michigan.
    What motivation could lead the painter of this message to scribe thusly? A further fifty yards down the street I found a discarded CDR, with no label. I thought that perhaps the content of the disk was related to the Anglophilic roadway notation. I took it home and upon inserting it in my wife’s iBook was notified that I’d discovered someone’s copy of the soundtrack for the movie “Armageddon”.
    The Movie’s title closely matched the CD’s content, which heavily favors Steven Tyler and Steven Tyler derivatives. Note from the list below that the single nod to modernity contained therein was the overplayed and craptastic song Starseed, by Our Lady Peace.

    Neither the movie nor its soundtrack are British, but the shedding of the soundtrack might have been one of the steps the anonymous scrawler took on the road to psuedo-Brittanianism.

    “England, I cast aside Steven Tyler and turn to YOU! Love in my heart, and God Save the Queen!”

    Armageddon: the Original Motion Picture
    Track list:

• I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing – Aerosmith
• Remember Me – Journey
• What Kind Of Love Are You On – Aerosmith
• La Grange – ZZ Top
• Roll Me Away – Bob Seger
• When The Rainbow Comes – Shawn Colvin
• Sweet Emotion – Aerosmith
• Mister Big Time – Jon Bon Jovi
• Come Together – Aerosmith
• Wish I Were You – Patty Smyth
• Starseed – Our Lady Peace
• Leaving On A Jet Plane – Chantal Kreviazuk*
• Theme From Armageddon – Trevor Rabin
• Animal Crackers – Steven Tyler

* Kreviazuk is such an interesting name. This track was not. Lazy alt-folk-rock crap with nary an intriguing accent. Kind of Natalie Imbruglia-esque. Wierd, that was an interesting name, too….

    As with many of her baby and toddler toys, we’d long since cocooned them in plastic and shelved it either in the basement or in the attic. Along with other age appropriate toys and clothes, we got the Chaos Garden out of storage for Riley (who is now almost 1 year old).

    The Chaos Garden is a platform made of counter-rotating disks upon which plastic toys can tumble from disk to disk in figure S and 8 patterns, clattering and tumbling as they go. You really can’t have a conversation when it is activated, nor can you think about anything other than the noise and lights.

    We’d set it up for Riley when Samantha came down the stairs and spied it.

    ”What’s that?” Sam ran over and squatted in front of it, examining the inactive thing.
    ”Its the Twirlin’ Whirlin’ Garden,” I said as she pressed the blue button, throwing the noisy thing into action. Clattering and tumbling ensued. All non-Chaos Garden thought began to grind to a halt. I managed to get out “you used to love it, Sam.”
    She gazed at the flashing lights and spinning disks and whispered, “….I still do.”

* Picture is posted. Enjoy the sight!

    You’ve all made it clear that my left foot is probably a subject best left unattended, regardless of how important it is to me. Upon sober reflection, I’ve come to agree with you, although I’m interested in any suggestions as to how to remedy the situation.
    Topical solutions didn’t help, even with aloe vera and lye. The fragrant result might have been more interesting to smell but I still beat the left foot at checkers three out of three times*.
    In any case, I’d like to turn your attention to my right foot. Please examine the included photograph before considering your response.

* I kinged it once by accident, having lost my balance somewhere around the third turn. At that time I obtained a bean-bag chair for additional stability, moving the checkerboard to the top of a rough wooden sheet of plywood which had been exiled to the garage for political reasons.

The following is a happy-birthday reprint of my ode to the Olsen’s from 2005. If you missed it then, it’s knew to ewe. I’ve updated it, so it may merit a re-scan.

     I don’t care that they are annoying, or vapid, or talentless, or fraternal, or possibly animatronic. I don’t hate them for that. No one forces me to see their movies, I never watched the damn TV show (primarily because Dave Coulier and Bob Saget make me itch and cast about nervously for automatic weapons) and I am not compelled by law to join their official fan club. No one forces me to deal with the Olsen twins of our decade.

     But yet I want to climb into a time machine with a bent pipe, travel back to 1992 and strike them about the head and shoulders repeatedly until they are dead. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no sadist; I wouldn’t do it happily, no. It would be hard on everyone involved, including their parents and myself. I might need counseling after I returned to 2007 with their Olsenite* blood dripping off my hands and bent pipe.

     But at least I would never have had to hear the records they made in 1992 when they were seven years old. A lifetime living with haunting memories of their pitiful screams for mercy would be worth it to never have ever listened to…well…

     See, we have this thing called Sirius Satellite Radio and amongst the music and news stations it offers is a children’s station called, “Kid’s Stuff.” It plays nice songs by the Muppets, School House Rock, the Animaniacs, Trout Fishing in America and all sorts of kiddie music acts you may or may not be familiar with. I’m fine with them all. Sam enjoys it so much that she might not constantly whine when the car ride exceeds ten minutes, and I can sing most of those songs along with her for extra parental delightedness.

     ”Kid’s Stuff” has a dark side, though. Occasionally a painful exercise in tympanum torture emerges from their otherwise agreeable music catalog and you find yourself treated to *shudder* Veggie Tales, the Wiggles, or even Barney the Dinosaur**.
    The absolute worst thing I’ve ever heard, however, even when considering air-raid sirens and the mating calls of feral cats as logical alternatives, is Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen singing “Brother for Sale,” “I’m the Cute One,” “Desperate for a Dog,” or “Identical Twins***.”

    Sam, unfortunately, likes hearing their little voices lie about being identical twins or tell us that their brother is only worth 50 cents. So I let Sam listen, and I slowly grind the enamel off of my molars and shake with barely contained rage.

If I had a bent pipe… Wait, found one!
…
      …Now, if I only had a time machine,

* Olsenite is an extraterrestrial radioactive element which reduces Jimmy Olsen to an even weaker and more ineffective supporting character to Superman. Under the influence of Olsenite, Jimmy usually just naps under the billowing cape and tentatively eats his own camera film.
** I often fantasize about Barney the Dinosaur and Dorothy the Dinosaur fighting over the corpse of a Triceratops.
*** Filthy lie of a title! Mary Kate and Ashley are actually fraternal twins. Lying little hussies.
**** My birthday was June 7! I’m 35. Samantha’s birthday was June 8! She’s 6.

The Holy Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminology, 1978

    An epiphany! A rebirth! I have become a new profit*! Through a chance encounter at a library book sale, a stranger drew my attention to this book by standing next to it and adjusting his hem. He was wearing a “Dog” T-shirt; knowing that the Dyslexicographic Theology Department** of St. Bernard’s Jesuit Academy considers that to be the true name of the divine ‘other’, I paid heed. As soon as he left the room for the sanctuary of the men’s lavatory, I stepped through the remaining cloud of sandalwood vapor and drew this tome from the stack.
    I knew it for what it was as soon as it rested in the palm of my hands. A holy book, the scripture of the new age. It is ideal.
    What it lacks for in narrative, it makes up for in declarative statements, which is the standard by which the best holy writs are judged. This is a troubled time we live in, with terrorism, internet porn, underage drinking, happy-slapping, American Idol and the inexplicable popularity of Rachel Ray all challenging the morality of our society. It becomes difficult to find meaning and direction when we are presented with so many conflicting messages.
    I think the Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminology 1978 can bring clarity to our lives, can offer peace where it cannot offer direction, and bring anachronistic technobabble when we need it most. So it is that I present you with today’s reading:

Teletype exchange–The exchange services such as TELEX or TWX, which provide direct-dial point-to-point connections using Teletype equipment. Facilities are also available to allow computers to ineterface through these services.

    What is the Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminology 1978 telling us here? I, your humble profit, will do my best to interpret the ancient writings.
    We, alone, are all just isolated pieces of teletype equipment. Our vaccuum powered hammers lay still, with nothing to say and no way to offer anything to anyone else. We have no message. That is, we have no message until we reach out to one another by direct-dial and form point-to-point connections using TWX/TELEX. With the point-to-point connection established with our fellow teletype machines we can receive news and information from eachother, directions from those higher up in our organizational heirarchy, and perhaps even conduct business transactions for the betterment of all***. We can send love to eachother through direct-dial, and feed off one another’s strengths.
    So go! Form a connection to the TWX/TELEX system and show them you are Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminologians by your love… by your love. They will know you are Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminologians by your love.

* I know what I said.
** Theology temnrepaDt, as their official letterhead reads.
*** All with a financial stake in the business in question during said transaction, providing that any such transaction produces a positive revenue entry or provides profit, that is.
**** This isn’t the first time I’ve started a new church. See Church of the Holy Secretions for details on my previous avocation.

    Ten years ago, if someone asked me if I thought that my country, the United States of America, would torture a prisoner in the course of an interrogation, I would grant that, perhaps, a rogue CIA agent might. But he or she would be acting on their own, and would be punished if caught.

    That torture would not only become a tacitly admitted policy of our government, nearing official endorsement and debated openly by Presidential     hopefuls on broadcast television seems like a side note from a dystopic William Gibson novel.

    In a future world where people have computer interfaces in     their molars and buy cheap knock-off organ replacements in back alleys, torture would seem a plausible part of the American way. But, I thought, not in my real-world land of self-evident rights and constitutionally mandated freedoms.

    I evidently thought wrong. First, Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo several years ago claiming that the Geneva conventions on torture are obsolete. A year or so later anti-torture legislation introduced in congress almost gets vetoed and is dismissed as “unnecessary” by the President and many like-minded Americans.

    Most recently, on May 16, during a televised GOP debate, an elaborately constructed story was presented to the amazing assemblage of old, white men in order to get a bead on their torture stances*. While the scenario seemed like the synopsis of a rejected TV pilot, it did effectively present the closest thing to a no-brainer for torture I’ve seen bandied about on prime time television.

    Convoluted plots aside, the question presented to the candidates ultimately was: do you think torture should be used if you thought that doing so was the only way to prevent the death of innocent civilians? Should there be a law allowing the torture?

    During the debate John McCain stuck to his guns, doing a little robot dance while declaring the utter unacceptability of torture under any circumstances. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, not only seemed enthusiastic about the prospect of torture, but tossed in his support for the recent suspension of habeas corpus for good measure by saying, “I want them in Guantanamo where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil.” He followed that up by proposing they double the size of the Guantanamo prison. That would help them shorten the waiting list, I suppose.

    In any case it was Giuliani that finally made me come to this essay’s titular position. Basically, he waffled. He walked right up to the line of endorsing torture and….drooled stupidly on it. Interrogators should “use every method they could think of,” he stammered, “Shouldn’t be torture, but every method they can think of.”

    Obviously he was working with a different interpretation of the word “every” than I’m most comfortable with, but he’s from New York, has guest starred on Saturday Night Live several times, and therefore is the recipient of my rare and coveted benefit-of-the-doubt. This sort of don’t-ask-don’t-tell torture policy seems duplicitous, but it illuminates the fact that these men, each of whom would happily vow to gladly give their life for this country, have no intention of laying their freedom on the line in the service of the public good.

    Of course you would torture the prisoner if it would save innocent lives. Should you ship him to Guantanimo first? No, that seems like a waste of time. Torture him in the nearest Holiday Inn for all I care. But I would NOT legalize torture. It should be highly illegal. It should carry mandatory, heavy jail sentences. If the torture should result in death, then it should be considered a capital offense.

    This would make the use of torture a sort of personal policy of mutual destruction whereby every person who engages in the torture of a suspect not only knows that they will likely go to prison for the rest of their productive lives but should go gladly, without fuss, pleading guilty as charged to every judge that he or she meets along the way. You don’t get a free pass, and there should be no law that will protect you.

    If I would ask a police officer, a fireman, or a soldier to put themselves in harms way–even to die–for citizens like me, then shouldn’t I ask our interrogators to put themselves in legal jeopardy for us as well?

    If you legalize torture under any circumstances, then you tempt authority to abuse the power you’ve given it. You would need to put in place regulatory mechanisms to ensure that torture isn’t being used under false or inadequate pretenses. Such regulatory mechanisms would either be expensive or ineffective and neither of those are the kinds of regulatory mechanisms we can afford.

    Besides which, even if you satisfy the American public that torture isn’t being abused, you establish a precedent by which we, as a country, lose our ability to act as credible protesters of the human rights violations of others on the world stage. Pots can’t get away with calling kettles black, says the cliché machine. And I tend to agree with it when I’m the one driving. It would be better, I think, to be able to state unequivocally that torture is illegal. Problem solved; no regulatory requirements, no kettles crying foul.

    By making torture the legal equivalent of jumping on a grenade thrown into a crowd, you instill the appropriate amount of reticence and respect that the use of torture deserves. If you fear that this would make an interrogator lax in his or her duty and that he or she would allow “the bomb” to go off just because they don’t want to go to prison then I say to you that such a selfish agent is the EXACT kind of person I would not want to give a free pass to. By refusing to take the legal bullet they’ve proven themselves to not be sufficiently committed to the good of the country to be trusted with that kind of power.

    So what if torture was the only way to save the lives of innocent people? I would take a real bullet to save the lives of my family. So why wouldn’t I take a judicial bullet, too? I would torture the terrorist. I would get the information necessary to save the lives of my fellow humans.

    And I would go to jail for the rest of my life, every year of which would be bittersweet, but justified. If you would die for this country, you should be willing to go to prison for it, too.

* My torture stance is a kind-of a kung fu pose, normally assumed with a feather duster in one hand and a knotted length of barbed wire running through a bent-pipe in the other. Think Bruce Lee meets Marquis de Sade.