Marietta, Ohio, my home town has that kind of we-don’t-lock-our-doors-at-night ambiance. Neighbors watch out for each other and kids play in the streets.

That pastoral image got knocked in the mud this morning as I was driving to the Phoenix Coffee House on Mayfield Road. Listening to WCPN I heard a report on car thefts in Ohio. The numbers are down, possible due to lower population or newer cars, said the reporter (although the report does factor population, reporting a theft rate per 100,000 people), across Ohio.

Except, the story concluded, in Marietta, Ohio.

Marietta? Car theft capital of Ohio?

Not really, but it is part of the only metropolitan statistical area in the state where car thefts increased, rising from 127 (a rate of 78.92) in 2008 to 149 (a rate of 92.60) in 2009. (Compare to a rate of 313.11 in Cleveland for 2009.)

Marietta is small, really small, with only 14,515 souls, yet it is the middle bit of the three communities that make up the Parkersburg/Marietta/Vienna MSA. Parkersburg, (the third largest city in West Virginia) has a population of 33,099 and Vienna, West Virginia, just north of Parkersburg, has 10,681 residents.

The report doesn’t say how many cars were stolen on the other side of the river.

I’ll watch to see what the Marietta Times reports today.

A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghan desert when he saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the object, only to find a little old Jewish man at a small stand selling ties.

The Taliban asked, “Do you have water?”

The Jewish man replied, “I have no water. Would you like to buy a tie? They are only $5.”

The Taliban shouted, “Idiot! I do not need an over-priced tie. I need water! I should kill you, but I must find water first!”

“OK,'” said the old Jewish man, “it does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie and that you hate me. I will show you that I am bigger than that. If you continue over that hill to the east for about two miles you will find a lovely restaurant. It has all the ice cold water you need. Shalom.”

Muttering, the Taliban staggered away over the hill.

Several hours later he staggered back, almost dead.

‘Your fucking brother won’t let me in without a tie!

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Humility helps me keep myself in perspective . When my humility is in good order, both success and failure become easier to take. I”m able to recognize that the fate of empires does not hinge upon my work. I can see then that my writing will never be perfect, and that perfection is not a goal to which I can legitimately aspire. All I ever have to do is the best I can. p. 249

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

I take as a good sign that I have three books on my nightstand from three women writing about Myanmar. I’ve finished one, started the second and I’m looking forward to the third: Mac McClelland’s For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question; Emma Larkin’s Everything Is Broken and Karen Connelly’s Burmese Lessons The reviewers write:

It’s time the world understood what’s going on in Burma. It has more child soldiers than any other country in the world, the CIA had its first secret war there, and it’s also home to the Darfur you’ve never heard of.

In 2006, Mac McClelland arrived to volunteer in Thailand and found herself unexpectedly living with associates of a US-designated terrorist organization battling Burma’s dictatorship. Her staggering debut explores the world’s longest-running war through her housemates – heavy-drinking refugees who risk their lives documenting their government’s secret ethnic-cleansing campaign.

Intensely engaging and extraordinarily researched, For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question: A Story from Burma’s Never-Ending War is a hybrid of literary journalism, popular history, and personal narrative about the war in Burma between ethnic Karen guerrillas and the Burmese junta. Breakthrough details on how the US helps fund the war are exposed, as are America’s historical entanglements in the country.

In 2010 Burma’s military junta will hold its first governmental elections in 20 years, likely in the spring. It will undoubtedly end in corruption, public outcry, and worldwide media attention. For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question holds critical insight into a torn country that is set to explode onto the international news scene in the coming months and presents McClelland as a unique, expert voice.

And,

Emma Larkin (Finding George Orwell in Burma), an American journalist writing under a pseudonym, reports on the unreported (and suppressed) story of the May 2008 cyclone Nargis, which devastated southwestern Burma, causing over 100,000 deaths.

Larkin, who has been covering the country for the past 15 years, visited Burma immediately after the storm to collect testimonies of the cyclone survivors and the horrific destruction they witnessed. Many of their harrowing stories surpass the images of the 2004 tsunami and the Haiti earthquake in terms of utter hopelessness, partly because the government did little to nothing to help cyclone victims, initially refused international disaster aid, and willfully withheld information about survivors and their needs.

Once the regime began to allow aid into the country, weeks after the disaster, it siphoned off funds to fill its own coffers. With indefatigable shoe-leather journalism – she visits decimated villages one by one, even while hampered by her tenuous visa status and the government’s suppression of free speech and the free press – Larkin reconstructs what happened in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis and indicts the insulated regime for creating a desperately untenable situation for its people.

And,

When Karen Connelly goes to Burma in 1996 to gather information for a series of articles, she discovers a place of unexpected beauty and generosity. She also encounters a country ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that imposes a code of censorship and terror. Carefully seeking out the regime”s critics, she witnesses mass demonstrations, attends protests, interviews detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and flees from police. When it gets too risky for her to stay, Connelly flies back to Thailand, but she cannot leave Burma behind.

Connelly”s interest in the political turns more personal on the Thai-Burmese border, where she falls in love with Maung, the handsome and charismatic leader of one of Burma”s many resistance groups. After visiting Maung”s military camp in the jungle, she faces an agonizing decision: Maung wants to marry Connelly and have a family with her, but if she marries this man she also weds his world and his lifelong cause. Struggling to weigh the idealism of her convictions against the harsh realities of life on the border, Connelly transports the reader into a world as dangerous as it is enchanting.

In radiant prose layered with passion, regret, sensuality and wry humor, Burmese Lessons tells the captivating story of how one woman came to love a wounded, beautiful country and a gifted man who has given his life to the struggle for political change.

From the IronShrink:

A Methodology Critique in Defense of Those Wascally Wepublicans

You may have heard the news by now. People who hold conservative political opinions are suffering from a syndrome in need of a cure. How do we know this? Because a professor of psychology has demonstrated it to be so. The news has been getting a lot of press lately.

Since his graduate school days, John T. Jost, who currently holds position as an Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University, has been studying the reasons by which people adopt conservative political ideology. His most publicized achievement is a 2003 article titled Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (from here on out, I”ll refer to it as “the study.”) It was touted in the February issue of Psychology Today (Dixit, 2007) as, “the most comprehensive review of personality and political orientation to date.”

Don”t confuse comprehensiveness with integrity. The study maligns half of the U.S. population and much of the population of the world. Research resulting in mass vilification always causes the Iron Shrink to raise an eyebrow, so I examined the methodology that the authors used to arrive at their conclusion. Regular readers will know that I have little tolerance for intellectual sloppiness.

Regular readers will also know that it is not my habit to tear down the work of others. Doing so takes little talent and too much of that sort of thing rightfully drives people away. But at times, one must defend the integrity of one”s profession.

Keep reading…

Previously…

From Time:

Led by Maryse Bouchard in Montreal, researchers based at the University of Montreal and Harvard University examined the potential relationship between ADHD and exposure to certain toxic pesticides called organophosphates. The team analyzed the levels of pesticide residues in the urine of more than 1,100 children aged 8 to 15 years old, and found that those with the highest levels of dialkyl phosphates, which are the breakdown products of organophosphate pesticides, also had the highest incidence of ADHD. Overall, they found a 35% increase in the odds of developing ADHD with every 10-fold increase in urinary concentration of the pesticide residues. The effect was seen even at the low end of exposure: kids who had any detectable, above-average level of the most common pesticide metabolite in their urine were twice as likely as those with undetectable levels to record symptoms of the learning disorder.

Yet another reason to buy organic.

The driving manual says the average driver’s reaction time is .75 seconds or 1 car length for every 10 mph. Test your average reaction time.

Be very careful this can be addictive.

My scores…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Let me write what I”m able to respect, and let me respect those people I hope will read it. p. 249

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

I’m serious. Does this principle hold true for you? Based upon you position, how does your belief influence the way you view our criminal justice system?

I really think this is the monster in our closet.

Via Post Secret…

On Thursday I wrote briefly about a congressional move to extend sanctions against the military dictators of Myanmar. I missunderstood what was going on there, interpreting as unitlateral actions that were, in fact, part of an annual renewal of the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act.

What has happened is that President Barack Hussein Obama has notified congress that he has extended the existing sanctions for Myanmar for another year. The pressure is still on, but do the generals feel pressured?

From Voice Of America:

President Barack Obama informed Congress of the decision Friday, saying Burma poses a continuing threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy.

He added that Burma’s actions and policies are hostile to U.S. interests.

The existing sanctions on Burma must be renewed annually. They were set to expire next week.

Despite the sanctions, President Obama has been making an effort to engage the isolated country.

Earlier this week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell visited Burma for a two-day trip, during which he met with leaders of the military junta and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The United States has strongly criticized Burma for upcoming election plans that effectively exclude Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party.

After seven years of sanctions, just what has been accomplished?

Via Post Secret:

The more important lesson is that someone who disagrees with your most deeply held beliefs of what constitutes your reality is not an idiot — a feebleminded person having a mental age not exceeding three years and requiring complete custodial care — but more likely a.) a person who is ignorant (and therefore able to learn); b.) closed minded (or willfully ignorant) or c.) well informed, reasoned and just as passionate about their beliefs as you are.

While a.) and b.) are certainly possible, it is always best to assume c.) until proven wrong.

Tim Russo writes:

So Gomez emailed me that night, then called me twice on Thursday. Alas, I don”t speak to the PD anymore, for some pretty obvious reasons.

This will of course result in Gomez and his editors sexing up the coverage even more than they would have otherwise, perhaps with a little snark about how the transparency candidate won”t talk to them. Call the wahmbulance, Henry. Just because I”m not talking to a duplicitous reporter from a newspaper whose coverage literally results in death threats, doesn”t mean I”m not transparent.

There”s this blog, my old blog home Bloggerinterrupted, my new blog home Plunderbund, I”ve got a Facebook group, the Twitter, there”s my writing in the Independent, there”s my Youtube channel, here”s a story on Huffington Post, hey, even use TEH GOOGLE. If voters want to know all about me, the Tuesday, May 18 print edition of the Plain Dealer is not the only game in town. Sorry.

Or maybe, just maybe, Gomez” piece will surprise me and actually be, you know…journalism. Instead of tabloid sexytime. Not holding my breath.

Note to self: check out Tuesday’s Plain Dealer.

First, in the spirit of this post, I do not believe that everyone who attends a Tea Party event is a teabagger. There are, I’m sure, sincere, intelligent people at these events who are rational, we just don’t hear from them because they’re drowned out by the teabaggers; so much so it is quite possible that soon there will soon be, if it is not already the case, nothing left but teabaggers.

If any of the former wish to engage in a reasoned conversation, I’m all up for that.

In the meantime, I have accumulated over recent years a file containing emails from what I call the wrong wing and the religious wrong that clearly provide aid and comfort to, if not actually engender teabaggers.

My intent to is to allow the crazies to indict themselves with as little comment from me as possible.

I begin with the video:

Yesterday I had a flat tire on the interstate. So I eased my car over to the shoulder of the road, carefully got out of the car and opened the trunk.

I took out two cardboard men, unfolded them and stood them at the rear of my car facing oncoming traffic. They look so lifelike you wouldn’t believe!

They are in trench coats, exposing their nude bodies and private parts to the approaching drivers.

I started to change my tire, and to my surprise, cars started slowing down looking at my lifelike men. And of course, traffic started backing up. Everybody was tooting their horns and waving like crazy. It wasn’t long before a state trooper pulled up behind me.

He got out of his car and started walking towards me. I could tell he was not a happy camper!

“What’s going on here?”

“My car has a flat tire,” I said calmly.

“Well, what the hell are those obscene cardboard men doing here by the road?”

I couldn’t believe that he didn’t know. So I told him, “Hello-o-o-o-o-o, those are my emergency flashers!”

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

TEXT

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

Lightning may strike me here, but reading the news this morning I find myself in disagreement with Aung San Suu Kyi over the legitimacy of the National Democratic Force. Anytime a democratic vote is taken, only those who choose to remain part of the community casting the vote are obligated to abide by the vote.

From Reuters:

Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi criticised a breakaway faction of her now-defunct political party, her lawyer said, after renegade former members set up a party of their own to contest this year’s election.

Suu Kyi’s own National League for Democracy was effectively dissolved after deciding to boycott an upcoming election in the military-ruled southeast Asian country, but several members broke off to create a new opposition party known as the National Democratic Force to participate in polls.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner detained for 15 of the last 21 years, called the splinter group “undemocratic”. Her own party did not register its candidacy on May 7, saying unjust election laws barred many of its senior figures from running.

“Aung San Suu Kyi said that the minority going against the decision unanimously reached by the majority is against democratic practice,” said Suu Kyi’s lawyer, Nyan Win, one of the few people allowed to visit her.

Free people may always vote with their feet.