Ahhh! A loose plastic bag! Call the bomb squad!

Bomb scare in downtown Seattle.

This morning my commute utterly sucked. There was a bomb scare in downtown Seattle at the Federal building. Some idiot had left a package next to the mailboxes. Police described it later as a "canvas bag inside a plastic bag." So even the original story wasn't right: this was just some homeless person's forgotten cast-off.

It completely shut down all traffic around the Federal building, which means shutting down 1st & Western Aves, from around 6am to 8am. That created a horrific snarl and redirected buses off their route, including mine. I had to walk around the damn scene, up two blocks and over, to catch my bus to the office. I was a half hour late.

Set of six photos here.

The Amber Alert people try to scare the living sh*t out of parents

It's a truism of modern life that "do-gooder" institutions, having fulfilled their stated mission to the fullest, do not just have a celebratory party and then go into a maintenance mode to ensure that their gains are not lost in the future.

The canonical example is, of course, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which long ago acheived its original goal of slashing drunk driving to less than half its highest rate, and for tightening the laws regarding drunk driving in all 50 states. Having acheived their goal, MADD looked at the power, authority, and human capital it had accrued over the years and decided, instead, that it was going to find a reason for keeping all of it: the laws had to be ever more harsh, alcohol itself had to be demonized, to justify keeping that budget and political capital.

So now, the Amber Alert people are putting out an ad that talks about that "cold, frightening moment at the playground when you don't know where your child is." It goes on to praise the Amber Alert system

The National Crime Information Center shows that in 2002, the last year for which we have statistics, there were 115 off-the-street abductions and 58,200 child abductions by a non-family member with whom the victim or the victim's family already have some close knowledge. There were 1,547 suicides within the same cohort (2006 data). The vast majority of abductions were of teenage girls, not toddlers at the playground, and in many cases those teenage girls initially got into that car knowing her abductor was about to drive her away from her "old life."

This needless and ill-informing ad campaign by the Amber Alert group isn't helpful. It doesn't do the parents any good; it doesn't tell them what to watch for or whom to really vet. It's irresponsible and nasty: it doesn't tell you what you should really do to protect your children, it only encourages you to participate in ways that justify the Amber Alert's ever-growing budget.

Larry Clark's "Kids": R3pulsiv3, N4sty ttteeen sekz.

Last night, Omaha and I watched the movie Kids, by Larry Clark. It was made in 1995 and is a day-in-the-life film of an amoral fifteen year-old boyfrom an impoverished family whose life goal is to deflower as many virgins as he can get his hand on. The film opens up with Telly (that's his name) seducing a young woman in her bedroom, pledging honesty and fidelity and care, and then walking out on her to his friend Caspar waiting on the street below, at which point the two start talking about her in the most disgusting, manipulative, abusive terms possible.

The opening shot is of Telly and his first victim of the day making out, and it's hard to emphasize just how effectively Clark has succeeded in making teen sexuality repulsive. Telly is gawky and gross, his victim awkward and uncomfortable. Without the lighting, the music, the emotion of trust and affection that exists in long-lasting relationships, the human sex act is somewhat repulsive.

(It makes me wonder how porn survives at all. But porn is different in that it relieves men of the some of the responsibility inherent in real relationships, and its portrayal of women, however crude, can be reassuring to men that yes, there exists a subset of women "like that." Too bad for most men they exist only on the screen. Too bad for most women that men will eternally hope for something different from what those women are able to give.)

After urinating in public and stealing a large bottle of fortified beer, Telly and Caspar end up at a friend's house where an entire crowd of young boys, from around eleven up until early 20's, are sharing marijuana and nitrous oxide. As they start talking shit about the women they've known and what they know about women, the camera turns to another crowd of young girls much closer in age (from around 15 to 18) in a girlish bedroom discussing what they like and don't like about sex, and how little boys really understand.

The camera concentrates on two young women, both of whom are shown in a flahback going for HIV testing the week prior. One woman has had multiple partners, the other, Jenny, has had one: Telly. And the one who's had sex with Telly learns that afternoon that she has HIV. There's only one place she could have gotten it from. Remember, this is in 1995, when having HIV was more or less a death sentence.

The rest of the film follows Telly on his attempt to seduce yet another victim, while Jenny tries to track down Telly, although she's not sure why. Along the way, we see Telly and Caspar steal, cheat, and lie. They buy pot for kids who aren't even through puberty. They get into a fight and nearly kill a man. Jenny makes her way through the city, desperately searching for Telly, and along the way meets people who see her only as a thing. Eventually, stoned on ketamine forced on her by "a friend," Jenny finds Telly at a stoner party.

This is ugly, squirm-in-your-seat viewing. It doesn't matter that the filmography and dialogue are some of the most amazing ever to hit the screen. The scenarios presented, of a childhood without limits, without morals, without guidance of any kind, is so despondent and vile that there were times I wanted to just get up and leave. But I sat through it all, wincing each and every time. The boys were manipulative and awful, the girls weak and poorly equipped to say "no" to every overture, even when they wanted to.

It made me despair for my sex. It made me hate the instincts within all boys. I'm supposed to go to the Rainforest Writer's retreat tomorrow. A lot of my work is about sex and relationships. I don't know if I'll have the stomach for any of it after that movie.

If you're in the mood for spinach cinema (the kind you watch because it's good for you, not necessarily because it's good cinema) (and I resent that phrase because well-cooked spinash is freakin' marvellous), Kids might just be worth the 90 minutes.

Brains: Rush To Judgement!

You must have been living under a rock to have missed the Rush Limbaugh kerfluffle. It's still going on. Rush went to the Conservative Political Action Convention last weekend, where he had a big speech and was more or less lifted up by the attendees as the fatted calf idol of the Republican Party, worthy of worship.

Since then, several prominent Republicans and conservatives have been criticizing Rush for his divisive, inflammatory rhetoric. Party chairman Michael Steele called Rush's speech "ugly" and stated that Rush is "an entertainer, not a leader."

So far, every one of his critics, at least within the party itself, have since issued apologies to Rush and called him "an important voice," "a prominent conservative," "an intellectual powerhouse." And others have rushed in from all sides to defend Limbaugh:

Powerline: Apparently, like Rush's liberal critics, Steele has never actually listened to Rush. Otherwise, it would never occur to him to call Rush's program "ugly."

Malkin: Played right into the Left's hands. Congratulations. This will do wonders for party fund-raising efforts... on the other side

Riehl: It's not easy watching a black guy stumble around in the dark, but really, I'm trying... The Republicans finally get an RNC Chairman of color and all they got was another dumb, potentially too moderate, gutless wonder of a Republican in the end. If nothing else, there is equality in that.

And my favorite, Andrew Breitbart: Anonymous liberal commentators, the rabid pests of the new media, sought out the most popular conservative blogs to flood the zone with familiar Rush Limbaugh slanders. Their goal: To demoralize the right with layer upon layer of media domination. Only talk radio with its emphasis on Socratic debate over raw emotionalism and with Mr. Limbaugh in the driver's seat has escaped the left's clutches of pure media dominance.

(Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan, who says Breitbart "seems to have lost his mind," for a lot of this. I mean, really, talk radio is "Socratic debate over raw emotionalism?" Has he ever even heard talk radio?)

Meanwhile, deep inside the echo chamber, Republicans are decrying the fact that news programs have discussed at length the factual errors in Limbaugh's speech. Limbaugh at one point misquoted the opening of the Declaration of Independence and then stated it was "the Preamble to the Constitution." Pointing out factual errors is, according to Newsbusters, "nasty conservative bashing."

David Frum has gone out on a limb and criticized Rush, and states the obvious. While describing Obama as cool, soft-spoken, and well-versed in the language of responsibility and self-restraint, he says of Rush:

A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy.

Rush has become the Jesse Jackson of the Republican Party: something liberals can use for years to shame more seriously minded conservatives.

Rush, on the other hand, is having a laugh. Frum is right: the worse the party does, the better it is for Limbaugh. It's easier to be the angry voice of the disempowered than it is the responsible voice of leadership. Rush wouldn't know how to lead. As a radio personality, however, he does know how to market himself:

The administration is enabling me. They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama's policies and intentions, a 'story' I own.

And then Matt Yglesias documents the condemnation of Frum from the right.

And if you need a giggle: The Rush Limbaugh Apology Generator.

Personally, I'm enjoying the Rush meltdown. I hope they figure out how to throw him under a bus, and soon, because his lowbrow, nasty variety of autocratic "conservatism" doesn't deserve political power. We need a balanced voice trying to create a vision of America that includes individual sovereignty, a notion paid only lip service (but for the past eight years, curiously better served) by Democratic institutions.

It lives! It LIVES! Muahahahahahah!

Huzzah! I successfully changed the battery and the audio jack on my ipod this evening. It's now gleefully charging up, and by morning I'll be ready to hit the road with 30GB of tunes and a clear drive 'til evening. Rock on, Garth! I'm worried mostly about the battery connector; the plastic grip didn't "take" as solidily as it did on the older battery, and I fear it may slip out at an inopportune moment. That would suck. I'll try not to drop it. A self-diagnostic indicates that the power and monitor lines are hooked up correctly, so I'll just have to hope that they hold through the weekend.

I used this guide for my instructions. The little sheet of paper they supplied me with was in 4pt type so damn tiny it was impossible to read.