Troops -

Item from News of the Weird:  Death Row Living

In Orange County, CA, Billy Joe Johnson, who had just been convinced of murder as a hit man for a white supremacist gang, begged the judge and jury, in all sincerity, to sentence him to death.  Johnson knew that those on California’s death row get individual cells and better telephone access, nicer contact-visit arrangements, and more personal-property privileges than ordinary inmates. The Los Angeles Times reported that the state’s spending per death-row inmate is almost three times that for other inmates.  The current death-row census totals 685, but because of legal issues, only 13 have been executed since 1977 (compared to 71 death-row fatalities from other causes).  In fact, Johnson was so eager to be put on death row that he tried to confess to two murders that no one yet knew about.

(I now have a Plan B for my retirement.)

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Jon: It’s good to be alive.
Garfield:  I agree – not great. “Good.”

(Garfield is the most widely syndicated comic strip in the country.  Sales of Garfield merchandise is between $750 million and one billion dollars ANNUALLY.)

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From a good, thoughtful essay by Julia Baird in a recent Newsweek, a citation of Mahatma Gandhi’s list of mankind’s seven social sins: commerce without morality, politics without principle, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, education without character, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

The full essay is here, and repays a read.

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Colbert rocks Palin.  And Krugman routs the Republicans on Medicare, just destroys them.  And finally, some really good news:

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A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both “confusing and harmful” to the mind. The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an “always on” environment. It’s worth noting that Gessner, for his part, never once used e-mail and was completely ignorant about computers. That’s not because he was a technophobe, but because he died in 1565. His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press….

Socrates famously warned against writing because it would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories.”… The Socratic warning has been repeated many times since….

Full story.
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This next piece is so good I’m going to paste in the whole thing:

Ana Ritter writes a survival guide to junior high
by Steve Duin, The Oregonian
February 15, 2010

Last Friday, I was invited out to Lake Oswego Junior High for Career Day. I was not the star attraction. That honor went to the SWAT team that, every 40 minutes or so, set off small explosions that rattled the windows of the room where I was carrying on.

As you might have gathered from changes in the newspaper business, it’s a curious time to reflect on this brilliant career. Because I don’t know what vestige of print journalism will remain when these eighth graders enter the job market, I focused, instead, on writing.

You’ll be surprised, I told them, how many doors will spring open if you are comfortable with the written word, especially when talking about yourself.

Since developing that voice takes practice, I gave the kids three options in a writing assignment they would read aloud before they dashed off to their introduction to graphic design, interior decorating or hostage negotiations.

Spend the next 15 minutes, I said, writing about the strangest person you’ve ever met. The stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

Or the advice you wish you’d received, 19 months ago, when you stumbled into the junior high for the first time.

As I came to find out, the writing was a little easier than the reading for most of the 40 students who dropped by. It’s one thing to surrender something to a sheet of notebook paper, and quite another to stand up and share it with the world.

Over the course of two hours, I was introduced to a host of strange characters, many of them family members, and some daunting adventures involving screen doors, mud pits and superhero costumes. If the writing was a bit rough, that was understandable. The kids were winging it. They had no time to prepare.

Then Ana Ritter stood up. She’d tackled the survival guide to junior high, and I liked what I heard.

Only when I picked up the page she left in the desktop pile as she slipped out the door did I realize she’d read only half of what she’d written.

Here’s Ana’s piece in its entirety. I haven’t changed a single word:

On my first day at LOJ, I wish someone had told me that eighth graders were harmless. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to seem suddenly fascinated with my shoes when they walked by. I wish I knew that maybe everyone else was as nervous as I was. I wish someone had told me that everyone was too preoccupied in themselves to care about me.

I wish I knew that the best people come out of the weirdest places. In the course of seventh grade, I became best friends with a quiet girl I had known since I was six. I wish someone told me what a keeper she was all along.

I wish someone had told me — honestly — that I could do whatever I wanted to do. Maybe if I realized I had to love myself and do what I wanted to do before someone could love me, I would’ve been that much happier. I wish it didn’t take two years for me to figure out one simple thing — if I was just me, everything else will fall into place. I wish someone told me I was good enough before I had to figure it out myself.

Ana wrote that in 12 minutes, maybe less. When she was done, and waiting for everyone to catch up, she still had time to doodle three small hearts in the margins.

I suspect I know, given my experience with exploding careers, what the eighth graders took home from Career Day at LOJ. I left with another quiet reminder of the difference it makes when you are willing to share your secrets, and can bend words to the timeless task.

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Sally (Charlie Brown’s sister):  I discovered the secret of life: You just hang around until you get used to it.

Stay cool,
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