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Showing posts from February, 2006

Cute Little Federal Governments

Want to help young people be physically fit? Consider giving to the Capital Athletic Foundation. Want to contribute to a foundation for good ideas about better relations around the globe? Consider giving to the American International Center. Want to give a generous helping hand to all kinds of disadvantaged people all over the place? Consider giving to the Good Things for All People Foundation. When the federal government found out that a good way to be its brother's keeper was to institutionalize good-deed-doing through non-profit incorporation, it had to have known that a lot of people would really really try to be good-deed-doing by signing on, but fail miserably. And that they would not just fail but criminally fail, as in, "What a great scam! I can just pretend that I'm doing good things for everyone, and I get a nice cut! In fact, why even do the good things? Why not pretend to be real good! More money for me! And with our society so codependent, so addicted to '

"A Dateline Special: Squirming Nasty Cockroach Men"

On Friday night, NBC broadcast its third installment of "To Catch a Predator," the network's august program of exposing sexual deviants. The entire approach is to lure these men into middle-class suburban houses where they presume they're going to have a sexual encounter with a minor. Waiting for them is a news reporter, who, with transcripts of their chat room conversations, confronts the individual about his intentions. The result is almost always the same-- tepid dissembling and evasiveness, and, when the hidden camera is revealed, abject shock and embarrassment. I imagine most would find this modern-day Scarlet Letter shaming perfectly acceptable, the just punishment for such heinously criminal behavior. As I watched the first half-hour or so of this show (which is about all I could take) I myself could only think of cockroaches-- not as much for the thoroughly reprehensible aspect of their behavior, but for the fact that NBC is nabbing only a pittance. There are