Dawnsinger

Iraqi POWs & military training

OK, here's one I can't swallow. News reports are quoting military spokesmen as saying that the soldiers who are facing charges after the revelation of horrible pictures of humiliation of Iraqi prisoners did not receive in-depth training on the Geneva Conventions, which govern treatment of prisoners of war.

Read the Associated Press story . . .

This is piffle. Unless Army basic training has degraded severely since my time, the basics of the Geneva Convention are drilled into every recruit. We treat them humanely, they treat us humanely . . . that's the idea, at least. The training is more detailed than that. Every POW is entitled to a checklist of rights, and this checklist is, or at least was, required knowledge to graduate from basic training. Add to that that the six currently facing charges (as well as their commanders) are trained military police officers . . . who in the process of achieving their MOS presumably receive special training in the handling of prisoners - POWs or rowdy grunts alike.

Forget Geneva Conventions, for a moment, since many of these military police will be walking the beat in your neighborhood one of these days. If photos turned up (and forgive me if they already have) of New Orleans police officers urinating on naked suspects, making human pyramids of their bodies, attaching wires to their genitals and balancing them on a block dressed in a black hood, and writing racial or religious slurs on their skin . . . if female police officers were free to humiliate nude male prisoners . . . I'm guessing no one would even raise the idea that the officers had not received "in-depth training."

Please read on . . .

From the "beware the sign of the fish" department

From the "beware of businesses bearing the sign of the fish" department . . .

A 38-count federal indictment says a Miami couple used Christian publications to market a fraudulent gold-coin scheme . . . the U.S. Coin Exchange billed itself as ''the leading Christian gold dealer'' and told investors that they could expect to double or triple their investments in a matter of months.

Read the Miami Herald story . . . (free registration is required)

Read the Christianity Today article sourcing the Miami Herald article . . .

Two points: First, Christianity Today, a well-respected publication, was one of the publications running these advertisements. I suggest they review their advertising policies. Second, if you're in the apocalyptic mindset, remember that your salvation is in spiritual armor, not in hoarding gold.

'Sagging' crackdown & bad karaoke thongs

Massacre in the streets . . . endemic corruption . . . economic woes . . . disappearing wetlands . . . plagues of termites & West Nile. Welcome to the sordid underbelly of Greater New Orleans. So what does rookie state Rep. Derrick Shepherd (D-Marrero) do but make the home page of every major news site on the web with his crusade against thongs and saggers. Oh yeah, baby, we know how to set priorities.

Read the Times-Picayune story | Read the paper's editorial smackdown

But giggle as you will, I've gotta admit that sometimes I wish the law were in effect. Britney's sparkly thong strings are one thing. But the fashion police . . . heck, the fashion Swat Team would have been welcome Saturday night at Cats Meow.

Read the full column in "The Bourbon Street Journal"

Blood on Bourbon Street

From today's Bourbon Street Journal

We thought the surreal evening was over, Cory and I, as we dragged our tired selves off the stoop of the liquor store across from the Gold Mine and into the taxi. Silly rabbits.

French Quarter Fest Saturday night, the end of a long weekend shift on Bourbocam Live. This is NOLA’s regular webcam show, in which I point a camera at Cory as she snags increasingly lubricated celebrants from the human river that is Bourbon Street, and brings the nightly party to our wide internet audience.

The taxi's creaky doors slam shut, immediately knocking the cab’s meter offline. The cabbie takes off down Dauphine from St. Peter, somehow steering around staggering pedestrians with one hand, while slapping the meter with the other.

Weird night already . . . and headed for the grand finale.

Heading into the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival - Jazzfest.

Read the full Bourbon Street Journal column . . .

Quo vadis, anime?

Japan's government is compared to a man with erectile dysfunction in this review of a book exploring the country's search for a national/cultural identity. (Read the review)

Meanwhile, just for a mental image of part of this culture-in-search, behold the attempt to stop the sex-shop traded in soiled undies.

Read the story . . . (warning: this is straight news, but subject matter is a little strong even by Bourbon Street standards)

Angry virgins, abstinence & cows

Bulletin from the newsroom: Twenty angry virgins enraged over the Zulu king's latest marital acquisition - a child bride who is supposed to abstain from sex - demand a punitive cow.

No comment. Read the story . . .

OK, I succumb to temptation. How would you find twenty virgins in New Orleans? You supply the punchline.

Do-it-yourself surgery

Two stories today on do-it-yourself surgery that are real "honeydidja's" (Honey, didja see this one?)

In a report out of rural Mexico, a woman slammed back three shots of liquid anaesthesia (mezcal works for me), then slit open her belly with a kitchen knife to perform a self Caesarean delivery. A previous baby had died during a problem delivery, and it wasn't going to happen again. A woman down the road stitched the woman up with a sewing kit, then mother and healthy baby were trundled to medical care eight hours away.

Read the story . . .

And in Texas, a man charged with slaughtering his family and cutting out their hearts was caught in his jail cell having ripped out an eye with his bare hands, quoting Mark 9:47: "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell."

Andre L. Thomas should have paid a little closer attention in Sunday School . . . I think he's got some contextual issues. At any rate, he's in restraints now, presumably to protect other body parts.

Read the story . . .

AT&T "values" smackdown

A Christian man who was fired from AT&T Broadband because he refused to sign a diversity policy requiring him to "value" the beliefs of others, including homosexuals, has been awarded $150,000 in a religious discrimination suit.

Read the story . . .

Read another version . . .

Put me down as not "valuing" beliefs that contradict my own. I respect the right of people to have contradictory beliefs . . . am a proud veteran who served to protect those rights . . . but don't ask me to value them. To value them, by my dictionary, means to accept them as valid . . . and the last I checked, we still have the right to our own beliefs.

The law does limit how we act on those beliefs, but that's an entirely different topic. Mandating beliefs, as AT&T apparently was attempting to do, is pure discrimination.

Execution by Toyota

>> music << . . . you asked, for it, you got it, Toyota . . .

I'll never look at my Tercel the same way after reading about China's "Toyota of Death" mobile execution chamber. Appears to be quite an improvement over the Nazi's experiments with running exhaust hoses into the back of trucks scooting around scenic Bavaria.

Which may be why you have to read this in Die Zeit . . .

Loony bureaucrats du jour

So much stupidity, so little time . . .

But today's award goes to Candian prison officials who insist that guards can't wear knife-proof Kevlar vests because it hurts the self-esteem of prisoners.

Read the Calgary Sun story