No.  Eventually it will have to become close distance to survive.
   

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I don't understand the notion that certain people have that the death penalty is "cruel and unusual" punishment.  Of course it is a reasonable way to punish egregious offenders!  A punishment should be unusual.  How else will normal people remember not to commit a heinous crime?  Death is certainly a reasonable way to punish rapists, murderers, child molesters, traitors & spies, and terrorists.  Of course after due process of law has been followed.

Why should we allow repeat & egregious offenders to continue to drain our economy by putting them up in prisons for life and continually allow them to appeal and appeal and appeal when they have already been convicted by a court of law?  How is that "due process?"  How is that justice for the victims?  I would readily argue that those that would denounce this point of view are unrealistic, romantic, and, worse, delusional. 

There is always a possibility that convicted criminals are innocent, a possibility.  There always is and always will BE a shadow of doubt, but the majority of the convicted are not innocent and have been proven clearly as guilty of the heinous crimes they have commited.  There can never be an instance of  "beyond a shadow of doubt" even with the best evidence or witness.  We are not God.  We cannot be there at the moment of crime.  And as a good attorney friend said to me once, "All evidence is circumstantial.  Evidence is always out-of-context and is dependent on the circumstances of the incident that can never be truly repeated.  It's those defense lawyers that keep sellling the lie that has to something other than circumstantial for it to convict."

I would also argue to those misguided individuals that would retort with the idea that these criminals are human and are entitled to "human rights."  My question is: how human are murderers, molesters, terrorists, rapists, traitors?  From my perspective these people, proven guilty by law, have forfeited their "rights" whatever that pie-in-the-sky notion may be.  They had rights before conviction, but afterward nothing.  Nothing.  And should continue to have nothing until execution.  Hello, we are talking about murderers, molesters, terrorists, rapists, and traitors that would not HESITATE for an instance to do the same to you.

As for the argument that it is noble and better of us not to act like them and kill them and to be "better" than them.  I respond with this:  I do not want to BE better.  I'll be statisfied with just GOOD.  "Better" assumes that these individuals will learn from their mistakes--perhaps, but I don't think I want to risk the safety of community and commonwealth to find out if one or two of the whole lot will reform. 

No, killing them is a mercy to the community.  I pose this question: how many people would put out a fire that was burning in their home?  Once they find out should they wait for the fire to confirm that it is still fire?  Or just let it burn because it's just in a small corner of their house, since as long as it is there--contained--that it will go out by itself or become not-fire?  What if it were a rabid wolf?  Should we just cage it and send it free?  Or just cage it for life?

Come on!  Any sane person would put out the fire or kill the wolf.  What is unreasonable and an abridgment of justice is that we keep these convicted monsters in prison for 20+ years before we even kill them.  Twenty plus years bleeding our taxes and feeding those rat-bastard, money-grubbing defense laywers.  I thought that due process of law includes the swiftness of executing the law and it's convictions.

Of course the courts are not perfect--they can never be, but they can be reasonable and that is all that is humanly possible to protect, promulgate, and improve our common good.  I'm not proposing justice like in China where we harvest these people's organs or put them in labor camps (although, from a draconian perspective, I cannot see the harm in those things for convicted people after due process, it is after all--traditional), but the swiftness of carrying out a convicted felon's sentence is certainly something admirable about Chinese jurisprudence.
   

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I want to go to the United Kingdom:  England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland.  I want to visit the places that my favorite writers and poets had lived, breathed, and wrote.  Also to visit their graves.  I want to see all the places that I've always read about and to touch the places that have survied history.  Somehow it would connect me with the moments in the past.

The other place would be China to go and find my clan hall and the clan villiage and go through the records to see just who I am related to and how far back I can trace my family ancestry.  I've always envied friends who could trace their heritage back 100 years or even some who could trace it back to the Mayflower or the Arbella.  As an immigrant I've often found it hard to get my bearings as who I am.  I am not as American as I hope (and probably will never be--I will also look asian--people will always ask where I am from and "Los Angeles" only invites responses such as "No. Really, where are you from?")  Perhaps visiting my ancestral hall will help set me straight about who I am as a human on this earth second from being a Christian.   And I'll be able to answer that question with more confidence such as I am the Xth decendent of N prefect, governor, and cousin to Emperor Y of the Han Dynasty, or some such.  Knowing my family has been around for 1000+ years can help ease those awkward moments of being outshone by Colonial decendants.

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Apples and Oranges.  Or should I say Birds and Bees?  What is equal?  As humans?  As adults?  As spiritual beings?  If it is as humans, adults, or spiritual beings then man and woman are equal in the metaphysic sense, but if it is anything else then I don't know how to compare.  Men and women are not equal--they're different.  If they were equal then we'd have two men or two women for that matter.  They're complementary, but not equal.  Equal means the same.  Peanutbutter is not equal to Jelly but they complement each other.  One is salty, one is sweet.

Men an women aren't equal emotionally, hormonally, mentally, etc. Overall as whole beings we're equal--as beings.  It's the fine details that are not equal.  In the end I think that is a good thing.  The world would be a dull, dull place if everyone were equal.  We might as well be robots if that were the case.

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Of old age.  But there are moments that I fancy I'd like to die a hero.  You know someone that you build a monument to and then promptly forget about and complain about how much a nuisance it is to air traffic or etc.  There are other times I would like to die loved and the presence of loved ones.  But that's all fancy.

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Your results:
You are Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)

Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 80% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 75% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 65% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 55% River (Stowaway) 55% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 50% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 50% Wash (Ship Pilot) 45% Inara Serra (Companion) 40% Alliance 35% A Reaver (Cannibal) 30%

Medicine and physical healing are your game, but wooing women isn't a strong suit.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

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This is a one of the funnest (I know it ain't a word you grammar-pigs)  quizzes I've taken in a while.  :sigh: the results aren't surprising.  I pegged myself as the doctor when I was talkin' to my buddy Del and I were reminiscing about our old gaming days and  guessing what characters our personalities would fit if we were characteres on the show.  Though I thought I'd be more an Alliance person.  Gorammit.  I am not a seccessionist Independent.  I believe in the Mandate of Heaven!  I may sympathize, but I will never be a Browncoat!  Purple Bellies can be fans too!

I suppose if have to be a browncoat if I'm to be a fan.  But ta ma de.  That's racist. 

You know I didn't even want to give the show once-over until I met Morena.

The very first day of school when I was a kid I remember being told: "Shut up!  Chino cochino!"

Whoever said white people have the monopoly on racism?

As a teacher I remember being told the first day of teaching high school:  "I ain't gonna learn nutthin 'bout English from a chino cochino!"

Some things never change.  There's no point trying to save The Republic through education.  Public education in America is broken beyond repair.  Time for charter schools or private to step in and educate a new bourgeois because the current bourgeois is just the "new proletariat."  What is the "new proletariat?" Think French Revolution type of lower class-upside-down-world oppression. 

It's not the proles that are being oppressed in America, but the rest of us being too chicken and allowing ourselves to be oppressed by the ignorant & unwashed masses.

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I dressed up as a sophomore hoodlum this Halloween.  Baggy shorts (boxers showing).  ipod earbuds (sans ipod like most posers).  Crumpled homework in pockets.  Folded folder with homework mis-stapled and hole-punched.  Untied shoes.  No pen or pencils on my entire person except a Sharpie marker for tagging.  Walked all day with a swagger to keep the shorts from falling (hand on crotch as my hoodlums showed me).

A most interesting experience.  I had a nagging compuslsion all day to tie my shoes, pull up my shorts, and correct my posture--and--to act like a civilized person.  I just don't see how pleasant or convienent it is to have one's buttocks hanging out of one's shorts could feel comfortable.  Normally, I feel like pantsing people who dress like that.  Philistines.

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Emotions.  Contrary to what some have said to me about positive emotions, I find that negative emotions tend to inspire the most type of creativity especially for poetry.  Positive emotions are good and sometimes inspirational, but must be seized upon almost immediately or they'll fade, unlike negative emotions which will just linger and you can take your time to tap into that source.  This is especially good for poetry.

What usually causes the over-flow of emotions (I paraphrase Wordsworth) are situations, memories, almost anything.  For example today:  I went to school and serendipidously met up with the new math teacher, whom I might add is quite allluring--even for someone like me still half-asleep at 6:50 AM.  As we walked and talked there was a moment when our eyes met.  She has nice grey-blue eyes.  Well, that triggered a memory attached with an emotional response of when we first met over a month or so ago. 

We nearly bumped into each other in the mailroom.  Our eyes did meet then too, but there was surprise--I was shocked out of my usual morning stupor by a vision beauty and her eyes widened (I hope in a pleasant way) and smiled warmly back.  We certainly did glance back at each other as we passed.  I though she was a substitute since they tend to be young and we usually hire "experienced" people (translation middle-aged).  I'm not going to guess at what she was thinking.  I've figured long ago that I can't read women and I can't understand women.  So why bother, if I'm wrong all the time anyway.

Well, long story short, that nostalgic moment covered in romantic fuzziness and uncertainty is perfect and fertile ground for a poem that I'm writing.  Ah yes, uncertainty or as Keats calls it "negative capability."  Is perfect for such things.  Makes women gush about the Phantom and other romantic/byronic heroes.

As for lessons and papers and fencing:  Passion for the subject.  Desire for the truth.  Lust for victory, domination, and sometimes utter destruction of my opponent (academic or sports).
   

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Simple really.  Humans are a social animal and wish to be identified with groups and cliques.  Trends and fashion determine who is part of a group and who is not.

If I mention the names Derrida or Foucault or Krashen or Kenneth Burke only a certain group that I identify with would know and understand who these people are.

Young people who break with the trends end up looking alike anyway.  Vis this poster.
   

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What's wrong with this picture?

This is only a slice (a teeny-weeny sliver) of what's really wrong with the American public education system.