Thursday
Another relatively fast day at the place of employment. And I (nearly) finished listening to Dirk Gently; I finished the last few minutes of it at home. And, tomorrow is Friday.

The Good…
I neglected to mention that Rana is home for two weeks. Jess and I got to speak to her for a bit Wednesday night. She was quite tired when we talked – she had been up for twenty-five hours at that point. Why she didn’t sleep on her flights is beyond me. She said that she is enjoying the Ukraine, but that she is glad to be home… even for a couple of weeks.

This morning, I sent an email to Talk of the Nation. In it, I made a few comments about Wednesday’s program (The Midwest and eBay). I also congratulated Neal Conan on winning his bid and I even asked if he would sign an issue of a book in which ‘he’ appeared. And then… off to work. I came home and I had not one, but two emails from TotN! One was from Megan Williams, a production assistant, thanking me for the email and saying that she would forward the request to Neal. The other… was from Neal Conan himself:

Sure. By far the least expensive would be FF#9 (the most recent series, natch). If you send me one, I’d be happy to sign and mail it back. Send it to me, at (the address).

Kick grass! It was apparently sent just after today’s broadcast.

NPR/PRI Programs

  • The World
    • “Lost” Incan settlement discovered in Peru
    • Interview with Jake McNiece, Sergeant of “The Filthy Thirteen,” the men upon whom The Dirty Dozen were based. They also spoke with Bob Cohn one of the privates under McNiece’s command. Until yesterday, these two gentlemen had not spoken in 58 years, the day that they parachuted over France on D-Day; Pvt. Cohn had been listed as “killed in action.”
    • Masai Interview

      You may have had your fill of “Why They Hate Us” stories in the weeks after September 11th. Newspapers and magazines explained just how reviled we are and why. But you may be pleased to know that not everyone hates us. Kimeli Naiyomah is a Masai warrior from Kenya. This week, he and some of his fellow tribesmen expressed their solidarity with the United States in an unusual gesture. They presented the American people with 14 cows at a ceremony in his home village. Naiyomah, who’s studying pre-med at Stanford University in California, was in New York on the 11th. When he returned home to Africa last month, he met with village elders who had not heard of the terror attack. So Naiyomah told them about it.

      I realize that fourteen cows may not seem like much, by our standards, but the gesture from this tribe is awesome!

The Bad and the Ugly
Right. Now that we have those out of the way, I want to get a couple of things off my chest. I apologize if they seem a little disjointed; they are far more coherent than they would have been had I written this a few hours ago. A couple of things have been irritating me today. And, as Fate would have it, they are somewhat related issues:

  • Kidnapping in Salt Lake City
    Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped, from her bedroom, shortly after 02:00 Thursday, 06 June 02. From. Her. Bedroom. This happened on the opposite side of the valley from where I live; it is not too far from where I stayed before getting my apartment. There are over 1,000 volunteers helping to search for Elizabeth. There have been reports of sightings of people fitting the abductor’s description, but they far too many people here fit the rather generic profile that was given. In all cases, he has been seen alone. Thus far, all leads in the case have come up negative.

  • R. Kelly Indictment
    21 counts of child pornography. The actual charges are “Videotaping, producing or soliciting for child pornography.” If convicted, he could be sentenced for up to 15 years in prison. Apparently, copies of this video have been available for months. As yet, it has not been proven whether or not Mr. Kelly was a participant in the sexual acts.

    I’m somewhat torn here. I like a lot of R. Kelly songs. But, I don’t think that I want to listen to them if my mind is going to jump to thoughts of something that disgusts me. At what point does one separate the act from the person/personality, assuming that such a division is possible? While it is not quite the same thing, I am fairly certain that this is the kind of issue that members of the Catholic Church have been dealing with in the wake of the current scandal.

The common thread between these items: Children. Maybe it is naive, but I have little (closer to “zero”) tolerance for those who violate children or put them indiscriminantly in harm’s way. I think that children are sacrosanct. Out of bounds. Off limits. Period. I have no children of my own (the cats do not count), but I do have younger siblings, cousins and I am the Godfather to a couple of wonderful kids. If any of them were debased in such a manner, I would hope that God would have mercy upon the perpetrators because I could not honestly say that I would… or could. It’s a situation that I pray that I never find myself encountering.

::: end tirade :::

Thanks for listening. Please feel free to comment.

Peace.