American English
I thought this was cool, and decided to post it on the blog.

MY Linguistic Profile:

60% General American English

15% Upper Midwestern

10% Dixie

10% Yankee

5% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

You're FIRED, Cookie Monster!

Children's Television Workshop, the creators of Sesame Street, have apparently adopted the Leftist conception that parents can no longer be expected to ensure their children eat a healthy diet. As a result, they're putting Cookie Monster on a diet. According to the Hartford Courant- there will be No more cookies on Sesame Street.

Bad news for Cookie Monster - the focus of the 36th Sesame Street season, which starts this week, is healthful eating habits.

Although there are no plans to turn the lovable, cookie-chomping blue Muppet into Cauliflower Monster, the oversized, letter-of-the-day cookie he chomped down in yesterday's season premiere would likely be one of his last.

Joining the battle against childhood obesity, the season-long theme of "Healthy Habits for Life" is clear from the jump-roping that started the episode to the longer-than-usual segment called "The Healthy Foods Name Game," in which Elmo and Zoe scoured the neighborhood for colorful vegetables to complete a puzzle. [Yawn! -Darius]

This is just another example of a trend in moving the burden for diet away from the individual and to the community-at-large.

What in the HELL are they going to do with Cookie Monster? If he can't eat cookies anymore, what the hell is he going to eat? Maybe he'll eat cucumbers. He can be the Cucumber Monster.

General Thoughts and Musings

My Catholic Upbringing

I was subject to Catholic indoctrination from a very early age, but it never took firm root in me. I resented having the religion pushed on me by my family, and as I studied the Bible I found things which seemed contradictory and which certainly seemed to contradict the trappings of organized religion in general. I could get into specifics, I thought about it as I began to write this, but I'm not that interested.

I was born a Catholic. My dad split when I was young, and my mom had the marriage annulled. According to the Catholic church, my parents had never been married, but I was recognized as a non-bastard. As I grew up, I contemplated this and there was always a seed of resentment against the parties involved- my parents and the Catholic church, but I was always a good Catholic.

I was baptized in St. Andrews Cathedral in Victoria, BC when I was about a week old. My moms family was Catholic via both her parents; her parents were English/Irish (grandfather) and Polish (grandmother). I really have no idea what my fathers religious background is, as I know almost nothing about him.

I went to church every Sunday. I prayed the rosary devoutly. I prayed to the Virgin Mary. I prayed for Reagan and the Pope after their assassination attempts (Strange that two of the men most responsible for the end of the cold war would survive attempts on their lives within a few years of each other), and then eventually die in such a close range.

I went to Catholic gradeschool and middleschool (St. Angela's Roseville, MI), Catholic highschool (Notre Dame Highschool Harper Woods, MI) and a Catholic university (University of Detroit Detroit, MI).

I was a public speaker at 13 years old. I became a lector, one of a small group of ten, who read the first and second readings, sometimes the psalms, and who led the general intercessions. This was a role always reserved for adults, but I was a good speaker so I somehow was allowed this prominent role in my parish.

From 13 years old, until I was 20, I participated in the mass almost weekly in front of crowds averaging 300 people- and surging to over 1000 on major holidays.

I saw the Pope when he visited Detroit in 1987. There were over 100,000 people packed into the Pontiac Silverdome for a mess he performed; I think it broke a record for indoor mass, but I'm not sure if it still holds it.

As I grew older, I didn't feel at home as a Catholic. After we moved away from the church I grew up attending, I stopped going to church regularly. I went less and less, until I just stopped going at all.

I met my wife at the end of 1999, although since we met online, we didn't meet until a few months later. We didn't date long before we were engaged. Although we planned to have a quick wedding in Vegas, my mother insisted we have a local wedding- and she volunteered to pay for almost everything. We consented.

We made arrangements to meet with the new rector at my old childhood church. We met with him, and he was a dick. He gave us a hard time about Windy having been married before; she had gotten married at 18 and then quickly divorced after her husband started cheating on her and beating her. These circumstances didn't seem to register with the priest and he insisted she begin a long drawn-out Catholic annullment process, even though she wasn't Catholic at all. He was not understanding in the least, and he made my wife cry. That day, I vowed to sever all ties with my former church.

We went looking for somewhere else to get married, and someone to marry us who would show a little compassion if told that my wife had been abused in her first marriage. To our luck, we found a small liberal Christian church where the pastor was- surprisingly- an ex-Catholic nun. We were grateful that she married us, and honestly, she was a G-dsend.

Pope John Paul II

When I was a kid, I prayed for the Pope after he had been shot, even though I didn't really understand who he was. I learned more about him after I entered gradeschool.

I loved comic books. When I was in second or third grade, my school had a bookfair and after mass one sunday- my mom took me to pick out a book. I zeroed in on the one comic book I found- which was a comic biography on the life of Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. This comic book taught be a lot about the man, and indeed- these seem to me a particularly good tool for teaching children. Karol lived a hard life. What I remember most- without resorting to further research to augment what rolls off my memory- was that he and his family (and the Poles in general) suffered greatly under the Nazi scourge, and then even more after the bootheel of Soviet Communism was firmly in place on the necks of all Poles. What spoke volumes about his character was how he forgave the man who tried to kill him- the young Turk who shot him in 1981. He visited with him after he was able to travel away from his hospital bed. He forgave him for the murder attempt. That's the intensity of compassion and forgiveness which dominated his reign as Pope John Paul II.

He made some choices which I disagree with, but I don't know of a religious leader who I could really throw my full support behind, so I'll set aside any disagreements and focus on my respect for the man now that he's passed. He was a good man, always working towards maximizing life and minimizing death. He was an idealist but not an absolutist- he was able to work towards a great reconciliation with the other religions of the world- meeting with Jewish and Moslem leaders in the Holy Land, and receiving the Dalai Lama at the Vatican. Additionally, he met with world leaders and chastised them where he felt he needed to- Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Putin, and Fidel Castro, to name a few- over matters generally concerning human rights.

I think one his greatest legacies is the role he played in destroying the sphere of Soviet Communism. He helped strengthen the Solidarity movement when he visted Lech Walesa in 1983, and this enabled Walesa to strengthen the movement by garnering the support of hundreds of thousands of people who probably wouldn't have had the courage to join the movement if it hadn't been for John Paul II. This led to a snowballing movement in Poland which created a popular movement to rival the controls imposed by the Communist government. Afterwards, others struggling under the bootheel of Communism looked at Poland with envy, and their desire to emulate the Poles forced the other Communist leaders to increase popular freedoms.

He was a great leader, and he will be missed by millions. Even though I personally disagree with many of his strictures, and even though I've distanced myself from my Catholic roots, I'll miss him too.

Hero of the Day

I really like Boy George. I liked his music, back in the day, and I was happy to come across this article from This is London while surfing the net this morning.

Who would have thought he would be such an upstanding rock of ethics?

Read the article for details, but I like a guy who sticks to a strong code of personal ethics- especially if they live a life outside the mainstream and still espouse a strong ethical code.

Automotive Sales Outlook = Bad

This should not be a big surprise.

Since 9/11, the worlds automotive manufacturers have made great efforts to push their brands. Led by GM, most automakers have offered big incentives to car buyers, and those that have saw their sales figures for fiscal years '02 through '04 increase drastically.

Here's what happened...

Everyone that wanted a car had the opportunity to buy one. Car prices were so favorable- even if people were going to put off buying for a few years- they brought a car. During this period- the Big 3 US auto makers sold to everyone they could, but they were still unable to shake quality concerns from some buyers. Some people chose Asian and European cars, and those companies were able to sell despite having the favorable incentives of US automakers.

For now, the US car market for US produced cars has dried up. There's still a market for foreign cars, but those foreign manufacturers will also have to deal with a market flooded with cars sold in the past 3 years.

The used car market will be great for a few years. With all the leases the US car companies will have to buy back, everyone will be able to get cheap used cars for a while...

Axe Control?

British Members of Parliament were last rumored to be in closed-session debates regarding the merits of proposed "Axe Control Legislation" in response to this crime.

The Iron Cookie is Crumbling

Read this story.

How fucked up is your country if young girls would gladly give up their ass to the lowest Chinese border guard in order to escape?

How fucked up is your system if China looks like a free-market paradise in comparison?

The executed 60 people for trying to escape, and having a cellphone is a crime?

Kim Jong Il is so oppressive, he makes me want to say

"1984년에 환영!"