Too Clean and Far Too Common

The last public execution in France.   I have been meaning to write about this, but haven't had the time.

   Those of you who are familiar with me and my politics will know I am against the death penalty.1 So, it might seem contradictory for me to argue today that as long as the United States wants to continue killing its deathrow inmates, it ought to do so in a very public and violent way: beheadings.

   Sticking needles into the arms of the condemned and putting them to sleep as we have been doing since 1982 has made capital punishment too antiseptic, too "humane", and far, far too common. Were it messy and cruel, the good Christians of America might lose their stomach for executing her prisoners.

1 . . . except in very limited political situations where executions would lead to stability. The execution of Nazi leaders and Osama bin Laden would fall into that narrow scope.

Shinsekai

   Shinsekai Ōsaka: where old men's dreams go to die a long, slow death in the trash-filled gutter.

Children's Day, 2014

   Monday, May fifth was Children’s Day, or Kodomo no Hi (こどもの日), here in Japan, one of the four national holidays that form Golden Week. 

   Originally called Tango no Sekku (端午の節句),1 Children’s Day used to be celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th moon in the old lunisolar, or Chinese, calendar, but was switched to May fifth after Japan's adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1873. The festival is still celebrated in the east Asian countries of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, where it is called the Duanwu (or Drangon Boat) Festival (Tuen Ng in Cantonese); Korea (Dano Festival) and Vietnam (Tết Đoan Ngọ).

   According to the Chinese calendar, the fifth day of the fifth month usually falls near the summer solstice, when the sun, which represents masculine energy, is considered to be at its strongest, and it was for this reason that Tango no Sekku was also known as Boys' Day. (March 3rd, Hina Matsuri, was and still is called Girls' Day) In 1948, the Japanese government renamed the holiday Kodomo no Hi, decreeing the day to one to celebrate the happiness of all children, not just that of boys.

   

   Well, speaking of children, according to a report released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on Children’s Day, the population of children (aged 0 to 14) in Japan was 16,330,000 as of April 1, 2014, or 160,000 less than last year. This marked the 33rd year in a row that the number of children in Japan has fallen. The last time the population of children increased was in 1977. As a proportion of the total population, children now account for only 12.97%, the lowest figure on record.

   Taking a closer look at the number of children by age group, we see that if nothing changes in the next few years to increase birthrate then the proportion of children to the total population will continue to drop dramatically.

   This graph (pictured above) shows the population of three demographics: blue for those 0-14 years of age; brown for those between the ages of 15 and 64; and green for those 65 and older. As you can see, while the number of those in the middle hasn’t changed very much--indeed, they are at levels today (62.1% of the population) that they were at in 1955 (61.3%)—the number of children has steadily decreased, while the number of elderly has increased. Today, 25.1% of the population is 65 years old or older.

   For more on this, go here (Japanese only).

   In somewhat related news, the number of stalking cases involving suspects over the age of sixty has continued to rise in recent years. While cases involving suspects between the ages of 20 and 59 have risen 1.5 to 2.0 times over the past ten years, those involving these “silver stalkers” has almost quadrupled.

   Although only accounting for a small minority of all stalking cases (less than 10%), the number of incidents committed by stalkers in their sixties is up 3.4 times since 2003, while those perpretrated by stalkers in their 70s have increased 5.6 times.

   One man in his eighties, who was arrested for “gatecrashing” into the home of a woman who was in her seventies, confessed to the police that he had been lonely since the death of his wife. After she passed away, the man asked the younger woman, with whom he had once had an affair, to get back together with him, begging her to “die with him”.

   I almost feel sorry for the randy old sod.

1 From Wikipedia: "Tan means ‘beginning' and go means ‘horse', referring to the Chinese zodiac name for the fifth lunar month. Sekku means a seasonal festival. There are five sekku, including O-Shogatsu (January 1st), Hina Matsuri (March 3rd), Tanabata (July 7th) and Kiku Matsuri (September 9th) along with Tango. Tango no Sekku marks the beginning of summer or the rainy season." 

Small Change Adds Up

   I've been noticing small changes in the prices of everything lately. The prices of drinks sold from vending machines also went up yesterday.

   A bottle of Oronamin C (bottom row, second from the right) cost ¥110 in the morning. By the afternoon, it was selling for ¥120. The price of a bottle of Ribobitan D (blue and white bottle at the bottom right) shot up, from ¥150 to ¥160.

   As I put in an extra ten yen into the machine, I couldn't help feeling that the numbers weren't adding up.   

   If the price of a bottle of Oronamin C, excluding tax is roughly ¥105, the new price including 8% sales tax should be about ¥113 rather than ¥120.

   Perhaps, the drink makers were taking into account that the consumption tax is going to be raised to 10% next year. Well, even with a 10% consumption tax, a bottle of Oronamin C would still cost only ¥115. What this means, of course, is that the vendors of Oronamin C are pocketing an extra seven yen in revenue for each bottle they sell through their machines. 

   The same is true for Ribobitan D. Before the consumption tax increase, a bottle cost ¥150. Today, ¥160.
The actual price of a bottle of the drink, excluding sales tax, comes to ¥143. With a sales tax of 8% a bottle should cost ¥154, not ¥160. Even with the sales tax doubled to 10% a bottle would sell for ¥157. So, with each bottle of Ribobitan D or similarly priced item, the distributor is making an extra six yen in revenue. 

   It seems that while many companies have balked at the idea of increasing the consumption tax, many of them are using this as an opportunity to bolster the bottom line. 

   Later . . . 

   A friend took issue with my claim that Japanese companies were using the tax hike to increase profits (I wrote "revenue", but profit was what I was really getting at), arguing that the vendors have been operating on "wafer thin margins" for years.

   That got me thinking. Were these vending machine operators really just scraping by? If they were, I doubt for one that there would be so goddamn many vending machines out there. Anyone who visits Japan will be surprised by not only how ubiquitous drinks machines are, but by how well maintained, new, and increasingly high-tech the vending machines are. The companies are clearly earning enough money to put some of it back into developing or purchasing new "hardware" on a regular basis. 

   And what, I wondered, did a bottle of Oronamin C actually cost the distributor. Although O.C. now sells for ¥120 at most vending machines, I discovered that at one of the universities where I teach, O.C. was still selling for only ¥100. The local supermarket down the street sells bottles of the energy drink for as little as ¥84. At ¥84, the cost of a bottle of O.C. minus consumption tax is ¥77.3. Assuming that O.C. is not a loss leader and the supermarket has a flat profit margin of, say, 2-3% on all of its products like Costco, then a bottle of Oronamin C really costs about ¥74. Or possibly even less than that. (A can of Dr. Pepper at Costco, for instance, only costs about ¥60 per can if you buy a case of 24.)

   I also looked into Otsuka, the maker of Oronamin C, to see how many bottles of the energy drink it produces every year. Would you believe that 25 BILLION bottles of the stuff was consumed in 2000 (the latest year for which I could find reliable stats)? With production levels so high, I doubt the pharmaceutical company and the distributors who sell its products are hurting all that much. A company that big and profitable probably knows what it's doing. 

What was God Thinking?

   Although I was born and raised Catholic, having graduated from no less than four Catholic institutions of education, attended more classes on Theology and catechism than I care to admit, and celebrated four (and a half) of seven sacraments[1], today I am hesitant to call myself a Catholic.[2]

   That said, the Judeo-Christian concept of an anthropomorphic, paternal God has always appealed to me on a gut level. How many of us can’t relate to a father who meddles in our lives only to go and neglect us in times of need. You can find a better father figure in a trailer park, passed out on shabby sofa, empty cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon at his feet.

   And it’s only this kind of bumbling God that you can curse or blame for your quotidian woes. Buddhism, for example, doesn’t quite work when you miss your bus: “Damn, my desires!” Shintōism with its “eight million” kami makes a curse awfully difficult to direct.

   The Judeo-Christian idea of God also makes it easier for humans to see the man as a prankster with an odd sense of humor.

   Take human sexuality. Who else but a practical joker would have created man with a sex drive that peaks in his late teens, precisely at a period in his life when most of us couldn’t laid if our lives depended upon it. At eighteen most of us are uncouth and uneducated, covered with zits and penniless, and yet are blessed with boners we could crack walnuts with. And it’s hardly better for the women: they peak sexually in their mid to late thirties, at the tail end of their reproductive years and when gravity has already done quite a bit of damage and their looks are fading.

   Wouldn’t it have made a hell of a lot more sense for men to peak much later and women earlier? That way, men would have the financial and (hopefully) emotional stability to support children by the time they are ready to father children, and women would have much healthier eggs.

   Really, what was God thinking?

---

[1] I was married by a Protestant the second time around.

[2] According to the Belief-O-Matic, 100% of my beliefs are Unitarian Universalism beliefs; 94% are Liberal Quaker; 85%, Taoism; and 77% are Mayhayana Buddhism. The religion that I am least aligned to is, Thank God, Jehovah’s Witness (10%) and—surprise, surprise—Roman Catholic (10%). I do like the new Pope, though.

Spoilt for Choice

   So, . . . 

   Hanako says she isn't ready to make her presentation. There's really no excuse for not being prepared: I told the students at the beginning of the semester when they would be doing their presentations (they have to do four each) and what the topics would be. I even printed out a schedule for them so that they wouldn't come up later and say, "When am I supposed to do my presentation?" Or, "What's the topic?" Doesn't stop them from doing just that, though.

   "Just give an impromptu speech, then."

   Hanako shakes her head "No".

   "C'mon, it's an easy topic: sightseeing and traveling. Outta be a piece of cake for you."

Hanako lived abroad most of her childhood. If anyone has something to say about traveling, it's her. She shakes her head again. I can't.

   "Okay, Hanako. I'll tell ye what. I'll give you a choice. You can either do the short presentation today on travel, or you can give a longer presentation next week."

   The girl brightens.

   "There's a catch, though," I say.

   "Oh?"

   "The topic will be the Pros and Cons of Japan's Joining the Trans Pacific Partnership . . . What's that, Hanako? You'd rather give your presentation today? Atta, girl."

No more weighty tomes

No more weighty tomes!

Cries my frantic manager.

Now write I . . . haiku.

Getting to the top of Mt. Fuji

Azami: Why haven't you gotten divorced yet?  

Rémy: It isn't that simple, really. It's awfully easy to get married here, but once your in the koseki (戸籍, family register), it's hard to get out; especially now that women have got it into their silly heads that they can not only sue their ex-husband for half of his assets but now feel entitled to it.

Azami: Yes, well why not?

Rémy: Many reasons. One, in many cases the woman did not directly have a hand in the success of her husband. If she did, well then that’s another story. And, two, you can't have it both ways.

Azami: I don't understand.

Rémy: You can't demand equal rights, the same opportunities as men, the same pay as men, the same career choices as men—all things I agree with—but then, claim that the men have the obligation to support you or to split half of their property and belongings.

Azami: You know, I never thought about it that way.

Rémy: You're not alone. Women also demand that we try to understand them, that we have a moral duty to do so, and what's more, they expect us to renounce our masculinity and act more like them, as if they are paragons of virtue worthy of emulation. But, you know what?

Azami: No, what?

Rémy: You're not. You're irrational and moody, capricious and unpredictable. You blame it on your period and expect us to just accept it. If we don't, we're called insensitive Neanderthals.

Azami: Anyways, when do you think you'll get divorced?

Rémy: Hard to say.

Azami: Honey, do you expect me to just wait for you forever?

Rémy: No. (The thought of another woman waiting impatiently for me to get divorced so that she could move in wasn't what you would call an encouraging prospect. Azami couldn't understand that I wasn't seeking a divorce so that I could be with her, I was doing so to be free again.)

Azami: Well, what am I supposed to do, then?

Rémy: You're a big girl, you decided.

Azami: I can't believe you said that.

Rémy: Look, I don't want to have an argument over this; it won't change anything.

Azami: But I want you to change. I'm tired of this.

Rémy: And so am I. More than you can probably imagine. 

Azami: So, what am I supposed to do?

Rémy: I've told you many times before what I must do between now and then. They have nothing to do with how badly I want out of the marriage, but everything to do with my life after marriage. Once those things have been dealt with, I can talk to her about breaking up.

Azami: Will you really get divorced? Sometimes I think maybe he won't leave her, maybe he still loves her . . .

Rémy: Don't be ridiculous.

Azami: What else am I supposed to think?

Rémy: I think the best way to explain this is for you to consider Mount Fuji. Yuko and I have taken a bus up to the half-way point. There wasn't any effort required to get there, and now that we're there we see that there's a long climb remaining till we reach the top. We're already tired from the ride. It's cold out and we're not quite prepared for the climb. Neither of us thought it would be so difficult. Tired as I am, I still want to get off the bus, and start climbing, but Yuko's having second thoughts. I have to convince her to go up the last 2 kilometers and make her understand that no matter how difficult the climb may be, once at the top we will agree that it was worthwhile. 

Azami: Hurry up! Get off the bus, honey!

Rémy: I am! I am! Oh shit, I forgot my boots. Hold on! I'm coming, I'm coming!

   I meant to add the above conversation to my novel Rokuban, but it didn't quite make the cut. Perhaps in a later edition.

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Rokuban - No. 6 and other works by Aonghas Crowe are available at Amazon.

Buyer Beware

   Yukiko, a woman in her mid-fifties, tells me that she went to a tôfu shop at the shopping arcade near her home Saturday morning to pick up some tônyû (soy milk) The shop tends to sell out early, so customers know to go early.

   Yukiko left home at about eight and went straight to the tôfu shop where she bought her tônyû. After picking up some vegetables at the greengrocers, chicken at the butchers, she went to a small fish shop which had not yet opened.

   The time at which the shop opens changes from day to day, depending on the situation at the morning’s fish auction. On that particular day, Yukiko had to wait until a little after nine before the owner finally arrived, his van laden with fresh fish packed in ice.

   The fishmonger raised the shutter to let in the small crowd of customers that had been milling about outside.

   No sooner had the customers entered than a sprightly woman in her seventies snatched up a tray of suzuki (sea bass). Yukiko, who had her eyes on the karei (flounder), was second in line after a much younger man who also seemed intent on buying the karei.

   The man, inexperienced in the dog-eat-dog existence of Japanese housewives, was at a disadvantage when competing against the fifty-five-year-old housewife. Mistakenly believing that his place in line afforded him an extra second or two to reconsider his needs before voicing his order, he was rudely cut off.

   “I'll take both trays!” Yukiko called out over his shoulder.

   The poor man couldn’t do anything but mutter, “Well, I-I-I . . .”

   I suppose that in the world of the middle-aged housewife, with its inherent dearth of stimulation, mini-battles at the post office, tussles at department store bargain bins and survival-of-the-fittest shopping like this at the fishmongers must take on a level of importance the average man cannot appreciate. It also helps explain—though never ever condone—the selfishness, pettiness and shamelessness which the Obatarian is capable of.

This is Lebanon

   One of my favorite photos from the Ḥarb Tammūz (The July War of 2006): Libanis getting down to business following another day of bombing by the Israeli Defense Force.

   Incidentally, Noam Chomsky had this to say of that war:

   "The standard Western version is that the July 2006 invasion was justified by legitimate outrage over capture of two Israeli soldiers at the border. The posture is cynical fraud. The US and Israel, and the West generally, have little objection to capture of soldiers, or even to the far more severe crime of kidnapping civilians (or of course to killing civilians). That had been Israeli practice in Lebanon for many years, and no one ever suggested that Israel should therefore be invaded and largely destroyed. Western cynicism was revealed with even more dramatic clarity as the current upsurge of violence erupted after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25. That too elicited huge outrage, and support for Israel's sharp escalation of its murderous assault on Gaza. The scale is reflected in casualties: in June, 36 Palestinian civilians were killed in Gaza; in July, the numbers more than quadrupled to over 170, dozens of them children. The posture of outrage was, again, cynical fraud, as demonstrated dramatically, and conclusively, by the reaction to Israel's kidnapping of two Gaza civilians, the Muamar brothers, one day before, on June 24. They disappeared into Israel's prison system, joining the hundreds of others imprisoned without charge -- hence kidnapped, as are many of those sentenced on dubious charges. There was some brief and dismissive mention of the kidnapping of the Muamar brothers, but no reaction, because such crimes are considered legitimate when carried out by “our side.” The idea that this crime would justify a murderous assault on Israel would have been regarded as a reversion to Nazism.

   "The distinction is clear, and familiar throughout history: to paraphrase Thucydides, the powerful are entitled to do as they wish, while the weak suffer as they must."

   From "On the US-Israeli Invasion of Lebanon", published in Al-Adab on August 19, 2006.

Vamos a la Playa!

Memorial Day Musings

   Living as long as I have in Japan, I can no longer remember when certain holidays, such as Presidents’ Day or Columbus Day, are held. It usually isn’t until Tuesday or Wednesday morning when I can’t download my favorite podcasts that I realize that Monday had been a public holiday.

   The same is even true with Memorial Day and Labor Day which should be easy enough to remember. The former is, of course, the last Monday of May, while the latter is the first Monday of September. Four years ago, however, when I was vacationing in Hawaii, it puzzled me to find so few people on the beach, when only a day earlier the beach had been packed. Then it dawned on me: the Labor Day weekend had come to an end and all the kiddies were back in school.

   This year I came across the above cartoon on a friend’s Facebook wall and was reminded that the Memorial Day weekend was just around the corner. Not that it will mean much to most American expats living in Japan: there'll be no happy Monday for us.

   Anyway, I was struck by a number of things when I looked at that cartoon.

    First of all, it reminded me of something Kurt Vonnegut wrote in, I believe, his novel Hocus Pocus (1990), something to the effect that the more the U.S. started outfitting its soldiers to look like the Reichswehr with coal scuttle helmets and all, the better we got at winning wars.

   In Vonnegut's next and final novel, Timequake (1997), Kilgore Trout had this to say about the way American soldiers were dressed:

   “I wouldn't have missed the Great Depression or my part in World War Two for anything. Trout asserted at the clambake that our war would live forever in show biz, as other wars would not, because of the uniforms of the Nazis.

    “He commented unfavorably on the camouflage suits our own generals wear nowadays on TV, when they describe our blasting the bejesus out of some Third World country because of petroleum. ‘I can't imagine,’ he said, ‘any part of the world where such garish pajamas would make a soldier less rather than more visible. ‘We are evidently preparing,’ he said, ‘to fight World War Three in the midst of an enormous Spanish omelet.’” 

   The second thing that caught my attention was how much the weapons of warfare have changed.

   Today, the US Army uses among other rifles the M16, a semi-automatic that fires three-round burst of 5.56x45mm NATO cartridges. During WWII, however, your average grunt was accoutered with an M1 Garand or M1 carbine. Both were semi-automatics. The M1 Garand had an 8-round “en bloc” clip that let out a metallic “klang” as it was ejected. The carbine originally had a 15 round detachable box magazine. Both were big improvements over the bolt action Springfield. The rifle, which was equipped with a 5-round clip, remained a standard issue infantry rifle during the Second World War due to the shortage of M1s. While the M1903 Springfield could fire at a rate of only 10-15 rounds per minute, you could get as many as 50 rounds off a minute with a Garand. By comparison, today’s M16 can shoot at a rate of up to 950 rounds per minute.

   The point that I would like to make here is that the United States was able to defeat Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Japanese Imperial Army armed with rifles that today’s gun nuts would not be comfortable with when and if they ever have to revolt against their own government, as 44% of Republicans now believe.

   And finally, why the hell is Ronnie's coup de grâce Grenada not included in the line-up???

Meron Pan

   My son came into the kitchen where I was making my morning coffee, opened up the fridge and said, “I want meron pan.”

   Meron pan is a kind of sweet bun that is popular in Japan and these days the kid can’t get enough of it.

   “You want melon bread? I asked, correcting his English. I can be annoyingly persistent about this, but, hey, the boy speaks English pretty well considering that it is an uphill battle against Japanese that we are waging.

   “Yes.”

   “Do we even have melon bread?”

   “Yes.”

   “Really? Well, I don't know where it is,” I said. “Would you like some of this bread? I got it at Paul. It's really good . . .”

   “No! Melon bread!”

   “Ask your mother.”

   Just then my wife entered the kitchen. My son told her in Japanese that he wanted meron pan.

   “We’re don’t have anymore,” she replied, also in Japanese.

  “We do, too.”

   “No, we don’t.”

   “Mama, did you end up eating it?” (Mama, tabechatta no? in Japanese.)

   “Ah!” Red flashed in my wife’s cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

   Yu-kun took the news surprisingly well and went back to playing in his room. When my wife and I were alone, she said, “How in the world did he know?”

   “He’s my son.”

Guns Over the People (G.O.P.)

   According to an article in the Huffington Post today, the daughter of the Sandy Hook Elementary School principal who died in last December's mass shooting confronted Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) over her vote against allowing debate on expanding background checks for firearm purchases.

   Reading the article, it occured to me that this was an odd and uniquely American debate between those who demand the continued ease of access to guns to protect themselves from a perceived threat of violence and those who seek to restrict that accessibility to guns because they or someone they care for have suffered from real gun violence.

   Sadly, it's often those on the side of further loosening restrictions who win the debate. They're the ones with the guns, after all.

   And if you thought the NRA was over the top, a rival gun rights organization called the Gun Owners of America (GOA) has criticized the NRA for (heaven forbid) compromising on gun rights issues and selling out the gun rights movement.

   I pledge allegience to the Guns of the United States of America and to the Freedom for which they stand, one Nation under Guns, Guns, and more Guns, unrestrictable, unrelinquishable, uninfringible, with assault weapons and ammo for all.

   In his response to the Sandy Hook mass shooting, LaPierre LaPyoo had this, among other malarkey, to say:

   "And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bullet Storm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Combat, and Splatterhouse.

   "And here’s one, it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research staff can find it, and all of yours couldn’t? Or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it? Add another hurricane, add another natural disaster. I mean we have blood-soaked films out there, like American Psycho, Natural Born Killers. They’re aired like propaganda loops on Splatterdays and every single day."

   So, LaPierre's answer to gun violence is to not restrict access to guns which would be a violation of the Second Amendment, but he's all for restricting freedom of speech because (what?) James Madison was only kidding when he wrote the First Amendment?

   Click this, for a reminder of what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment.

   There's a lot of freedom-luvin' patriots out there who are arming themselves to the teeth out of a fear that the gu'mint is going get 'em and they hell as ain't goin' without a fight. But, even if these crackers had Bradley tanks and RPGs in their arsenals, the government would still kick their arses. 

Profiles That Discourage

   On Wednesday, while the nation was focused on news about a possible arrest of a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, several amendments to the gun control bill, including the so-called Manchin-Toomey amendment which would require universal background checks--the lowest hanging fruit of a bill that was already modest in scope--were defeated. The amendment, which has public support of 92%, received only 54 votes in favor, 46 against, meaning it failed to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to move ahead. Four Democrats (Baucus of Montana, Begich of Alaska, Heitkamp of N.Dakota, and Harry Reid of Nevada) voted no. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it should be noted, voted against the amendment for procedural reasons, in order to preserve the right to bring the measure back up for another vote.

   According to The Washington Post, "A number of other amendments also failed to earn the 60 votes necessary to pass: A GOP proposal including a number of changes, 52 to 48; a bipartisan amendment to stiffen penalties for 'straw purchasers,' 58 to 42; a GOP-backed amendment that would have permitted 'national reciprocity' of state-issued concealed carry permits, 57 to 43; a GOP plan to extend gun rights for veterans, including those deemed unable to manage their financial affairs, 56-44; and a Democratic amendment to limit the size of ammunition magazines, 54-46."

   All in all, it was a dark day for advocates of comprehensive gun control, but hardly surprising. In spite of its waning influence over the electorate, the NRA still has such a firm hold on politicians in Washington that policies even a majority of its four and a half million members support can't get passed, let alone voted upon. You might as well give the NRA naming rights to the U.S. Capitol Building.

   Monday's bomb attack which killed three people and injured more than 180 reminded Americans that public safety cannot be taken for granted. I strongly feel, however, that the greatest threat to Americans today is not a terrorist with a home-made bomb, but rather the feckless politicans in D.C. who are unable to stand up to the gun industry's lobby and do the right thing. Shame on them.

   28,840 people have been shot so far this year in the goold ol' United States. In a normal country, a fraction of that dismal statistic would be more than enough to prompt action on gun violence. Not in America, though, where not even the massacre of twenty innocent school children was enough to move Senators to vote for modest changes in our gun laws. It makes me sick.

   In 1955, then Senator John F. Kennedy published Profiles in Courage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography describing the accounts of eight senators who had crossed party lines or defied the opinion of their constituents to do what they believed was right. A new edition of the work is scheduled to be published later this year. Working title: Profiles That Discourage.