"This is Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you." --Burrell

For those of you who watched the last and final season of The Wire, you know that detectives McNulty and Freamon basically staged a fake serial killer scare in Baltimore in order to turn back on some much needed funding for their investigation of the Stanfield organization. You also know that Kima--after McNulty confessing the caper to her--tells the bosses in the department of their gambit. Who is right?

I've lately been reading through The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt. Her analysis of political evil suggested the question to me: in particular, not just the corrupt or fanatical leaders at the top who set the sinister objectives of a criminal state, but more specifically their bureaucratic enablers who pretend they have no moral responsibility for carrying out these orders.

Given all the detail-oriented diaries fighting over which candidate is more electable, which is smarter, which has brighter teeth, and which candidate gets invited to more of the right parties, I thought it might be worth our while to step back and look at an important issue that will still be with us regardless of who wins in November. I referred to it elsewhere as "America’s heart of darkness," the idea that Bush (and his ideological bastard child, Bushism) is a symptom, not a cause. When Bush goes away, the secret craving among the people for his harsh and unconditional brand of leadership will not go away. Bushism satisfies certain needs in this new, scary, contingent world of ours. Join me below the fold, won’t you?

What is the present status of Islamic Government? And why is the legitimacy of Islam as a state religion such a controversial matter for all of the world to presently debate? It would seem that state sponsored religion is an archaic construct which has been for the most part abandoned by modern government. But in fact this is far from the truth, the truth is that several sovereign nations have recognized a particular religion as their state or official religion. I think non-Muslims need to answer why is Islam in particular, as a state religion, such a big deal? As for Muslims I think we must ask ourselves are we implementing Islam in government the way it was intended? Or are there implementations of Islam in modern government that are a bid'ah?

As chief proofreader at my company, which shall remain nameless for reasons that will become obvious, I really work not for my technical boss, but for whomever requests and conceives a project to be turned into something that can be mass-produced and sent to the sales force.  This morning, I got an assignment from a very special project requestor, a Peruvian immigrant in her late twenties who arrives and leaves at this building long before I do, and whose job is to keep it sparkling for us suits (well, today is casual Friday, but you get the idea).

She had written four paragraphs in response to four questions selected from the takehome final she got in the sociology course she is taking at our local community college.  Reading what she wrote, I really wished she was single, as I recently became.  

I can only hope that her instructor is not a Kossack, because she's turning this in today.  Perhaps if he is, he will let me buy him a beer, over which we can discuss my changing careers.