“Rodney Deegen was surprised alone in his security booth where he was pleasuring himself while staring at ghost-like images of naked children. He was arrested immediately. Investigators suspect that he may have distributed some 350,000 images of naked people over the past 18 months.”

You remember that story, don’t you? Was all over the press in July 2012? Oh, wait, that hasn’t happened yet. Still to come, so to say. Let me get my thoughts arranged. Full Story »

A bomb goes off high above the earth, and one second after, the world ends—not in a bang but a whimper.

William Forstchen’s brilliantly disturbing book, One Second After, takes place in a post-apocalyptic America. The country has been brought to its knees by three nuclear missiles launched by unknown foes. The power of the attack comes not from the blasts themselves but from the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) it emits.

An EMP, Forstchen points out, could completely knock out America’s electrical infrastructure. Miles and miles of high-tension wires would absorb the power of the EMP, magnifying it beyond the ability of virtually any circuit-breaker to stop. Electrical systems would overload. Anything with delicate electrical circuitry—like cars, computers, and even calculators—would be fried.

And in Forstchen’s world, America without power would be hell on earth. Full Story »

An S&R exclusive interview

William Forstchen has a bad dream—a really bad dream—that goes something like this:

A cataclysmic attack throws the United States back to the dark ages, with no electricity, no communication or transportation networks, and no medicines. The most vulnerable members of society—the very young and the very old—begin to die off first, but soon hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, begin dying. Rogue bands of lawless predators, living by rule of force rather than by rule of law, prey on weakened communities. The government, crippled, can’t come to anyone’s rescue.

And all it takes is a single bomb detonated high in the atmosphere, two hundred miles above the continent.

“Welcome to my nightmare,” Forstchen says with the kind of grim chuckle usually reserved for gallows humor.

But this is no joke. “It sounds like it’s science fiction, Mayan-prophecy, end-of-the-world stuff,” Forstchen admits, “but it’s dead-on real.” Full Story »

I am a citizen of the United States of America. In this country, I can criticize my government as intelligently, as profanely, or as stupidly as I wish. I can call the president of the nation an unintelligent, uninspiring, and incompetent leader — which I have done. I can call my representative in Congress a buffoonish party hack — which I have done — and urge his removal from office by the voters. I can attack the policies enacted by government at all levels as often as I wish.

I can assemble with others to complain about the government. I can petition the government for redress of grievances. I can practice a religion free of government interference. Most importantly, I have the right to speak my mind. I can say whatever I want about the government short of advocating violence against it. I am free to speak or write critically about the actions or inactions of my government.

I can be a critic of my government because for hundreds of years, hundreds of thousands of Americans before me fought and died for my right to do that.
Full Story »

By Sara Robinson

Dear Conservatives:

Your fellow Americans demand an answer — and we want it now. Just one simple question:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

Just answer the question. Yes or no. Don’t insult us with elisions, evasions, dithering, qualifications, or conditional answers. We need to know what your intentions are — and we need to know NOW. People are being shot dead in the streets of America at the rate of several per month now. You may not want responsibility for this — but the whackadoodles pulling the triggers make no bones about who put them up to this.

You did. Full Story »

Back in February, Andrew Revkin, climate and environment reporter for the New York Times (and fellow SEJ member) wrote in his DotEarth blog that there were a number of people and organizations hoping to have the Presidential candidates debate on various science topics. The group most directly involve in trying to organize this debate was Science Debate 2008, and while they were unable to get Barack Obama and John McCain to agree to a science debate, they were able to get a list of 14 questions submitted to the campaigns, and responses to those questions back.

The 14 questions were, with the help of several science organizations, culled from 3400 questions submitted by scientists and engineers representing nearly every American science organization, Nobel laureates, and over 100 universities. I’ve excerpted the questions and answers below in an attempt to understand and explain why the questions, and the candidates answers to each, matter. If you want to read the complete questionnaire and the actual answers to each instead of my summaries, check out this link. Full Story »

Yo, Barack! Hey, John! I know you’ve been busy, cruising around the country, giving those same ol’ stump speeches over and over again. (Doncha get tired of that? We sure do.)

Park for a minute and tell us something. After you’re elected president, what are you gonna do with those buffoons running the Minerals Management Service that collects each year oil and gas royalties of $10 billion from oil companies? The Interior Department’s inspector general says top officials there have been involved in “financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.”

And while you’re at it, what about Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission? You plan to let her keep on defending “trips she took that were paid for by the industries that her agency regulates“? You gonna let her keep on telling Congress that her agency does not need a larger budget to police the the industries that produce the nation’s consumer goods?
Full Story »

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Republican candidates are running as far away from President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as possible, because their approval ratings are at or near historic lows for a sitting administration.  The upcoming GOP convention in Minneapolis presented a difficult issue for the GOP:  It would be an admission of Republican failure to exclude the nominal party leaders from the convention, but their appearance would be an aid to the Democrats, who are trying their best to defeat John McCain on George W. Bush’s abysmal eight-year record.  An appearance by the two most unpopular and incompetent men in the White House’s recent history would further tie this year’s GOP candidates to them.

Hurricane Gustav has solved all that.  Today, Bush and Cheney announced that they will not appear at the convention in order to remain at the White House, ostensibly to provide assistance should it be needed, but probably to lounge around the Oval Office playing zoom zorch. Full Story »

This represents the final bodies from Katrina, the last unknown victim of Katrina. This represents the pain and suffering.

— New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; Laura Maggi of The Times-Picayune reported that “[s]even people who died during Hurricane Katrina were interred Friday morning in one of six mausoleums created to hold the remains of those who were not identified after the storm or whose families did not claim them; Aug. 29.

People are bringing five or six suitcases. We want to carry more people and less luggage.

— St. Charles Parish Emergency Preparedness Director Tab Troxler as residents of New Orleans and surrounding parishes begin evacuation of the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav approaches; Aug. 30.
Full Story »

All links go to photos.

Our little outfit was issued one hall pass and one perimeter pass at the beginning of the convention. Our esteemed leader Sam was able to fandangle an extra hall pass for Thursday and we heard that our perimeter pass was now upgraded to an arena pass.

Full Story »

ITEM! 16th Street Mall is fashion central for everyone who is anyone in the Democratic Party. If you are coming for the convention, there is no escaping the 16th Street Mall. It’s the place to see and be seen. First off, you’ll need to get your bling. Buttons, T-shirts, signs, chants and fliers. But remember you are never fully dressed without a lanyard. You can have your press passes, IDs and credentials. But it’s the convention hall pass that completes the outfit.

What is that? You are not even planning on going to the convention today? Well, don’t you make the fashion faux pas and take that little badge of belonging off. You must wear it proudly and always. But don’t worry. You won’t be alone. A quick walk up and down the Mall and you’ll see fully 20% of the population showing that they can get into a certain arena any time they wish.

But they’re not the only one showing off their street cred. Full Story »

I ducked out a few minutes ago to grab a gelato over at Gelazzi on Larimer Square and didn’t realize, as I tried to walk in, that it was reserved temporarily for a private party. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, retreating. But when the woman at the door saw my press pass, she invited me right in. I figured that whoever was hosting, I could take the press packet handed to me in exchange for a cup of chocolate-chocolate chip and coffee Italian-style ice cream.

Turns out it was a gathering to establish a U.S. Department of Peace. That’s the goal of The Peace Alliance, a D.C.-based organization whose mission with such a project is
“to reduce and prevent violence domestically and internationally.”

It sounded a little gimmicky at first. But as I thumbed through the press kit, I started to wonder, why not? Full Story »

An unknown candidate, a gathering of Minutemen, Bob Barr (or maybe not), and immigration.  Do progressives have anything in common with these people on this topic?   Well, maybe.  Just a bit.

In China, size matters. People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small.

— Zhang Linsen, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company in Songjiang, China; he owns a black Hummer H2; July 28; emphasis added.

It’s a cultural thing. When the kids are hungry, they go to their mother, not their father. And when there is less food, women are the first to eat less.

— Herve Kone, director of a group that promotes development, social justice and human rights in Burkina Faso, quoted in the Washington Post Foreign Service’s Kevin Sullivan story about the impacts of the African food crisis on women and children; July 20.
Full Story »

Poisoning dogs, orphan teamwork, getting poisoned

by Connor O’Steen

[Ed. note:  Connor returned to Kabul from Bamyan and the Jawzareen Valley, as noted in installment 6.  The Red Crescent is the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross.]

When we got back to Kabul, we were immediately greeted by an unpleasant surprise. The head of the Afghan Red Crescent had decided that he was tired of the stray dogs that walked through Marastoon, dogs which did nothing more than bark, ask you for food, and follow you around. Full Story »

Afghanistan, Ghowr Province: an opium village

[Ed. note: Connor O'Steen writes of going to an opium village in Afghanistan's Ghowr province to do the necessary research to admit Nasim to the orphanage in Chaghcharan.]

First the roads. They were dirt the entire way and I was expecting this, but I had also figured that they would have been purposefully made, smoothed over even to facilitate the transfer of people from point A to point B. Silly me. The roads were the natural result of cars following the same path over and over. We drove in the ruts that had been imprinted by heavier trucks and, from time to time, our car’s tires scraped against the sides of the ruts, bouncing us from side to side. At first I imagined it was like being on a particularly cloying rollercoaster. Then I imagined it was like being inside a pinata. Then I stopped imagining things. Full Story »

by Connor O’Steen

Editor’s note: Our guest is currently in Afghanistan working for PARSA, a non-governmental organization (NGO) specializing in microeconomic development with an emphasis on women and children. He’s often in rural areas far from Kabul where most other journalists cannot, or will not, go. You’re unlikely to find his insights in the mainstream media. Often, he has no access to the Internet, so excerpts will be sporadic, at best. His correspondence to us is edited for context and to remove information that might put him or his coworkers in danger.

The hard-working orphans of Chaghcharan

Chaghcharan is the largest–essentially only–city in Ghowr province. I use the term “city” lightly, because the “city” part of Chaghcharan is the intersection of two roads around which a number of buildings are clustered. Full Story »

Editor’s note:  Our guest, Connor O’Steen, is a special correspondent to Scholars & Rogues.  He’s currently in Afghanistan working for PARSA, a non-governmental organization (NGO) specializing in microeconomic development with an emphasis on women and children. He is often in rural areas far from Kabul where most other journalists cannot, or will not, go.  You are unlikely to find his insights in the mainstream media. Often, he has no access to the Internet, so excerpts will be sporadic, at best.  His correspondence to us is edited for context and to remove information that might put him or his coworkers in danger.

Dogs, generals, and orphans

by Connor O’Steen

One of the things we have no shortage of in Kabul is dogs. Marnie Gustavson, the executive director of PARSA and the person who’s been nice enough to put me up in Afghanistan, currently has seven dogs living under her roof.  It wasn’t exactly that she wanted this many; it was just how it turned out, really. Full Story »

For better or worse, cultures tend to rank genres of fiction.  So-called serious works, written by the likes of William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, rate well above mysteries, westerns, romances, science fiction, and (certainly) comic books on the literary org chart.  There’s justification for this.  We rank the stunning complexity of Mozart’s music ahead of chopsticks for a reason:  Mozart exhibits genius of the highest order, taking our most talented musicians years of study and practice to understand and master, and the first rendition of chopsticks was composed and taught to a wildebeest in under 19 seconds.

Or, to put it another way, Hamlet is clearly a more complex and wonderful work than Everyone Poops.

On rare occasions, though, a writer takes the unique features of a lowly literary genre and uses it to illuminate life in a manner that, perhaps, could be accomplished in no other way.  In 1895, HG Wells published The Time Machine, transforming science fiction from a mere, gee-whiz exploration of technical wonders to a spelunking crawl through the human psyche, illuminating the toothy growths of social terror clinging to the walls and ceilings along the way.  Only science fiction gave him the freedom to vastly alter the world and explore the unchanging human condition as it adapts to that world.  Only science fiction could give anthropologist Ursula Le Guin the platform she needed to explore humanity in the absence of fixed gender, as she did in The Left Hand of Darkness, or Isaac Asimov the frame of reference he needed to study the very meaning of what it means to be human in I, Robot.  Full Story »