Cultural Relativism

Have you read or heard the story of Amina Lawal? She's a Nigerian woman who was recently spared execution by stoning for comitting adultery.

Reportedly, a dozen states in norther Nigeria have started implementing Shari'ah, or Islamic Law, which gives these states the justification necessary for punishing adulterers by stoning them to death, for punishing theifs by cutting of their hands, etc.

I'm no expert on Islam or any of it's teachings, but I know I don't like the sounds of someone being stoned for committing adultery. Perhaps it's my western up bringing that has tainted my understanding and given me over to a depraved mind.

Then again, this portion of Islamic Law could be barbaric and revolting. Killing someone for committing adultery hardly seems like a fair punishment. Removing someone's hand for stealing something seems a bit extreme as well, not to mention counterproductive.

Obviously, if you compare the rate of recidivism among adulterers who have been stoned to death with the rate of recidivism among adulterers who have not been stoned to death, you'll see how effective stoning really is as a punishment.

Personally, I don't think adultery should be against the law, sure it may be morally wrong and it may wreck families, but against the law? Presumably it was something that took place between consenting adults, if not then it was likely rape, which is a different matter entirely.

Rapists should have their genitals removed. Theifs should have to repay those they stole from for remediation, then they should be punished in such a way that will make them think twice about stealing again and they should be set on a different course -- teach them a useful trade.

If you remove a person's hands, you make it more difficult for that individual to make a positive contribution to society. By removing a theif's hands, you increase the burden placed on society by that individual.

I'm thankful that a higher court intervened in Lawal's case, even if they only did so on a technicality, rather than saying that stoning to death was an inappropriate punishment.

No job? What about public service?

CNN has been full of reports about the two million U.S. jobs that have been lost since Gore was elected and Bush took over the Presidency.

A couple of years ago, my brother was laid off from a telecom company in the K.C. area. That company has been bleeding jobs ever since. The rumors have recently been circulating that another round of layoffs is pending. This round will hit IT, sending thousands of jobs overseas.

I recently asked a friend of mine who works at this telecom company how he felt about it, if he was worried. His reply was humorous, "Oh know, you mean I'm not going to be able to work at Sprint anymore?" He said if he was laid off, he stay home with his kids.

My how times have changed since the nineties, there are currently more than half a million jobless IT workers in the U.S. Remember when big tech firms were lobbying Congress for more H1-B workers?

So where can these half a million people find steady work? Well, there's always public service. Uncle Sam seems to need a few people to do some dirty work over seas involving guns and certain persons of interest hiding out in the Middle East.

Starting to climb

Six years ago a friend of mine took me up to the climbing wall on the KU campus, home to the KU Rock Climbing club at The University of Kansas.

I'd had an interest in rock climbing for a while, but had never acted on it, but my friend was somewhat of a regular boulderer at the gym and wanted me to check it out.

I crammed my feet into a tiny little pair of slippers with special rubber soles that wrapped around the front, back and sides of uppers. Initially I thought there must be some mistake.

"Um Mike, if there are no shoes that fit me, I'll just wear my tennis shoes," I said.

Mike explained to me that climbers wear their climbing shoes a half size smaller than street shoes. I suffered through the shoes. Once I started climbing, er trying to climb, I forgot all about the shoes.

If you have children, you know they are tempted to try to climb everything. As an adult attempting to navigate a bouldering wall, I was overcome with a flood of memories of scrambling over trees, rocks, cliffs, hay bales and creek banks on my grandparents' farms.

After that night, I never went back to the climbing wall, still my interest in climbing and my desire to climb were hard wired.

Recently, my wife went to visit a roommate from college in New York city. While she was gone, I decided to build my own climbing wall in the garage.

I picked a spot in the garage large enough to accomodate a 4x8 foot sheet of plywood, with an eye towards being able to expand in either direction at a later date.

I sketched a plan using 2x4s and a 23/32 sheet of plywood, putting the whole thing on four hinges at the base of the plywood with four bolts at the top which would connect to four bolts in the wall by four chains. This design allowed me to adjust the angle of the wall to vary the difficulty.

After assembling the wall on the ground, I enlisted the help of my daughter to pick a color and help me paint the wall. We went home and laid out a grid on the board. I used this grid to drill holes roughly every six inches apart.

I didn't follow the grid religiously, I considered it to be more of a suggestion. After drilling holes, the board was ready for paint. Strawberry Hill Pink with fine grain texturing added.

The following day, I took my daughter to Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop to buy some holds for the wall. I also put in a call to the local Fastenal and placed a special order for 100 t-nuts.

That was three weeks ago and I've been climbing on this thing almost everyday since. It's fun and it's good exercise, my forearms ache and my hands are starting to crack.

I've spent more than a few hours looking at online sites about climbing and have discovered that it has a jargon all it's own. One doesn't actually climb up a wall, rather one sends a problem or flashes if it's the first time one's attempted a given problem and actually tops out. Flashing a problem is akin to on-sighting a problem, but flashing may involve prior knowledge of a given problem, whereas on-sighting it means you had never seen the problem before and had never attempted it.

If one doesn't flash nor on-sight a problem, but eventually does send it, that's referred to as redpointing the problem. You get the idea, the jargon is rich and this isn't the half of it, I'm sure.

In addition to searching out information online, I've been looking at everything in town with an eye towards climbing. I've discovered several places in town that look good and one less than a block from my house which is outstanding.

I'm going to try and document some of the spots I've found and put them up online. I've searched google as many ways as I can think of and haven't come up with much of anything about climbing in and around Lawrence, Kansas. I'd like to lead the way for those who may come after me.

Though my climbing skills are rudimentary at best and my arms are weak and my legs are bouncing, I'll do what I can to help out other climbers.

Anarchy at Sea II

See the previous post here, I'm continuing that thought.

I wanted to mention that there are 6 million containers brought into this country each year. That's more than one container every six seconds. If you don't know what a container is, consider a semi-truck's standard sized trailer as a container. One of those enters the U.S. every six seconds.

Of those, two percent are actually searched. That's 120,000 out of six million each year, 5.8 million containers enter the U.S. each year without being searched, that's one container every five seconds entering the U.S. without being searched.

Every five seconds a semi-truck sized load of cargo enters the U.S. and we're not taking the time to see what that cargo is. Feeling secure now?

I was listening to children cry as they said the names of loved ones that they lost in NYC on September 11, 2001. I was very sorry for those children and I was sorry for my own children that nothing has really been done to prevent future attacks. Sure we're waging a "global war on terrorism." Bush's boys keep saying that if we don't take the fight to the terrorists on their turf they'll bring it here to ours and when I hear it, I think it sounds like taunting.

And I consider just how vulnerable we really are. We have to be constantly on the look out, constantly listening, constantly following leads and constantly pursuing terrorists where ever they may be.

Terrorists only have to slip a few things by us where we're not looking. They don't have to wage conventional warfare, they only have to sneak a few black-market nukes (courtesy of the former Soviet Union or soon North Korea) into the country via a handful of the 5.8 million containers that enter our country each year without being searched.

It's time we take another look at our foreign policy. If someone came and took your house or your parents' house and kicked you/them out and made you/them move into the ghetto, you might also feel like strapping explosives to yourself and blowing up those who destroyed your life.

Don't get me wrong, I thing Israel should exist, but not beyond their 1948 borders. I realize they were attacked by those around them and Israelies (those in power at that time and today) feel they need a buffer to protect themselves, bullshit. Give back the land you stole after 1948, you're occupation is unjust and your military is mightier than many others, I think you'll be able to take care of yourself.

Can't we all just get along?