“It’s important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It’s not only life of babies, but it’s life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet.”
-Bush in Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 24, 2000
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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wow…I have no words…kids playing too much WoW or something?
owns the url:www.darkdungeon.com ?
The wonderful short story by Ursula K. LeGuin. A portion:
“Then let me describe one more thing. In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes–the child has no understanding of time or interval–sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked; the eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks. “I will be good, ” it says. “Please let me out. I will be good!” They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, “eh-haa, eh-haa,” and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually. They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.”
Definitely the most bizarre thing I read in all of my college career, with the possible exception of the little ditty about the habits and mating rituals of the Nacirema.
Huh. My 13-year-old daughter taught me how to play Doom. And we downloaded all the add-ons, including the Barney monsters. Look what happened to her. She’s a card-carrying member of the ACLU.
do we have a new front pager? or did MSO change her name? Hi Other Lisa
I just noticed up top…it says “Recent Comments” instead of “Chamonix’s comments”…I tink that is new. I like it better….cause I can see my recent comments under my own Chamonix1’s Page..This place is awesome…new improvements coming in daily…rock on Boo. My newhew is back East right now checking out Colleges, he is checkin out some pretty Cool schools.
This Easter is horrifying to me, really horrifying. Never have I felt so certain of the perversion and ignorance of the import of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection (whether parable or faith, you decide).
And now I’ve gotta go color eggs at 10p. The Bunny brings the lovely colored eggs here, and the kids are very excited.
At least we are not joining extended family this year. That would surely inflame my angst, as traditional holiday expectations bumped up against everyday life.
Thanks for the open thread.
i miss coloring eggs….:(
I just finished reading the thread involving Galiel and the Lt. in Iraq, and experienced a deja vu.
Just a few months ago, it seems, you, Galiel, were saying farewell to the community at Kos. I do not remember that you were banned from the site, nor do I recall the reason you were leaving. I was interested to find you posting here because, whatever else you are, you seem to be a person of distinction with a formidable intellect.
I hope you don’t leave for good; your questions are important, if uncomfortable. I wish for your sake you were less thin-skinned and more charitable in your manner toward others.
This site is a very attractive one; the posters are thoughtful, generous, and smart. I already see a strong sense of community emerging here. Stay and enjoy it. The “broker” of the forum, as you call him,is
a congenial and thoughtful host; I do not see that he insulted you. Just curious: where did you/he go after leaving Kos and before coming here?
Hi Chamonix, I am back after posting a bit at my blog. I have two cats on my lap, making it a little hard to type. I am celebrating Easter by drinking rex goliath cabernet. In my family we used to do this cool egg coloring thing involving onion skins. I can’t quite remember how we did this but it made the eggs look really cool. Mostly what I looked forward to was the easter chocolate! Especially the Sees chocolate eggs….mmmm….chocolate….
I like this word game;
The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or
changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are this year’s winners:
1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realise it was your money to start with.
5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
And the pick of the literature:
18. Ignoranus: A person