A Prescient Warning from Someone Who Knows

Maria Alekhina, better known as Masha of the Russian band Pussy Riot, offered the following caution against Americans taking Donald Trump and his neo-fascist campaign lightly:


“When Putin came to his first term or second term, nobody [in Russia] actually thought that this is serious. Everybody was joking about it. And nobody could imagine
that after five, six years, we would have a war in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, and these problems in Syria,” in which Russia has become involved. Everybody [is]
joking about Donald Trump now, but it’s a very short way from joke to sad reality when you have a really crazy president speaking about breaking every moral and
logic norm. So I hope that he will not be president. That’s very simple.”

Trump is not entertaining. He is not rebelling against a culture of oppressive political correctness. He is a fascist bully who wants nothing more than to destroy the America that we know. His strongman routine, his overtly violent supporters, and his inflammatory rhetoric all combine to focus the rage of a group of disaffected Americans who do not care about democracy or the Constitution. They want power, and they want it badly. They will do anything in order to return to a fictitious America for which they pine: an America where everyone but white men are forced to confront the reality of state-sponsored terrorism every day.

This is not funny. This is not okay. This is how fascism always begins. Fight it.

The LHC Rap :Understanding Higgs' Boson

Okay. In case you haven't noticed by now, I am a huge nerd. As such, I am sharing this brilliant song and video with you. Scientists at CERN attempt to explain the Higgs' Boson through rapping and bad dancing. If you aren't yet familiar with either CERN or the Higgs' Boson, spend a few minutes and do some minimal research on it. These are the huge mysteries of existence and deserve as much time as we spend keeping up with the Kardashians.

Christian Professor Suspended for Not Caving to Unholy Trinity of Bigotry, Fear, and Ignorance

Dr. Larycia Alaine Hawkins is an associate professor of political science at Wheaton College, a private Evangelical school located just west of Chicago that is consistently on the wrong side of social and political issues. As a courageous response to the growing climate of fear and hatred that Muslims in America are facing, she decided that she would wear a hijab during the month of Advent, explaining that her decision to do so was intended as a gesture of solidarity with a minority that is increasingly under threat.

Dr. Hawkins took to Facebook last week to explain her actions. “I don’t love my Muslim neighbor because s/he is American. I love my Muslim neighbor because s/he deserves love by virtue of her/his human dignity. I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.”

The administrators at Wheaton College, not wanting to miss an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that they are, in fact, among the worst and most ignorant Christians in the country, responded by placing her on administrative leave. In defense of their action, they pointed to “significant questions regarding the theological implications of statements… Hawkins has made about the relationship of Christianity to Islam.”

Ignorance of Christianity, Islam, or both are the only reasons that one might harbor "significant questions" regarding Dr. Hawkins' claims "about the relationship of Christianity to Islam." Except among theological extremists on both sides, this is a settled question. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the same God.

Period.

Full stop.

I'm dreading to see why Wheaton College makes the news next time.

Aren't You a Little Young For That?

"Daddy, I like cocks," announced my three-year-old.

"What?" I replied, spinning around in shock.

She turned her book so that I could see a picture of a peacock. "I like cocks," she repeated. "They're so beautiful."

"Peacocks, honey," I corrected. "You like peacocks."

"Yeah," she agreed, turning her attention back to her book. "I like peacocks."

An Honest Self-Diagnosis

"I think I'm allergic to my boogers."

- my four-year-old daughter

On the True Meaning of Altruism

Several weeks ago, an armed moron by the name of Tatiana Duva-Rodriguez fired several shots from her 9-milimeter handgun at an SUV that was fleeing a Home Depot. The armed moron believed that the people inside of the SUV had just stolen something from the store, and thus felt justified in discharging her weapon in a crowded parking lot. She was just sentenced to 18 months probation and has had her concealed carry permit revoked until at least 2023.

When asked about the court case, she replied, “I tried to help. And I learned my lesson that I will never help anybody again.”

And, in the process, proved to the world that she is, indeed, a moron.

Feliz Cumpleaños

This might be premature, but it appears that the trial over the ridiculous copyright to the "Happy Birthday" song is over and all concerned parties have signed a settlements of some sort. Of course, it remains to be seen what the settlement is, but for now I will optimistically assume that common sense has won the day and the song has gone over to the public domain.

In Defense of a Billionaire

So, Mark Zuckerberg announces that, in honor of the birth of his daughter, he is planning on donating 99% of his wealth to various charitable causes, and the reaction is... mixed? Acrimonious? Outright hostile?

I am aware that the Internet has granted people the freedom and the space to broadcast all kinds of stupid and deplorable personal opinions, but criticizing somebody for planning on giving away billions of dollars is pretty stupid.

That is all.

At the Vortex of Racism, Islamophobia, Bigotry, and Fear

I'm not going to link to any articles. I'm not going to embed any videos. I'm not going to quote any politician, talking head, or pundit. It's out there - it is, in fact, everywhere - and you can find it for yourself if you want to. But here is the point:

This new wave of breathless anti-Muslim sentiment is both deplorable and despicable, and I sincerely abhor everybody who is participating in it.

Creating a database in which all Muslims must register? Internment camps? Ending immigration from "Muslim" countries? Beginning a "Judaeo-Christian" government propaganda program? These are all ideas that have been suggested and discussed over the past week.

France, which, if you recall, was the country that was actually attacked, has responded to the attacks by reaffirming their stance that they will still accept their previously-declared quota of Syrian refugees. They have mourned, they have increased their military response to ISIS, and they have declared a temporary state of emergency.

America, which, if you recall, was not attacked last Friday, has responded hysterically, with politicians and pundits doing their best to stir up fear, hatred, and bloodlust among the general American population. The way that most news organizations have responded to the Paris attack has been particularly disgraceful. It is now obvious that the poorly-informed idiots that make up our media are incapable of learning lessons from their past behavior. After the way the American media cheered on and pushed the march to war in Iraq, one would have thought that they'd be more cautious before throwing aside the tattered remnants of their journalistic integrity and reverting to being the warmongerers they had been a decade ago.

Of course, if you thought this intellectual and moral growth was possible, you have been proven completely wrong.

What is happening right now is sick. It is pathetic. It is disgraceful. As Americans, we constantly tell ourselves all about our greatness, all about our exceptionalism, all about our brilliant commitment to human rights and the betterment of humanity.

It all seems like bullshit right now. What is happening is that the lowest common denominator is winning, and we are left with nothing but hatred and fear. A great country doesn't do this. An exceptional country doesn't engage in open bigotry and the tarring of an entire people because of the actions of a couple of murderous psychos. A country committed to human rights and the betterment of humanity doesn't offer policy prescriptions that hearken back to the Japanese internment camps of World War 2.

What is happening to this country?

Sometimes Public Transportation Can Remind You That People Aren't All That Bad After All

I love seeing stories like this. I need more personal focus on the good things that people do and less obsession with our negative and hurtful actions.

Sometimes Public Transportation Can Remind You That People Aren't All That Bad After All

A World of Difference

Your Corporatocracy and You

Shared without comment, because none should be needed...

Um and Ahem and Other Place Holders

So... if I had an audience of readers, I would apologize for being away for a couple of weeks, but, since I don't, who cares?

Over the past three weeks I have had a cold, a headache from trying to go cold turkey on coffee, and a brief relapse with alcohol. I had nearly twenty months sober and lost my way. I sometimes have to remind myself that it's not the end of the world, that I didn't just throw away twenty months of hard work and self-improvement. As long as I use the relapse as a means of strengthening my sobriety, then nothing was lost.

I attended the Blue Lotus Buddhist Temple last night for guided meditation, and found it quite... nice? That's such a useless word. I found it relaxing. I found it satisfying. I found it another important step in rebuilding the scaffolding around my sobriety. This is a work in progress, though it's not a project that will ever be complete.

May we be happy. May we be safe. May we be peaceful.

The Hurt Locker

I finally got around to watching The Hurt Locker yesterday, and I'll say that I was unimpressed. The story was long and meandering, the plot felt loose and flowing rather than tight and well-constructed. There were several tangents which didn't seem to contribute anything to the overall story arc, and Jeremy Renner's stellar acting skills were just kind of wasted on the production.

Bleh.

That said, towards the end of the movie, while speaking to his infant son, Renner's character said something that struck me as both true and important: as we humans get older, we grow to love fewer and fewer things.

When we're young, the world is a source of endless fascination and beauty, and we so easily fall in love with every shiny thing that catches our attention. By the time we're adults and have begun to sink roots into the earth, we are not quite as susceptible to the quick thrill of love anymore.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, it's probably an important evolution that occurs within us.

I just wanted to share the line with you because it made me think, and thinking is a wonderful thing.

Pop-Culture Feminist Warriors

I consider myself a feminist.

I have always considered myself a feminist, even before I knew what the word meant. I was, to be certain, a weird little boy. When I was seven I wanted Wonder Woman underwear more than anything else in the world and my parents, being obliging and open-minded, bought me a pair. A picture of me posing in them sits on top of the desk in bedroom now. Of course, I also had Superman pajamas that I proudly wore, so I represented both sides of the gendered coin.

Being a father to two lovely girls has only reinforced my commitment to feminist principles. You know, the radical idea that women are human beings deserving of the same treatment and opportunity as men.

Which brings me to... Barbie?

Yes. Barbie. As a rule, I abhor Barbie. Mind you, Barbie is not the problem, but rather a symptom of a much more insidious illness within society. It is the illness that makes women feel bad about the way that they look, that makes women believe that there exists an unattainable ideal for which they must strive and suffer. This false idol of beauty is omnipresent: Disney princesses, singers, actresses, and, of course, Barbie dolls.

There is a new ad for Barbie out, entitled Imagine the Possibilities, that offers a new take on playing with Barbies. While the ad makes no effort to alter the physical impossibilities of Barbie's shape, it does promote the endless possibilities of empowering young women, and for that, at least, I am pleased.

Check it out.

Remember: you are you. The way you look is perfect. You don't need to lose weight in order to look better. You don't need a different nose. Lipstick does not make you more appealing. Waxing is not an evolutionary imperative. Be yourself. Love yourself. Fuck anyone who demands something different from you.

It's a Trap!

So... white supremacists are apparently enraged over the newly-released preview for the new Star Wars movie. I guess it promotes white genocide or some other anxiety fetish of the fringe right-wing.

They've even started their own hashtag, so you know it's a serious political movement...

It seems that black actor John Boyega has an important role in the movie, and this inclusion of a black dude in a space movie from an unspecified time and place is proof positive that... white people now face cultural and or literal extermination. If you find that connection difficult to make, then pat yourself on the back, because it's a clear demonstration that you're a functional human being.

This is so mindbogglingly stupid that I'm not even sure where to begin with a counterpoint. The fact is that I'm exhausted of treating these idiot racists as though they were human beings deserving of my patience and time. If you think that the new Star Wars movie represents some kind of covert cultural plot to subvert white supremacy, then I hope that you move to the backwoods of an unmapped area, construct yourself an outhouse from moldy wooden boards that you salvaged from an abandoned doghouse, don a tinfoil hat, and spend your day masturbating to your Nazi fantasies.

Good riddance.

Your Life in Pi

Pi. Sometimes approximated as 3.14 or 22/7, it is an irrational number that has no exact fractional representation and whose decimal representation goes on into infinity.

It's an incredible number.

Check it out. Since it's an infinite, non-repeating number, every conceivable sequence of numbers will be represented at some point on the endless line of digits of pi. Your phone number is somewhere in there. Your birthday is in there. Your paternal grandfather's birthday followed by his first phone number followed by the date he was married is in there.

But it gets better. When the digits of pi are converted into binary (the 0's and 1's that compose the digital script for the pictures that we see on television sets), every conceivable picture will show up at some point along the line of pi. There will be a picture of you when you were born. There will be an exact replica of the Mona Lisa. A picture of you and your significant other engaged in your first awkward kiss. Every movie ever made, every book ever written, every unplanned Tourette's outburst: all represented within pi.

This blog post.

Basically, all of the information ever created within the universe is stored within the digits of pi. It's really breathtaking when you take time to consider the implications of this fabulous number.

You'll Get Hit by a Car

The other day, I was driving in the car with my wife and my two daughters. The older one, recently turned four years old, began telling us a story about... well, I'm sure it was about something, but I had a lot of trouble following her.

As both a parent and an early elementary school teacher, I've learned to focus on tone of voice, hand gestures, and other cues to help fill in the spaces left blank by children's various speech impediments. If you're just listening to the words and sounds coming from their mouths, you're probably not getting the right story.

So older daughter was talking, and suddenly her tone became very serious, almost cautionary, and she began talking about crossing the street. "And, you know, cuz when you cross the street, you always look both ways, otherwise the bus can drive and the trucks or cars and you always look this way and that way and both ways when you cross the street, right Daddy?"

"Right, hon," I agreed, happy that she had internalized the repeated lessons regarding safety while crossing the street.

"Yeah," concurred my three-year-old, nodding her head up and down wisely, "Cuz else you get hit by a car and your head hurts and you die."

Wow, I thought to myself. That got really serious really quickly.

Shine On

I like to look at sappy, uplifting pictures and videos on a regular basis as a reminder of the good in the world.

See, for years I used to go to great lengths to mask my essential optimism and romanticism about life because I was terrified of being so open with other people. I thought that I had to present a tough, cynical front to the world in order to protect myself against the harm others would do to me. It wasn't long before cynicism ceased being a mask and soon became who I was. In the span of just a couple of years I had gone from being a decent, nice, fun-loving person to one who no longer cared to be around others, one who openly mocked everyone and everything that he saw, one who scowled and sneered more than he smiled.

It wasn't long before the mask that I wore soon became my real face. It was no longer a front, but my true self. I wasn't capable of realizing it at the time, but my fear of being hurt had turned me into a foul creature, a thing of darkness that was terrified of the light. I had essentially turned myself into a Gremlin. I became a mean, isolated, selfish, self-involved, hateful alcoholic.

The worst part was how deeply I hated myself.

For years I had lived on the memories of the wonderful things I had done when I was younger, telling myself that I was still that person. While in high school, I had volunteered several days a week at a day care center in an economically-depressed neighborhood. I had regularly worked at soup kitchens. I led the Amnesty International Chapter at school. I did things, I was involved with the world around me, and I loved it. After I graduated from college, I packed my bags and moved to Taiwan on a whim. I stayed there for a year, teaching English and exploring the city of Taipei, and then moved to Quito, Ecuador for a while.

When I returned home to Chicago, however, things began to spiral out of control. I started drinking more, I stopped venturing outside so often, I began to have terrible anxiety that soon progressed into panic attacks, and I fell into a severe depression. Over the next several years, things just got worse for me, to the point that I was pretty much a permanent stumbling drunk. I didn't want to see my children or my wife, and I fantasized about running away and starting over in a different country.

Fortunately, I hit bottom and sought help. I've been sober for nineteen months now, my anxiety has mostly been tamed, and I've rejoined the ranks of the living. The point is that there are a lot of people out there who are suffering, and they're paralyzed by their pain. Please know that it can get better. You can help to pull yourself out of your funk and start anew. People all over the world do it everyday. You're not to blame for your situation. You didn't make yourself depressed or anxious, and you didn't decide to become an alcoholic or an addict. You are suffering from a disease, albeit a disease that has a horrible social stigma attached to it.

If you do need help, please seek it. It's out there. There are literally millions of people all over the world who are ready, eager, and trained to help you regain your self. Don't wait another day. You aren't meant to suffer for another moment.

Returning to my initial point, here are twenty-five pictures of people doing wonderful things. I would look at these when I was at my lowest and they would bring tears to my eyes. It was a small ray of light that had somehow pierced the cloud cover that had surrounded me, reminding me that the Sun is always shining, even on the darkest of days.

ENJOY.

Truthful Tweets About Parenting

Cheezburger has a great collection of tweets about parenting from parents. If you have children of your own, I'm pretty sure that you'll enjoy both the wisdom and the humor in these tweets. If you don't have children, then please, sleep in tomorrow morning. Enjoy yourself. Live your life. It all comes to a screeching halt once the kids arrive.

Truthful Tweets About Parenting

Now Wouldn't This Be Interesting?

It seems to me that what one thinks regarding the possibilities of extra-terrestrial intelligence should depend a lot on whether or not one believes the universe to be infinite. That is, if the universe truly is infinite - and our current understanding of the universe seems to be that it is, in fact, infinite - then, by definition, life must exist in other parts of the universe.

Follow me here. If the universe is infinite, that means, more or less, that it continues on forever. It never stops. It just keeps going and going and going. Given this, there have to be Earth-like planets in the universe. There have to be other planets capable of supporting technologically-advanced life. In fact, if the universe is truly infinite, then there will be other versions of this exact planet and other versions of you and everyone that you love, albeit with certain changes.

This, of course, is an entirely separate question from whether one believes that such technologically-advanced civilizations have traversed time and space in order to visit Earth and, upon descending through the atmosphere of what is obviously a planet with a technologically-capable life form, have decided to make a curious attempt to contact us by etching stupid designs in cornfields and anally-probing bumpkins that they pick up on deserted country roads.

Hmmm.

The Atlantic has very interesting story about a mysterious star in our own Milky Way Galaxy. The Kepler Telescope has been staring at this star for four years now, and has sent back images that have astronomers curious about a phenomenon that cannot be easily explained.

Okay. The way that astronomers look for planets in the universe is by staring at stars and waiting for the light that they emit to be briefly blocked by an orbiting planets. When this happens, they can look more closely to determine certain characteristics of these planets: size, composition, etc.

While doing this, it seems that they have noticed what appears to be a big, unruly mass of matter circling this star in our very own galaxy. Among many potential explanations for this phenomenon, one that the lead astronomer rates as "possible" is that it could be a mass of comets circling the star that haven't yet been sucked into the star and destroyed.

An alternative possibility is that these are artificial satellites that are circling the star in an attempt by a nearby civilization to capture and harness energy from the star.

Stick with me here. There's this thing called the Kardashev scale. This is a theoretical scale that rates civilizations based on their ability to harness energy. Civilizations are then classified as Type I, II, or III. A Type I civilization is capable of utilizing all energy resources on its home planet. A Type II civilization can harness all of the energy emitted by its star, and a Type III civilization can harness all of the energy of its home galaxy. Earth is not yet a fully Type I civilization. According to some calculations, Earth right now would qualify as a Type 0.7 civilization. Scientists do not believe that Type III civilizations exist, at least in our corner of the universe.

Got it?

If (and this is a huge, enormous, colossal if) this star is truly being circled by artificial satellites that can harness its energy for the benefit of a nearby civilization, then we will have discovered a Type I+ civilization, possibly a Type II civilization.

Obviously, much more study is needed before anybody will be able to make a determination as to what it is that's causing this strange disturbance in the light pattern emitted from the star. Until then, there is nothing left to do but dream and wonder and hope that we somehow stumble upon a means of not destroying ourselves before we are able to further advance.

T.I. and Apologies

Mediocre rapper T.I. apologized for making amazingly sexist comments regarding Hillary Clinton's bid to become President. He said

“Not to be sexist but, I can’t vote for the leader of the free world to be a woman,” he said. “Just because, every other position that exists, I think a woman could do well. But the president? It’s kinda like, I just know that women make rash decisions emotionally – they make very permanent, cemented decisions – and then later, it’s kind of like it didn’t happen, or they didn’t mean for it to happen. And I sure would hate to just set off a nuke. [Other leaders] will not be able to negotiate the right kinds of foreign policy; the world ain’t ready yet. I think you might be able to the Lochness Monster elected before you could [get a woman].”

Well, at least he began his diatribe with "Not to be sexist, but..."

And as for his apologizing, that's great. Wonderful. Thank you for apologizing after sharing your awful line of thinking with the world. You're an idiot, case closed.

But when are we going to get an apology for your true crime against humanity? You are the criminal responsible for unleashing Iggy Azalea on the general population of the world, and I, for one, will never, ever forgive you for that.

Islam and Democracy

Our brave and insightful leaders have, over the past fifteen years, repeatedly told us that Islam is somehow incompatible with democracy. Muslims, the line of thinking goes, are somehow uniquely unqualified to participate in modern democracy because of... well, because of hazy reasons that don't really make a whole lot of sense when analyzed.

Mostly it comes down to the fact that they're just somehow... different. They look different. They speak foreign. They write in squiggly. They don't all wear jean shorts and T-shirts. Some women wear hijabs instead of bad perms and bangs.

Add it all up and one reaches the conclusion that Muslims and modernity simply don't mix.

When this line of argument is advanced, the speaker will quite often point to the obvious, apparent, undeniable sexism that is totally rampant all over the Muslim world. The Muslim world. Take a deep breath and briefly consider how stupid it is to refer to a group of countries as the Muslim world. Now slam your head into a wall three times.

Feel better?

I think it's a useful exercise to consider this line of thinking, this idea that ubiquitous sexism in "The Muslim World" precludes Muslims from participating in democracy.

Quick question: how many female Presidents have the enlightened voters of the Unites States elected?

I will not insult your intelligence by answering that for you.

How many heads of state have the troglodytes of "The Muslim World" elected?

Probably none, right? They were too busy circumcising them and prohibiting them from going to school.

Of course, that's wrong. There have been several female Muslim heads of state:

Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, 1988-1990 and 1993-1996.
Khalid Zia of Bangladesh, 1991-1996 and 2001-2006.
Tansu Ciller of Turkey , 1993-1996.
Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, 2001-2004.
Mame Madoir Boye of Senegal, 2001-2002.
Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, 2009-present.
Roza Otunbayeva of Kyrgyzstan, 2010-2011.
Atifete Jahjaga of Kosovo, 2011-present.

Please bear in mind that both Bangladesh and Pakistan have elected women multiple times to be head of state. And before your face turns red and you begin to do the pee-pee dance and you point out that women do face some very real challenges while living in some Muslim countries, please note that I am not denying this. This is true.

But please also note that in some areas Muslim women have achieved power and success that their American counterparts have been denied. This is also true.

Matisyahu

Okay. So I stumbled upon Matisyahu one day a couple years back completely by accident. When I finally found him, I realized that I had been looking for his music for a long, long time.

Like most of us, he has a long, complicated personal story. Like me, has has suffered from the addiction disease and, like me, while struggling to free himself from his internal demons, he sought and found refuge in spirituality. For Matisyahu, spirituality initially took the guise of orthodox Judaism, and he dedicated himself completely to the exploration of Judaism. He grew out his beard, wore his hair with pe'ot (the side curls), donned a yarmulke, attended synagogue every Sabbath, and was generally very strict with himself.

As a side note, when I first achieved sobriety, I, too, felt that I needed an external set of rules for myself as a means of finding discipline in my life. For most of us who are addicts, by the time we seek help and are able to find the strength within to achieve sobriety, our lives have become unmanageable and chaotic. We have brought pain into our lives and into the lives of everybody around us. We have learned from experience not to trust ourselves, and thus dedicating ourselves wholly to an external set of rules is a logical step in trying to reclaim sovereignty over our lives.

I know that it sounds confused or confusing to try to discover personal sovereignty by giving oneself over to another, but there isn't actually any contradiction here. Addiction is funny like that: it is only when we give up that we finally move towards victory; it is when we seek help from others that we are able to help ourselves; it is when we subvert our own will that we find true freedom.

Perhaps it is contradictory, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Back to Matisyahu... finally sober and moving towards a clear head and a better understanding of himself, he began making music. His music is touching and beautiful and raw and stubbornly optimistic. It is emotional in a way that most popular music is not. He speaks about his love for the world, his dedication to other human beings, his need for a closer relationship with those around him.

Anyway, as he grew and became more comfortable with himself, he began to slowly shed the outward symbols and signs of his inner spirituality, beginning with shaving his beard and cutting his hair. He has not in any sense moved away from Judaism.

I do not want to speak for him, and I do not want to use him as a mirror for my own personal journey, so I will stop there and not conjecture about his motives. He and his music have been a constant inspiration for me. I do not know if I would have gotten sober and stayed sober were it not for Matisyahu, and for that I will forever be grateful.

Here's "One Day," a gorgeous song of his from 2009.

Friday Etymology

I love words.

Seriously. I love words. I'm a word nerd.

I love learning the etymologies of words. I find it really interesting to be able to trace the lineage of words from their historical origins right up to modern times. The truth is that words have often walked very strange paths to get to us today.

Today's word is awkward.

"Awk" means back-handed, backward, clumsy, or perverse. "-weard" (now -ward) is a suffix meaning in the direction of.

Awkward.

Aaaawwwwwwwwwwwww...

Oh, Look. Another Mass Shooting.

A while back, The Onion printed a headline in response to another one of America's trademark mass shootings that read "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens." I found it to be a humorous and sad summary of the largest health crisis facing Americans right now.

In response to the latest iteration of this strangely American phenomenon (which happened at a small community college in Oregon), President Obama challenged the media to create graphic charts that showed how many Americans were sacrificed at the altar of Second Amendment fetishists. Here are some of the best ones:

We can do better. It is indescribably pathetic that we have allowed weapons manufacturers to create a lobbying group (the NRA) that has duped a cross-section of rubes and psychos into believing that requiring background checks on weapons purchases is the first step towards tyranny. We should not be held hostage by a bunch of well-armed people who run around in tinfoil hats. They are quite literally creating an environment where we are being killed for sport.

Enough. Seriously, enough. This isn't reasonable. This is effing stupid, and I'm tired of it.

Fabulous PSA

This is pretty amazing right here...

Random Thoughts on Boldly Going Where White Supremacy Has Gone Many, Many Times Before

Disclaimer: I am not a Trekkie. I have not seen every Star Trek episode and movie ever made. I cannot quote any dialogue from any installment of the series. I am a casual enjoyer of periodic indulgences in random peeks into the Star Trek universe.

That said, I can't be the only one to notice how racist the Star Trek universe is. The show deals in blatant, nauseating stereotypes in which the alien races that the crew of the Enterprise encounter embody various Earth ethnicities.

Case in point: the Vulcans. They're obviously representations of a caricature of east Asians. Consider that they all have awful bowl haircuts and jet-black hair, their eyebrows are slanted downwards, and they have an infuriating reliance on science, logic, and rational thinking. They're three-for-three on the card of obvious racist stereotypes surrounding east Asians.

Second case in point: the Ferengi. They're just a moderately playful take on Jews. The men wear these bizarre inverse yarmulkes that cover the sides of their heads while leaving the top open and uncovered. They're immoral and greedy bankers and merchants who basically spend their entire existence devising ways to take and hoard other people's money.

I don't know. Even in fictional universes we can't escape our Earth-based bigotry, it seems.

Drone On and On

Ready or not, here come the drones.

There are many reasons to be opposed to the coming ubiquity of these unmanned flying machines: privacy concerns, a healthy distrust of the military and police agencies that will be flying them, and safety concerns.

Let's forgo the first two reasons for opposition for now and focus on the third problem, safety concerns. Since 2001, there have been 47 reported drone crashes within the continental United States. I emphasize the word reported here, because these numbers most certainly do not include drones that have crashed on military bases. The US military has tripled the number of hours it flies these drones within US airspace since 2011, and the air time will only increase in the future. With the passing of a new federal law that will open American airspace to private and corporate drones, the military is planning on operating drone flights from no fewer than 110 bases in 39 states and Puerto Rico. The Defense Department reports that it currently owns some 10,000 drones for use worldwide.

Unsurprisingly, military officers are in full propaganda mode, assuring Americans that there is nothing to be feared from these machines, that they are incredibly safe and will not lead to an increase in aviation accidents. This, of course, is a ridiculous assertion on its face.

In what possible scenario does allowing civilians to operate aerial drones not lead to an increase in aviation accidents? Consider your neighbors. Consider your family. Consider the people that you work with? How many of these people could be trusted with a 300 pound airplane that they control with a joystick? I am in no way suggesting that many people would set out with the intention to do harm to others (although that is obviously a huge concern with a segment of the population), only that flight is an inherently dangerous undertaking and should not be something that the guy with the pickup truck next door should be able to participate in after downing a six-pack of generic beer.

I'll not bore you with the details of the drone crashes that we know about. Look them up yourself if you're interested - the information isn't difficult to find.

More Proof that Tech Developers Are Out to Ruin the World

Have you heard of Peeple?

It's a new app, offered by anti-social visionaries Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough, that allows people to rate, well, other human beings. You know, like the way we are able to rate restaurants and movies and stores and other non-living entities.

Now, I'm no Luddite, but in what possible way does this app enhance human existence? In what possible scenario is this app not going to be used to actively harm a large number of human beings, many of them teenagers and young people who already have a difficult enough time fitting in?

This is a horrible idea. This is another example of technology superseding basic human decency and empathy, and I hope that it crashes and burns. Have the creators of this app ever even been on the Internet? The Internet is a place where people go to watch porn and to mock other human beings. That's it.

Seriously. This is worse than that stupid app that allows people to send each other a verbal "Yo."

What the hell is wrong with people?

The Little Mermaid

While we're on the subject of animated movies, can I just take a moment to declare that Ariel, youngest daughter of Triton, might be the worst sentient creature in the entire universe? Seriously, she doesn't appear to have a single decent characteristic about her.

She is, quite simply, a horrible creature.

She combines every negative stereotype about teenagers imaginable: she whines, she complains, she argues, she pouts. She is a pampered princess, daughter of the undisputed sovereign of Earth's entire ocean system (making him ruler of a territory that is many times more vast than the largest kingdoms in human history), and yet she still finds things to complain about. And whereas most teenagers issue complaints about problems that can, in theory, be solved rather easily (i.e., I never get to use the car, I never get to go to the mall, I never get to bring guns to school), Ariel decides that her big obstacle in life is that she's the wrong species.

Seriously, that's like your normal human teenager watching Curious George reruns and bitching that he's not going to be happy until he becomes a chimpanzee. It's ridiculous on every conceivable level.

But these aren't the worst aspects of her character. After making her deal with Ursula, Ariel heads off to the topside in order to woo Prince Eric, a moronic playboy sleaze who actually falls in love with a woman who can't speak and combs her hair at the dinner table with a fork.

Ariel's best friend is Flounder, a tropical fish. They talk together, swim together, plan together, cry together, share their dreams and hopes with one another - they are best friends. Flounder, like all fish in this universe, is a sentient being, an animal with thoughts and feelings, desires and dreams. He has emotions. He feels pain.

And yet Ariel does nothing to dissuade Eric from murdering and eating these beautiful creatures once she is focused on conning him into kissing her before her three days is up. The fact that Sebastian barely escapes with his life after being chased by a knife-wielding caricature of a French chef (good God, why is it okay to mock French people like this? No wonder they hate Americans...) apparently means nothing to her. At no point does she make any effort to explain to him that fish are... well, that fish are people, too. They are more than just food, they are rational animals, just like humans are.

Is it me, or is this something that she really needs to answer for?

A Random Thought

Are the toys in the Toy Story universe immortal? We know that they can survive all sorts of crazy and dangerous pseudo-surgeries, switching heads and limbs and yet retain their sentience.

If the toys can die, then their human owners would never know, and would simply continue playing with them as though nothing happened. The other toys, however, would be aware that they are now forced to play with the rotting corpse of their deceased friend.

And that would be disgusting.

Miguelito, Revised

Miguelito
4:17 p.m.

Miguel Illescas walked down the crowded sidewalk that Thursday afternoon, nodding his head and waving his hands in acknowledgement of the various gifts that storekeepers, bartenders, and random passersby threw into his path.

He stooped down and picked up a rose from a bunch that littered the sidewalk in front of him without interrupting his gait, and confidently blew a kiss at a woman in a form-fitting purple dress who jumped up and down and shouted his name when she saw him. Gummi bears, candy bars, fresh fruit, flower petals, and ornate wreaths were all tossed by the grateful residents of the neighborhood as they crowded together to catch a glimpse of their savior and hero as he passed by.

It was, to be sure, almost more than an ordinary eight-year-old could handle.

Miguelito, however, was no ordinary eight-year-old, as his legions of adoring fans, followers, and hangers-on would gladly testify.

"Gracias, Miguelito," an old man said, holding out his hand, an abashed smile dominating his face. "Gracias por todo."

Miguelito took the man's weathered, wrinkled hand in his, looked deeply into the old man's dark eyes, and nodded. "We all do what we can," he said in typically humble fashion. Though his exploits were legendary, Miguelito had never felt comfortable with the praise and appreciation he received, and downplayed his contributions to the community's well-being every chance he could.

"Miguelito!" screamed a thirty-year-old woman as she dropped her husband's hand and ran over to embrace the child. "Miguelito, your autograph, please," she pleaded, but the boy simply shook his head and smiled.

"No autographs," he said simply, and the dejected woman returned to her husband, who did his best to console her.

As he walked farther on, towards the outskirts of his home neighborhood, the lines of his earnest and affectionate devotees began to thin out, until he found himself walking on deserted sidewalks.

Recognizing the sudden need for attentiveness and caution, Miguelito laced his thumbs through the shoulder straps of his tattered and worn Batman backpack and stole a quick glance over his right shoulder, scanning the empty streets for signs of troublemakers, recreants, or other delinquents.

Not seeing anything, Miguelito inhaled deeply, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his right hand, and continued on his way.

4:32 p.m.

Miguel ducked under the welcoming shade in front of local bodega, took off his backpack for a moment, and glanced down at his digital wristwatch. Satisfied at his progress, he strode back out into the sun, ditching the comfortable cover of the awning's shade. He still had a long way to go and a shrinking amount of time in which to get there.

As he walked, he noticed an older man sitting on a bench on a bus stop, having an animated conversation with nobody. He stopped a few feet from the man and watched as the one-sided discussion developed, the man becoming more agitated as he argued with somebody or something that Miguel couldn't see.

"Who are you talking to?" Miguel asked.

The man was startled by the boy's interruption, and jumped out of his seat. He turned around slowly and eyed Miguel with squinting eyes.

"Who I'm talkin'' to?" he asked, looking around. He shrugged. "He was jus' heah a minute ago. Mus've left. Ah, well, I in't like 'em anyway."

Miguel smiled, nodded, and continued to stare at the old man as though struggling to identify him.

"Hey, young man," the man said in hushed tones, motioning for Miguel to move closer. "I got sumpin' fo' you, sumpin' you ain't gon' wanna pass up."

Miguel pressed his eyebrows down in curiosity. "What is it?"

"Man, what I got's a million dolla idea, but I give it to ye fo' fi'e dolla."

"I don't have five dollars," Miguel explained, fishing around in his pockets.

"How much you got?" the old man asked, peering suspiciously at the boy.

Miguel shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe fifty cents."

"Fiddy cent?" the man asked, raising his voice in dismayed shock. "Fiddy cent? What kind o' fool gonna sell you a million dolla idea fo' fiddy cent? Man, I ain't gon' let go o' dis idea fo' nuttin' less dan one dolla."

Miguel shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't have a dollar." He brought out a handful of change from his pocket and started to count it. "I have... sixty-two cents. Is that enough?"

"Man, hand dat munny ovah," the man said with a disgusted look on his face. "Carefu' I don' run down to da police station and file a report on account o' how you rob me heah."

Miguel handed over his change and looked eagerly at the man. "So what's the million dollar idea?" he asked.

"Man, looka heah. You evah hear o' sumpin' called col' fusion?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at the import of his own words.

Miguel shook his head. "No. Is it some kind of new refrigerator? We need a new refrigerator at home."

The man nodded sagely. "Man, e'ryone need a new fridge now wit' dis damn heat. It's hotta den a camel ass out heah, I tell ya'. Heah," he said, handing over a tattered sheet of paper upon which he had made nearly-illegible scribbles. "You take care o' dat right theah, you hear me, boy? Dat right deah, in yo' hand, gonna change da worl' one o' dese days, an' you just stole it from me fo' sixty-two cent."

The man shook his head gruffly and began to walk away, muttering curses about the money he just forfeited in the transaction. Miguel glanced down at the paper, staring and squinting and trying to make sense of the letters, numbers, and strange symbols on the paper before folding it neatly up and putting it away in his pocket.

"Hey, Peddler," Miguelito called out, his voice imperious and commanding. "Stop right there. Not another step."

The old man stopped mid-stride, his shoulders high enough to cover his ears as he reflexively flinched at the use of his nom de guerre. He turned around slowly and faced the unassuming young man, his once cloudy eyes now bright and searching as he looked Miguelito up and down, curious about the unforeseen change in the child's manner and demeanor.

"Who you be?" the old man asked, squinting at Miguel.

Miguel smiled confidently. "I cannot express to you the depth of my heartbreak and disappointment, Peddler, at the fact that you don't recognize me," Miguel answered, advancing slowly towards the old man. "On these streets I am known by many names, but I prefer the one that strikes terror in the hearts of evildoers like yourself, Peddler. You know me as -"

"-Miguelito," he finished, his shoulders slumping and his gaze falling to the cracked grey concrete of the sidewalk beneath his feet.

"The very same," Miguel replied, nodding and continuing his methodical advance. "I am glad that we have met at long last, Peddler. I have heard of your misdeeds from afar, though, truth be told, I have always considered you to be more of a second-rate criminal and thus have you managed to avoid the burning sting of justice at my hands." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded-up sheet of paper he had just procured. He opened it slowly, unfolding it one section at a time until it had returned to its normal size. "Do you really expect me to believe that you have discovered the secret of cold fusion, Peddler? I scoff at the idea. Tell me, Peddler, where did you earn your advanced degree in chemistry?" Miguel crumpled the paper up and hurled it at the Peddler, throwing it with such force that it slammed into the old man's head and knocked him to the ground. He stood over the old man, who writhed on the ground in pain, clutching his bleeding forehead as he tried futilely to ease his headache. "Admit it, Peddler: this was just another ruse by which you planned to steal the hard-earned money of unsuspecting passers-by, isn't it? Isn't it?"

"Yes, Miguelito," the old man cried, sobbing and choking as blood began to drip down his sweaty forehead. "Yes, it's true. I never earned an advanced degree in chemistry. All I have is a bachelor's from Penn," he admitted howling in shame.

Miguelito shook his head in disgust. "That's barely even a real Ivy League school," he said, his hands resting on his hips. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Peddler. If I see you on these streets again, I promise that your days of selling off-brand merchandise and phony scientific breakthroughs to gullible civilians will be over. Now get up and pedal yourself out of my town, Peddler."

The old man nodded and continued crying as Miguelito walked away. He looked at his watch again - it was time to move on.

4:43 p.m.

As he continued on his way, Miguel again checked behind him, scanning the sidewalk carefully to make sure he wasn't being followed. While he suspected that he was being surveilled, there was nothing that he could do about it at the moment. He had to keep moving if he was going to make it in time.

Not seeing anything suspicious, the boy moved forward, again adjusting the straps on his Batman backpack so that it sat better on his shoulders. His hair was a damp mess from the humidity, and drops of dirty sweat continually dripped down into his eyes and onto his mouth, the salt blurring his vision and stinging a cut on his lower lip.

Unbidden, the thought of an orange popsicle entered into his mind, causing his tongue to swell and salivate with longing. Orange popsicles, in his opinion, were not only the best flavor of popsicle available - they were, in point of fact, the only popsicle worth eating.

Focus, he reprimanded himself, angry for the temporary lapse in concentration. He couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging a fantastical mirage of the sweet, life-saving goodness of an orange popsicle. This was serious business he was involved in, and giving in to childish habits could cost him his life if he wasn’t careful.

4:57 p.m.

Miguel ducked into a shaded alleyway and sought refuge behind a giant green dumpster that stood outside of the building nearest the street. He removed his backpack and went through its contents, making sure that he had everything that he might possibly need. Satisfied that he was prepared for the confrontation, he slid his arms back into the straps, wiped his sweaty palms on his red shorts, and returned to the sidewalk.

He stole into the doorway of a white brick building, closing the door silently behind him and pausing, listening to the thumping of his heart while he waited to ensure that nobody was following him.

Confident that he was alone, he locked the door behind him and entered the empty office. He tiptoed toward the receptionist’s desk, careful not to make any noise that might announce his presence.
There, he thought, inhaling deeply with anticipation. The target was present, staring intently at an open manila file folder.

5:02 p.m.
"Hola, Doctór," Miguel said, flashing a cocky smile at the older man.

The man turned around and stared at the diminutive child standing in the waiting room. He craned his neck to get a better view of the visitor, as everything below the boy's neck hidden behind the receptionist's counter. The man stared and stared, trying desperately to place the face that he saw before him, unable to make the connection.

Finally, after twenty seconds, recognition flashed in the man's mind, and he dropped the file folder from his hands and began backing away.

"No," he whispered, his face a mask of mortal terror. "Miguelito? No. No puede ser. It cannot be. You, you, you were supposed to have been taken care of."

"Ah, yes," Miguel said, vaulting himself over the counter and into el Doctor's office. "Your dastardly partner, el Dentista. It seems he wanted a crown for himself, but instead I gave him a good drilling. We won't be hearing from him again, Doctór: I gave him a fatal case of hurt fillings.

"But enough about the dear, departed Dentista. Let's talk about you, Doctór. There’s an old saying, how does it go? Ah, yes: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I wonder if that is true," he said, removing a shiny red apple from his backpack.

"No," el Doctór whispered, trembling as he tried to open the locked window in his office, to no avail.

"There is no escape, Doctór," Miguel said, advancing slowly, tossing the apple back and forth between his two hands.

"No, por favor, Miguelito. Por favor. You will see - I will change my ways. I will devote my life to helping the sick and the weak, those who are not able to care for themselves. Yes, yes, yes. I will be a good Doctór, Miguelito."

"A good doctor? It’s a little late for that, you villain."

"No, Miguelito," the Doctor said, falling to his knees and clasping his hands tightly in front of his face. "Please, spare me the ravages of the Big Apple, Miguelito. Por favor, Miguelito, have pity on an old man."

“You know about the Big Apple?”

El Doctór nodded. “Yes. Yes,” he sobbed. “Everyone knows about the Big Apple.”

“Tell me about it,” Miguel said as he continued tossing it back and forth in front of the trembling Doctór. “Tell me about this Big Apple of which you speak.”

The old man sniffled and cleared his throat. “It’s… it’s… it’s a deadly weapon, Miguelito. A chemical bomb disguised as an ordinary apple. They say that you've spent years perfecting it, that it can kill in a matter of seconds and leave no trace.”

Miguel nodded. “That’s right. The Big Apple destroys everything that it comes into contact with. Nothing survives it. But enough about my marvelous weapons. I want you to confess, Doctór. I want you to acknowledge what you've done. I already got the whole story out of the Dentista before I strung him up by his floss, so don't think about lying to me."

El Doctór began sobbing hysterically, screaming and crying and rocking back and forth. "Okay, Miguelito. Okay. El Dentista and I made an unholy alliance. It's true. We worked together. Our plan was to poison the town's water supply by flooding it with... with... with sugar."

"Not just sugar, Doctór."

"No, no," he pled. "Don't make me say it."

"I want to hear the words from your mouth, you miscreant."

"Okay, Miguelito. Okay. Sugar and... and... and high fructose corn syrup." El Doctór wailed and sobbed as Miguel stood in front of him, shaking his head in judgmental disbelief.

"You were willing to go to any length just to ensure that your business was booming. You were even willing to poison innocent people just to make a few bucks. And to think that you took an oath to do no harm, Doctór. I gotta tell you, Doc: your prognosis is pretty bad."

"No," he whispered, staring at Miguel. "No. I want to live. I want to live. I'll never harm another patient again."

"You got that right, Doctór. But from what I can see, you have less than two minutes to live. Don't worry, though: I'm a professional."

Without another word, Miguel pulled back his arm, the deadly apple palmed tightly in his hand, and hurled it at el Doctór’s tear-stained face with all the force that his little arm could muster. El Doctór opened his mouth wide to scream, but before so much as a squeak escaped, the Big Apple smashed against his nose, spreading its vile, rabid flesh all over his face. Instantly el Doctór’s skin began to bubble and ooze, the acidic chemicals of the apple turning his face to a dripping mush.

5:14 p.m.

“Four out of five doctors know better than to mess with Miguelito,” the boy said as he turned to walk away. “I wonder what Mom made for dinner.”

Quiet as a Maus

The other day, while rummaging through more boxes in the upstairs closet, I rediscovered a copy of two old graphic novels that I had nearly forgotten about: Maus and Maus II. Written by Art Spiegelman and first published in 1980, when I was but two years old, they tell the true story of Spiegelman's father and his terrible journey as a Polish Jew during the anti-Jewish pogrom carried out during the Second World War.

It is a brilliant, heart-wrenching look inside the scarred heart and psyche of a man who was subjected to the darkest side of the human condition and somehow lived to tell his story. In his expert rendering, Spiegelman draws Europe's Jews as mice, forced to scurry about underfoot and scrounge food and subsistence wherever possible, always in danger of being pounced upon by Nazi cats. The Poles are pigs, the French are (predictably) frogs, and Spiegelman himself is depicted as a human wearing a cheap mouse mask.

If you haven't read the books, please take the time to do so. It is important to learn about the depths of human depravity, but also to bask in the reflected glow of the triumph of human decency as embodied by Spiegelman's troubled father.

At the Intersection of Lord Ganesh and Nookie

My father-in-law is a well-read and widely-traveled man.

An Indian citizen by birth, Vikram was actually born in Thailand just after India finally achieved independence from the collapsing British Empire in 1947. His father, an engineer by training, worked in various positions for the United Nations throughout South and Southeast Asia, and at the time of the birth of his first child was overseeing a project to rebuild a Bangkok that had been decimated by the Second World War.

Fast-forward twenty-one years and Vikram had moved from rural Gujarat, the state in western India that his family has called home for generations, to California, where he had begun classes at UC Hayward in pursuit of his MBA.

Not long after he graduated from college, he met and married his wife, Smita, also a Gujarati. They settled down in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, an affluent suburb of Philadelphia, and raised three children, two of whom spent much of their childhoods at an exclusive Indian boarding school and one of them, my future wife, who was allowed to experience the ups and downs of life as a resident of New Jersey.

After their three kids grew up, moved on, and started lives and families of their own, Vikram fulfilled a life-long dream of his by returning to Gujarat in order to manage a charitable organization that his grandfather had founded more than fifty years before. Smita, considerably less excited to leave the comforts of life to which she had grown accustomed during thirty years in America, remained behind for several years before eventually surrendering and joining her husband.

A year or so after my wife and I were married, we packed our bags and embarked upon a twenty-hour airplane ride to join her father on his Gujarati estate.

Life in India during the unbearably humid monsoon months can often devolve into a contest among adults and children to see who can sit as still as possible in order to avoid generating any more sweat on his body. One must consider a number of factors before committing to any physical movement, taking into account the immediate necessity of moving, subtracting the disgusting inconvenience of adding to the layer of sticky, salty sweat that has congealed onto one’s body in the form of a biological gelatin, and arriving at the final determination of whether or not to stand up.

When it is 110º F and 100% humidity, peeing oneself while sitting motionless on the couch is not always an irrational decision.

Of course, going for a walk outside in such weather conditions is not an option, so when one makes a decision to leave the comfort of a partially-air-conditioned home, what one is, in fact, agreeing to is making a mad dash from the front door of the house into the thick wall of heat that is always waiting just outside of the house to suffocate you, sprinting across the slowly melting driveway and diving headfirst into the scorched seats of the waiting car.

If you've never experienced the sheer terror of a car trip in India, I envy you. Though I estimate that I have spent a cumulative total of less than one hundred hours in various automotive contraptions within the geographically-defined borders of India, I blame that small amount of time for my early-onset baldness, an anxiety disorder, and a stuttering problem that has strangely persisted for over ten years now.

Indian roads, whether the well-paved variety in New Delhi or the dust-and-gravel sort that provide access to the hidden gems of the Indian countryside, are utilized equally by all Indian animals, human and otherwise. These roads are thus home to packs of mangy dogs who gather to discuss the impending monsoon rains, camels who scoff at the poorly-evolved creatures who need regular drinks of water in order to survive, and cows, who enjoy simply sitting in the middle of traffic and flipping their tails at passersby in boastful flaunting of their revered status among a large portion of the population.

And there is nothing more infuriating than having to swerve at breakneck speeds around a cow with an inflated opinion of itself.

One morning, just after breakfast, my father-in-law pushes himself away from the table, rubs his stomach, and hums an unidentifiable tune for a minute.

"How 'bout we get in de car and drive to Baroda?" he asks. Baroda is a large city about thirty miles south of the bustling town where we are staying, which is a long way of saying that it's a place where we have a good chance of finding Doritos and Diet Coke.

Having absolutely nothing better to do with our morning, my wife and I agree to the invitation, and within minutes we are on the road and headed to Baroda.

My father-in-law waves off the driver, shunning the services for which the man is paid and opting instead to take our lives into his hands. We pile into the car and peel out of the driveway and onto the mostly-paved road.

"Muttyu," he says, puncturing the air with precise jabs of his left hand, "if you are going to be Indian, man, den you must learn about our mitts."

"Your mitts?"

"Yeah, man, our mitts. Dey our important, our mitts. Dey tell us stories about where we come from, man. About who we are as Indians, as Hindustanis."

"Your mitts tell you this?"

"Prerna!" he yells to my wife in the backseat. "Tell him, man. Our mitts our important."

"Myths," she corrects.

"Dat's what I said, man. Mitts. Okay, Muutyu. So, our mitts our important to us, yeah?"

I nod. "Definitely."

"Okay. So, what do you know about Indian gods, man?"

I shrug. "Not much," I admit. "I mean, I've read a bit about-"

He grimaces and waves me off impatiently. "Never mind your reading. You can't learn anyting from books, man. To learn about someting, you must go dere and experience it. To learn about a country's mitts, you must go to de country. You understand, man?"

I nod and shrug. "Sure," I say, ignoring that little urge inside of me to point out that he just dismissed the entire concept of learning by reading.

No matter.

"Good, man. Now, de important ting about India is that we have lots of gods, man. We have so many gods dat we don't even know who they are, man. Millions of gods. But dere is one god who is the best of dem all. Do you know who de best god is?"

I shake my head. "I have no idea."

He again waves dismissively at me, though this time the wave doesn't seem connected to the conversation I think we're having and seems to be nothing more than an impatient reminder that I have nothing substantive to contribute to this conversation, no matter how long it continues for.

"Of course you have no idea, man. How can you have ideas about Indian gods, man? You're not Indian. But don't worry. We will change dat. By de time I am tru wit you, Muttyu, you'll be demanding discounts from your own parents, man. Den you will be an Indian, man.

"Okay, so de best god is Ganesh. No question about it. You ask anyone and dey tell you, man: Ganesh is de best god."

"What are you talking about, Dad?" my wife interjects from the back seat. "That's not true."

"Not true what?" he demands, literally turning around in his seat while driving and staring at her.

I feel like I have to repeat myself in order to make clear what is happening at this moment. We are in the middle of monsoon season in India, which means not only are the roads covered in a semi-permanent coating of moisture, but that it is 100 degrees with 100% humidity, so the windshield is so fogged-up that we can barely make out any shapes in front of us. Drivers in India generally use their horn instead of their brakes, so one avoids a collision with other drivers not by slowing down but by honking on one's horn, flashing one's hazard lights, and swerving maniacally into oncoming traffic.

In a country of 1.2 billion people, who cares about road fatalities?

While driving in these unforgiving conditions, my father-in-law has just flipped his middle finger at both fate and common sense and has now turned around so that he is facing his daughter in the backseat, and proceeds to engage her in an argument.

"Prerna!" he yells. "What are you talking about, man? You know noting about Indian gods, man. You grew up in New Jersey, man. Your parents didn't teach you anyting about dese tings, man."

"You're one-half of my parents, Dad," my wife points out.

He nods. "I know, and I had no patience for you, so I didn't teach you anyting. You're de worst Indian, man. Look, you even went and married a gora, man." A gora is a white person. He turns to look at me. "No offense intended, Muttyu. You're a better Indian dan she is, man."

"No offense taken."

Satisfied that he has prevailed in the argument, he turns back around and swerves around a rickety red bus that is so overcrowded that people are literally sitting on the roof of the bus as it barrels down the highway at 70 miles per hour.

"Now, where was I? Yes. Ganesh is the best god. Don't argue wit me, Prerna. You don't know anyting, man. Anyway, do you know de story of how Ganesh got his head, man?"

I shrug. "Uh, he wasn't born with it?"

He looks at me, his face contorted in a painful mixture of disappointment and annoyance. "What are you talking, man? How is he gonna be born wit an elephant head, man? Does dat make sense to you, man? He gets born wit an elephant head, you tink his moder's gonna be happy wit him, man? What do you know about vaginas, man, if you tink a boy can be born wit an elephant head?"

"Oh my god, Dad," my wife whines from the back. "Did you just ask him about vaginas?"

"I sure did, man," he replies. "How can a husband not know more about vaginas, man? Muttyu, a woman's vagina doesn't have de strengt or the elasticity to be able to squeeze an elephant head tru it, man."

I shake my head from side to side in embarrassment. "That's good to know," I say. "I could have just skipped biology class and come straight to you."

"Man, no more talking, okay?"

I nod silently.

"Good. Now, Ganesh wasn't born wit an elephant head, man. He was just a boy. His parents were Shiva and Parvati. Do you know dem?"

I shake my head silently, afraid now to speak, visions of elastic vaginas floating around in my head.

"Dey're gods, man. Big gods, like head honcho gods. Shiva is like de Godfadder, man."

"Did you just compare Shiva to Don Corleone?" my wife shouts from the back seat.

My father-in-law nods defiantly. "I did, man. What's wrong with dat? It’s a compliment, man. Corleone got his own books and movies, man. Shiva is de Don, man. He makes offers you can't refuse. He takes de gun and leaves de cannoli. You get it, right Muttyu?"

I nod. I would gladly follow a god who reminds the masses of Don Corleone, especially if he was shadowed by Luca Brazi.

"Okay, so Shiva and Parvati get togeder one night for some nookie, and wham, bam, boom, Ganesh appears."

"Nookie?" my wife interjects. "What is wrong with you, Dad?"

He waves her off and continues. "Nookie, man. Even gods need it. Anyway, de nookie happens, as nookie does, and Ganesh is born. Now Shiva, he's an important god, man. He has tings to do. He likes to hunt."

"Why does a god like to hunt?" I ask.

"Man, who knows why gods do de tings dey do?" he asks rhetorically. Before continuing with his lesson on the pastimes of Hindu deities, he opens his car door - like, fully opens his car door as we're zooming down the pot-holed road at nearly 80 miles an hour - drops, his head, and spits out of wad of paan.

Now, paan, for those of you who are not acquainted with it, is a form of Indian chewing tobacco that utilizes betel nut, a natural stimulant. Men all over India can be seen with teeth that are stained blood-red, and these same men are responsible for the ubiquitous dots of red spittle that stain and discolor Indian sidewalks and roads.

"Dad!" my wife screams from the back seat. "What are you doing? Get back in the car!"

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, rolls his eyes, and hisses at her. Hisses - really hisses - like an enraged cat. "You Americans, you're all so worried about everyting. What could happen? We are talking about de gods, man. Dey won't let us die right now, not when we're talking about dem. De gods have big egos, man.

"So, Shiva, man, the Godfadder of de mob of gods, he likes to hunt, see? So one day he goes out hunting. Now his wife, man, Parvati, she's an Indian god, too, man, but she's a woman god, and all Indian women are de same, man. Dey have to be clean and pretty all de time, man. So Parvati spends all of her time in de battub, man, using saffron soap to keep her skin clean, man. And she doesn't want to be boddered, man, so she hires a bunch of armed soldiers to guard de entrance to her castle so that nobody can bodder her when she's baiding.

"But den Shiva finishes wit his hunting, man, and he hasn't seen Parvati in a long, long time, and he's a man, Shiva is, so he has needs, man. Do you know what I mean, Muttyu?" he says as he shakes his head back and forth playfully, his lips curling into a mischievous smile. "Shiva wants some nookie, man, and he wants it now."

"Dad, Shiva did not want nookie," my wife insists. "You can't say that a god wanted nookie."

"What you want I say, Prerna?" he demands, annoyed at my wife's constant interrupting. "What, he wanted carnal knowledge of his wife? Is dat better for your American ears? Pshh," he spits, flinging his hand impatiently through the air. "Anyway, Shiva wanted some nookie, man, so he went home to his castle where Parvati was baiding, but soldiers were guarding de doors and dey wouldn't let him in.

"So Shiva looks at dem and says, 'Are you guys serious? Do you know who I am, man? I'm Shiva, de Don Corleone of this whole planet, man. I want to see my wife so I can have some nookie, man.'”

Mid-sentence, without losing a beat, he swerves around two lazy camels resting in the middle of the road. As he passes them, he rolls down his window, spits out a wad of paan, and yells, “Stupid bloody camels!” with a fierceness that makes me question whether he believes they can understand him.

"But dey wouldn't let him in, so he beat de shit out of dem, man. He killed dem, he murdered dem, and den he went inside and got his nookie. But Parvati, man, she was pished.”

“Pished?” I ask, not recognizing this new word.

“Yeah, man, pished. Prerna, what is pished?”

“Pissed, Dad.”

“Dat’s what I said, man. Pished. You got it, Muutyu?”

“I got it. Pished.”

“Dat’s right, man. Pished off. She didn’t want to be boddered while she was baiding, man, so she sends her son Ganesh to guard de door to de castle after Shiva leaves to hunt some more. Now, remember: Ganesh is a god, man. He’s not some lackwit soldier, man. Ganesh is like de Terminator, man.”

“Dad, how is Ganesh like the Terminator?” my wife asks.

“Man,” he says, looking at me with pity in his eyes. “Do you have to listen to dis all de time, man? You couldn’t find a better wife dan her, man? She just won’t let us talk, will she, man?”

I smile. “She’s not that bad.”

“Not dat bad, man?” he says, shaking his head back and forth. “Not dat bad. Congratulations, Vikram. Your daughter is not dat bad. Fadder of de year, man. Anyway, Ganesh de Terminator is now standing guard at de castle door when Shiva comes back from his next hunting trip, man. But Shiva hasn’t been around much during Ganesh’s life, so he doesn’t recognize him, man.

“He says, ‘Outta my way, you ugly loser, man,’ and tries to push past Ganesh, but Ganesh is too strong, man. He doesn’t move. So Shiva steps back, and now he’s angry. Shiva says, ‘Man, you get outta my way before I do a flying elbow smash and take your ugly head off of your shoulders, man.’

“But Ganesh won’t move. Parvati has told him to stand guard, and he’s a good Indian boy and he listens to his modder, and he’s not going to let anyone into de castle. So Shiva says, ‘Alright, man. To hell wit dis shit, man.’”

“Shiva didn’t say that, Dad,” my wife complains.

“How do you know what Shiva said, man? Gods can say what dey want, man. He says, ‘To hell wit dis shit, man,’ and he takes off Ganesh’s head wit his bare hands and trows it into de woods behind him. He walks upstairs, sees Parvati in de battub, and says, ‘Woman, I want some nookie.’

“But Parvati, man, she is pished. ‘Where is my son?’ she screams. ‘What did you do to my son?’ And Shiva now knows what happened and he says, ‘Oh, shit, man,’ because he knows dat Ganesh is deir son. And he says, ‘Look, woman, I know you’re upset and all, but let’s do de nookie dance first, and den we can tink about your son.’

“Of course dis doesn’t work, man, and Parvati says, ‘Man, you better fix dis if you ever want nookie again, man.’ So Shiva says, ‘Fine, man,’ and he sends his little toady out into de forest and says, ‘Man, just get me the head of de first animal you see, man.’”

In front of us is a truck that is overloaded with bales of hay. My father-in-law honks once, twice, three times, but the bus isn’t moving out of our way, so he presses down on his horn and holds it there as he swerves onto the grass on the right shoulder and passes the truck.

“Dis stupid guy, man. Eider learn to drive or get off of my road, man.

“So, anyway, dis guy, Shiva’s toady boy, goes out, sees an elephant, and wham, chops off his head. He brings de elephant head back to de castle, and Shiva puts it on Ganesh’s shoulders, and den he brings de boy into Parvati’s room to show her dat he fixed everyting, man.”

“Wait, what?” I ask. “He beheaded his son, then tried to fix it by attaching an elephant’s head in place of the human head that he cut off?”

“Yeah, man. He didn’t have time to find a better one. Didn’t I tell you dat he was horny, man? He needed nookie. So Parvati sees her boy wit an elephant head, and she says, ‘Okay, fine. Get your nookie den get out of my castle, man.

“And dat’s de story of Ganesh, man.”

Tragedy from Another Angle

Another week, another senseless act of gun violence.

This is a common occurrence in America and shouldn't surprise anyone. Americans deal with their interpersonal problems by grabbing a gun and shooting somebody. Maybe we are able to shoot the person who has provoked our ire, maybe we are not.

Each time after a life is taken by a person with a gun, we hear the same ridiculous conversation taking place among the chatterheads that dominate political discourse in this country, and it never gets us anywhere.

With that in mind, I want to completely ignore the problem that we have with guns and explore another ubiquitous killer of human beings: cancer. Every day, roughly 1,600 Americans die of cancer. I have lost people close to me to cancer, and chances are that you have, too.

My maternal grandfather died of leukemia three years ago. It was a punishing, debilitating disease that wrecked and ruined his body and mind. He was a large, solid, and strong man in life, but by the time the cancer had finished with him, he was 130 pounds and too weak to even drink the water that he so desperately wanted. We would put a wet sponge to his lips so that they wouldn't crack and bleed.

I'm imagining a conversation with a political pundit that mirrors the one that inevitably occurs after a gun murder takes place:

Me: Three years ago, my grandfather died of cancer. It was a terrible thing to see him die that way, and I wish that there was something that we could have done to prevent it.

Pundit (slamming the table with his fist): I am tired of everybody blaming cancer for these unavoidable deaths! It is an outrage that every time somebody dies of what may or may not have been cancer, we rush to judgment and turn this somber period into a game of political one-upsmanship and everybody points their finger at cancer. It's disgusting! It's un-American. It's a communist plot, I tell ya. Are you a Maoist?

Me: Wait, what? What else should we blame my grandfather's death on? He died of leukemia. It was a good diagnosis. His oncologist was treating him for leukemia.

Pundit (turning red and frothing at the mouth): Oncologist? I don't know what that is, but it sounds elitist. What, did he go to France for medical treatment? Was he puffing some grass? Did he have a naked shaman do a rain dance to cure him? Do you speak Arabic? Were you born in Kenya?

Me: I have no idea what you're talking about. An oncologist is a doctor who specializes in cancer. She treats people who have cancer. It's a noble profession.

Pundit (putting brass knuckles on his hands): A cowboy is a noble profession. A matador is a noble profession, though the name's kinda fruity. A roughneck working an oil derrick, that's a noble profession. You notice what all three of these professions have in common?

Me: Uh, they don't offer pensions?

Pundit (sharpening his Bowie knife): They're not oncologists! I don't care what some elitist, Ivy League educated doctor says to me. If I'm feeling sick, I throw on a leech or two, take a shot of whiskey mixed with rhino blood, and I'm tip-top again. Let me tell you something about these so-called cancer tragedies: the problem isn't too much cancer. The problem is not enough cancer!

Me: You want more cancer? How would that help?

Pundit (loading silver bullets into his six-shooter): When cancer is outlawed, only outlaws have cancer.

Me: I'm not sure that makes sense. Wouldn't that be a net positive, if only outlaws had cancer?

Pundit (loading a shell into his mortar): You shut your mouth, hippie! I've had enough of you. Let me explain this to you in a way that your green-tea-soaked brain can comprehend, you lily-livered fascist, communist, Muslim-lover.

Me: Those terms don't really go together, but I can see you're on a roll. Please, continue.

Pundit (brandishing a blood-stained machete): The only way to fight cancer is with even more cancer. Let's assume for a moment that your grandfather really did have leukemia.

Me: That's a good assumption, considering that he did have leukemia.

Pundit (sharpening his samurai sword): Silence, or I'll have your head. The only way to fight cancer is with cancer that's even more deadly. I want to infect cancer patients with strains of cancer that are so poisonous and deadly that the cancer that's killing them will be obliterated instantly. That's how we have to go about this. More cancer!

Me: But then wouldn't these patients just be infected with stronger and more virulent strains of cancer? Doesn't this leave them in a worse position than they're in now?

Pundit (accidentally shooting himself in the foot): Ow! That really hurt! Then we'll just invent even stronger strains of cancer that will kill those already-strong strains of cancer. It will be an arms race, and if there's one thing that America's good at, it's participating in arms races. Now let's move out, soldiers. On to Little Bighorn! We'll ride those Cubans down and create a republic that the rest of the world will envy! Forward!

Once More Through the Looking Glass...

On Death, Cookie Monster, and Other Curiosities

My family and I just returned from a week on the western shores of Lake Michigan. It was the first time that the four of us had all gotten away together, and it was wonderful and stressful. I am happy to be back.

While there, for no reason whatsoever, my older daughter, who will be turning four in about a week, walked up to me, looked at me with her big brown eyes, and said, in a matter-of-fact tone,"You're getting older."

I nodded. "That's right. We all are."

"But you're getting much older," she said.

"That's true."

"And you're gonna die soon."

Okay. I froze. How, exactly, does one respond to that? Keep in mind that this girl is three years old, and entirely incapable of grasping the metaphysical concepts that I find necessary in order to have a conversation about our frail mortality.

"Well," I say slowly, still feeling my way around this minefield, "everybody dies eventually. Everything dies. But that's not important right now, honey. The important thing is that right here, right now, we're together and I love you so much."

I reach over and hug her, but she's gone limp, and I can hear her crying. I push away gently and ask her why she's crying.

"Because I'm gonna miss you when you're dead," she says. "I want to be with you forever, Matty."

My heart breaks. I mean this is as close to a true, poetic heartbreak as I have ever experienced in my thirty-seven years of life. The truth of the matter is that I, too, want to be with her forever. At this moment, as she is standing next to me and talking to me and sharing her existential fears with me, I think that I've never felt closer to anybody at any point of my life. She and her sister have made my life complete and whole in a way that wasn't possible before they were born.

Up until recently, I was militantly agnostic and leaning towards atheist. Not long ago, my life situation has undergone a tremendous and traumatic upheaval that has required rethinking some things on my part, and I am no longer militant about anything in life. I have opened myself up to the wide universe of possibilities, and among these possibilities is the existence of a higher power of some sort.

Of course, being a lifelong non-believer, I had very often considered and planned how I would attack this inevitable conversation with my children, and I confidently assured myself that I would approach it with a cold but calm rationality, explaining to my children that life has no meaning and there is nothing to look forward to after our brief existence on this strange planet.

Right now, to be sure, it occurs to me that I used to be a complete and utter moron.

Now that we are here and my child is staring sadly at me, looking for comfort and an explanation that won't doom her to a life of anxiety and depression, my thoughts regarding the topic change instantly. My eyes tear up, and my throat begins to stiffen. I choke my reaction back and force a smile onto my lips.

"My darling," I say, stroking her long hair, "I want to be with you forever, too. The truth is that I will die eventually, but that day is a long way away. We have so many years that we'll be able to spend together, love, and I promise that I'll spend every day that I can next to you."

She nods. "But when you die, will we see each other again?"

God. This kid is just like me, and I hate it.

"I don't know, my love. I hope so. I really hope so. I don't believe that everything just ends when we die. I think that something amazing, something that we can't understand happens, and I believe that, one way or another, I'll find a way to see you again, my love. Okay?"

She nods and hugs me. And, as quickly as the conversation started, it is over, and her attention is focused on something trivial and more suitable to her four-year-old mind.

The fact is that right now, at this moment, I need something trivial to focus on, too, so I reach over, grab one of her Sesame Street coloring book pages, and begin to turn a colorless Cookie Monster into the fabulous blue eating machine that he is.

In no time, I am already feeling better. Thank God for Cookie Monster.

Miguelito

4:17 p.m.
As he walked home from school that summer afternoon, Miguel Illescas repeatedly stole looks over his right shoulder to make sure that he wasn't being followed. Though he didn’t see anybody behind him, he remained cautious. He stared up at the bright sun, shading his eyes with his right hand as he silently cursed it for the miserable heat that choked his pores and dampened his skin.
Although no one who saw the diminutive eight-year-old would have guessed it, Miguel had serious business to attend to, and he couldn't be late for his appointment.
He paused under the shade of the striped awning of a produce mart, looking hungrily at the mangoes piled on top of an open wooden crate as he caught his breath.
Think cool thoughts, he reminded himself, repeating a line that his mother had often told him when the summer days grew unbearably hot. Think cool thoughts.
But in Miguel's admittedly limited life experience, he had already decided that the entire idea of mind over matter was, to use a phrase dear to his grandfather, balderdash. In the end, only matter mattered, never mind mind.
While the human mind was capable of breathtaking feats of calculation and analysis, it could not control matter. He could not simply will himself to feel cold on a sweltering day like today, regardless of what his mother said.
He ran the back of his hand across his forehead once more, wiping away the sweat that threatened to cross the line of his eyebrows and invade his eyes.


4:32 p.m.
He glanced down at his digital wristwatch. He inhaled deeply and strode back out into the sun, ditching the comfortable cover of the awning's shade. He still had a long way to go and a shrinking amount of time in which to get there.
As he walked, he noticed an older man sitting on a bench on a bus stop, having an animated conversation with nobody. He stopped a few feet from the man and watched as the one-sided discussion developed, the man becoming more agitated as he argued with somebody or something that Miguel couldn't see.
"Who are you talking to?" Miguel asked.
The man was startled by the boy's interruption, and jumped out of his seat. He turned around slowly and eyed Miguel with squinting eyes.
"Who I'm talkin'' to?" he asked, looking around. He shrugged. "He was jus' heah a minute ago. Mus've left. Ah, well, I in't like 'em anyway."
Miguel smiled, nodded, and turned to walk away.
"Hey, young man," the man said in hushed tones, motioning for Miguel to move closer. "I got sumpin' fo' you, sumpin' you ain't gon' wanna pass up."
Miguel pressed his eyebrows down in curiosity. "What is it?"
"Man, what I got's a million dolla idea, but I give it to ye fo' fi'e dolla."
"I don't have five dollars," Miguel explained, fishing around in his pockets.
"How much you got?" the old man asked, peering suspiciously at the boy.
Miguel shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe fifty cents."
"Fiddy cent?" the man asked, raising his voice in dismayed shock. "Fiddy cent? What kind o' fool gonna sell you a million dolla idea fo' fiddy cent? Man, I ain't gon' let go o' dis idea fo' nuttin' less dan one dolla."
Miguel shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't have a dollar." He brought out a handful of change from his pocket and started to count it. "I have... sixty-two cents. Is that enough?"
"Man, hand dat munny ovah," the man said with a disgusted look on his face. "Carefu' I don' run down to da police station and file a report on account o' how you rob me heah."
Miguel handed over his change and looked eagerly at the man. "So what's the million dollar idea?" he asked.
"Man, looka heah. You evah hear o' sumpin' called col' fusion?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at the import of his own words.
Miguel shook his head. "No. Is it some kind of new refrigerator? We new a new refrigerator at home."
The man nodded sagely. "Man, e'ryone need a new fridge now wit' dis damn heat. It's hotta den a camel ass, I tell ya'. Heah," he said, handing over a tattered sheet of paper upon which he had made nearly-illegible scribbles. "You take care o' dat right theah, you hear me, boy? Dat right deah, in yo' hand, gonna change da worl' one o' dese days, an' you just stole it from me fo' sixty-two cent."
The man shook his head gruffly and walked away, muttering curses about the money he just forfeited in the transaction. Miguel glanced down at the paper, staring and squinting and trying to make sense of the letters, numbers, and strange symbols on the paper before folding it neatly up and putting it away in his pocket.

4:43 p.m.
As he continued on his way, Miguel again checked behind him, scanning the sidewalk carefully to make sure he wasn't being followed. While he suspected that he was being watched, there was nothing that he could do about it at the moment. He had to keep moving if he was going to make it in time.
Not seeing anything suspicious, the boy continued on his way, adjusting the straps on his Batman backpack so that it sat better on his shoulders. His hair was a damp mess from the humidity, and drops of dirty sweat continually dripped down into his eyes and onto his mouth, the salt blurring his vision and stinging a cut on his lower lip.
Unbidden, the thought of an orange popsicle entered into his mind, causing his tongue to swell and salivate with longing. Orange popsicles, in his opinion, were not only the best flavor of popsicle available - they were, in point of fact, the only popsicle worth eating.
Focus, he reprimanded himself, angry for the temporary lapse in concentration. He couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging a fantastical mirage of the sweet, life-saving goodness of an orange popsicle. This was serious business he was involved in, and giving in to childish habits could cost him his life if he wasn’t careful.

4:54 p.m.
Miguel ducked into a shaded alleyway and sought refuge behind a giant green dumpster that stood outside of the building nearest the street. He removed his backpack and went through its contents, making sure that he had everything that he might possibly need. Satisfied that he was prepared for the confrontation, he slid his arms back into the straps, wiped his sweaty palms on his red shorts, and returned to the sidewalk.
He stole into the doorway of a white brick building, closing the door silently behind him and pausing, listening to the thumping of his heart while he waited to ensure that nobody was following him.
Confident that he was alone, he locked the door behind him and entered the empty office. He tiptoed toward the receptionist’s desk, careful not to make any noise that might announce his presence.
There, he thought, inhaling deeply with anticipation. The target was present, staring intently at an open manila file folder.

5:02 p.m.
"Hola, Doctór," Miguel said, flashing a cocky smile at the older man.
The man turned around and stared at the diminutive child standing in the waiting room, everything below the boy's neck hidden behind the receptionist's counter. The man stared and stared, trying desperately to place the face that he saw before him, unable to make the connection.
Finally, after twenty seconds, recognition flashed in the man's mind, and he dropped the file folder from his hands and began backing away.
"No," he whispered, his face a mask of mortal terror. "Miguelito? No. No puede ser. It cannot be. You, you, you were supposed to have been taken care of."
"Ah, yes," Miguel said, vaulting himself over the counter and into el Doctor's office. "Your dastardly partner, el Dentista. It seems he wanted a crown for himself, but instead I gave him a good drilling. We won't be hearing from him again, Doctór: I gave him a fatal case of hurt fillings.
"But enough about the dear, departed Dentista. Let's talk about you, Doctór. There’s an old saying, how does it go? Ah, yes: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I wonder if that is true," he said, removing a shiny red apple from his backpack.
"No," el Doctór whispered, trembling as he tried to open the locked window in his office, to no avail.
"There is no escape, Doctór," Miguel said, advancing slowly, tossing the apple back and forth between his two hands.
"No, por favor, Miguelito. Por favor. You will see - I will change my ways. I will devote my life to helping the sick and the weak, those who are not able to care for themselves. Yes, yes, yes. I will be a good Doctór, Miguelito."
"A good doctor? It’s a little late for that, you villain."
"No, Miguelito," the Doctor said, falling to his knees and clasping his hands tightly in front of his face. "Please, spare me the ravages of your Big Apple, Miguelito. Por favor, Miguelito, have pity on an old man."
“You know about the Big Apple?”
El Doctór nodded. “Yes. Yes,” he sobbed. “Everyone knows about the Big Apple.”
“Tell me about it,” Miguel said as he continued tossing it back and forth in front of the trembling Doctór. “Tell me about the Big Apple.”
The old man sniffled and cleared his throat. “It’s… it’s… it’s a disease-infested, festering, pus-filled, scab of an object.”
Miguel nodded. “That’s right. The Big Apple destroys everything that it comes into contact with. Nothing survives it. But enough about the Big Apple. I want you to confess, Doctór. I want you to acknowledge what you've done. I already got the whole story out of the Dentista before I strung him up by his floss, so don't think about lying to me."
El Doctór began sobbing hysterically, screaming and crying and rocking back and forth. "Okay, Miguelito. Okay. The Dentista and I made an unholy alliance. It's true. We worked together. Our plan was to poison the town's water supply by flooding it with... with... with sugar."
"Not just sugar, Doctór."
"No, no," he pled. "Don't make me say it."
"I want to hear the words from your mouth, you miscreant."
"Okay, Miguelito. Okay. Sugar and... and... and high fructose corn syrup." El Doctór wailed and sobbed as Miguel stood in front of him, shaking his head in judgmental disbelief.
"You were willing to go to any lengths, just to ensure that your business was booming. You were even willing to poison innocent people, just to make a few bucks. And to think that you took an oath to do no harm, Doctór. I gotta tell you, Doc: your prognosis is pretty bad."
"No," he whispered, staring at Miguel. "No. I want to live. I want to live. I'll never harm another patient again."
"You got that right, Doctór. But from what I can see, you have less than two minutes to live. Don't worry, though: I'm a professional."
Without another word, Miguel pulled back his arm, the deadly apple palmed tightly in his hand, and hurled it at el Doctór’s tear-stained face with all the force that his little arm could muster. El Doctór opened his mouth wide to scream, but before so much as a squeak escaped, the Big Apple smashed against his nose, spreading its vile, rabid flesh all over his face. Instantly el Doctór’s skin began to bubble and ooze, the acidic chemicals of the apple turning his face to an oozing mush.

5:14 p.m.
“Four out of five doctors know better than to mess with Miguelito,” the boy said as he turned to walk away. “I wonder what Mom made for dinner?”