Methtacular

Allow me to play Byron Crawford for a second. The amount of media attention focused on the crystal meth epidemic in the "heartland of America" (and Canada too, apparently) is fucking ridiculous. If AIDS was God's way of saying he hated homos, then meth is God's way of saying he hates inbred rednecks too dumb or stubborn to move away from their godforsaken ghost-towns to a place where their children might have more interesting things to do than inject something made in a bathtub out of matches and cough syrup. I say let the hayseeds drown in their own vomit.

This is to say nothing of the relative swiftness of this coverage compared to coverage of crack. Were newspapers talking about "the crack epidemic" in 1988? 1991? I honestly don't know, I was ten, but just for the sake of argument let's assume that the TIs up at the New York Times didn't really give a damn why there were suddenly a bunch of scary black folk stumbling around like zombies on the subway platforms. And it's not like they really care about people in flyover country anyway, but the story's got it all – this week's Guardian has this amazing before-and-after picture of a precious white girl (our nation's most darling natural resource!) who, after mere months subject to the ravages of meth, looks like something out of Land of the Dead. Now that's news!

In related news, Hugo Chavez is the man (nh).

Back in Black(board)

So yeah, I've been back for about a week now, frantically rearranging my room and classes. I'm a teaching assistant for the first time this year, and actually led my first section ever today. It was a rousing success, because asking people to talk about themselves is easy. People love to do that.

Here's one of the cats I came home to:



In other news, now that I'm back in the States, I really need to get a girlfriend before winter rolls in. No disrespect, it's all a matter of personal taste, but it's kind of ridiculous how beautiful American women are after a month in Japan. That's not a race thing either, American/Americanized Asian women look better than Japanese women, at least. They know how to move better, and most importantly have some meat on their bones (and it's clearly not fish).

Anyway, I'm settling in and ready to rock another semester. Bring 'em on.