Enemy Combatants

Many conservatives and Republicans claimed that the Al-Qaeda members are not protected under the Geneva Conventions because they did not fight for a government or a country. In other words, once they signed up with the Al Qaeda, they forfeited their citizenship or the birthright of their country. Then the Bush Administration coined a word, "Enemy Combatant" which totally put them in a position that the Geneva Conventions cannot apply at all.

This permitted our government to play around the rules to torture and imprison the people. They do not have to provide the legal counsel nor to provide the reasons why they are there. None at all.

The ACLU was right to argue in the courts that every person has the right to defend themselves, even if they hated us. That is the true American principle, we try to shine ourselves in good light that despite the fact they fought us, we still fight back with justice and honor. They may play dirty, but we can play dirty with honest, justice and honorable tactics. From the ACLU's perspective, every person, citizen or non-citizen, has the right to have a trial. That is universal right, regardless the Muslims, Communists, Americans or Russians does not like it or not.

When the court rulings finally indicated that the enemy combatants in Gitmo Bay has the right to have the trial, the Bush Administration is contacting with different countries to transfer the enemy combatants away from the American courts. Why? The administration does not want the enemy combatants to have their time in the courts. They just want to capture, kill, torture and lock them -- never to be seen again. They try to view the people who fight against us as less than humans. They are not.

I thought the Americans has a pride in having honor, justice and the truth? Not any longer.

For 200 years, the world looked at Americans as a place to uphold the truth, justice and freedom to all. Why do you think the French made the Statue of Liberty with a torch? It is very symbolic -- to lighten the darkness with justice, freedom, truth and honor. But over the years, it seemed to me that things do change, especially with the capitalistic society where money is important than an ordinary person.

Hell, my parents thought the property value is more important than the neighbor across the street -- you see, my father showed me the property value 3 years before the African American couple moved in across the street and the property value a year after. The property value decreased! Even with the fact that this African American couple took care of their house 1,568,431 times better than the previous couple who are caucasians. I wondered why. My father said, "Know why? The government looks at n***** skin first. Do not care if they good people. Skin equals money. Government interested first: MONEY, not people." But I digress.

The attitude is now, "As long as they are not Americans, fuck 'em. Not my problem."

I guaranteed that with the notion, it will only enrage the people who hated us and it will give them plenty of incentives to undermine the democracy growth around the world.

We have to acknowledge that everyone else has the right to have the trial even if they inflict the barbaric attacks on us. We cannot capture the persons, fly them all over the world, torture them and detain them for years without a cause or a trial. We cannot do that, it is not honorable thing to do.

Certainly not a Christian thing to do.

Certainly very inhumane thing to do. We are no better than Osama bin Laden and his friends.

R-

Robert E. Lee and Spotswood

Category: Sports

In Staunton, less than a mile away from my alma mater, VSDB, lies a high school named Robert E. Lee. Its students are not the ones I want to befriend -- extremely condescending and assholes at its best. But they have the best boys basketball coach in the state in Paul Hatcher. Hell, he is still coaching in his own gymnasium that was named after him!

Paul is very classy person. Last year, they needed two games to fill in their schedule -- many schools refused to play Lee because they were too powerful, so Paul asked VSDB to fill in. VSDB had nothing to lose but to gain the experience of playing the state's most powerful boys' basketball team. Suffice to say, both games were lopsided in favor of Lee, but when one VSDB player had a thunderous dunk at Lee High -- the gymnasium, my friend told me, nearly exploded with loud, raucous ovation because they loved seeing a deaf guy dunking on a Lee player.

When I read the article of lopsided games, Paul has nothing but praises for VSDB's courage -- that is pretty humbling of him to do that.

Last weekend, Robert E. Lee completed the season at 31-0 including winning the 2nd consecutive state AA championship. I believe it is Paul's fifth or sixth or was it ninth? I cannot remember.

But what amused me the most is ... Spotswood High School of nearby Harrisonburg also won the state AA Championship in Girls Basketball.

I believe it is the first time that two teams from the same district won the state championship in both genders. I'm not sure.

I was surfing the local newspaper -- and I was amused that they even had a blog to monitor the championship game last Saturday night!

Congratulations, Lee and Spotswood.

But Virginia is for haters.

R-

Stuff For You To Ponder

Postcards: I sent three postcards out today to three lucky readers of mine. It should arrive in 3 to 4 days. Enjoy the scenic view of New York!

Coach Gillen FIRED: UVa Athletic Director Craig Littlepage listened to my advice and Coach Pete Gillen is fired. Now, I am pinning for UVa to convince Rick Barnes to UVa in time for a new arena to unveil in May, 2005!

Califunny: California will never be the place for X-ians, conservatives or Republicans. The County Superior Court of San Francisco ruled that the gay marriage ban is unconstitutional. Hey X-ian wackos, filthy conservatives and dumb Republicans, you cannot discriminate a person of their right to marry -- period. You do not have the right to justify your hocus pocus beliefs on others. None at all.

X-ian Killings: When I heard of a guy killing 7 people before turning on himself -- I rolled my eyes and muttered, "They deserved it." When I heard that the Minister preached that the endtimes were coming sooner than we think -- little did he know that it was his, not ours. Good riddance, say HI to whoever sees you in afterlife and make sure that the door did not hit your ass on your way out.

Tax Time! I gotta do this thing.

Spring, Please Come! I'm so ready for the spring! I'm tired of bitter cold with winds. Argh. And the weather channel said that snow is slated to hit New York again on Friday. Please!

Men's NCAA? Who do I root for? Gonzaga! I love the way they play. I might root for West Virginia because I think Bellein and Gansey are hot. But never Duke.

Is GW Bush Coward? I heard of it before from different sources but this was not surprising at all. If it was GW Bush's people that did this, they needed to be mentioned that it is NONE of their business if people wants to put up a poster that criticized GW Bush. If they can do that on Clinton, so can they with Bush. What a crybaby.

Support the Soldiers! This is the reason why I hated the military. Look at them. They lowered themselves to the level of Al Qaeda barbarians. They are not there to protect us, they are there to amuse themselves with the barbaric killings. So much for their "conservative, christian and family values"! I am willing to bet that the particular Marine slut will find a way to justify this that God gave them the right to amuse themselves -- hell, let's make a pornography video out of these dead bodies!!

Cheers,

R-

Girls Do Not Care, But Boys Care!

This poster is fucking cool. George Lucas seems to have a great grasp of darkness in art but sucked in storytelling (well, a little). When I see the emergence of Darth Vader in his cape -- I got the goosebumps.

*labored breathing*


Anakin Skywalker's Invevitable Destiny
R-

Boston Legal With A Twist

Just watched Boston Legal for 40 minutes before I was distracted with the cats' melodramatic (it turned out that someone was at the door) behavior. Since I lacked the doorbell flash, the cats became the reliable source for me to figure out what's going on -- if Tom, Perlis' cat, zoomed into the closet, it means someone is at the door! If Woody, Lenny's cat, zoomed under my bed, it means Lenny is home. But this time, someone knocked so hard that both cats zoomed into the closet -- both does not like to touch each other so they bounced into each other and ended up tussled with each other.

After dealing with a neighbor upstairs, I ran back only to see the closing credits. I missed the ending part. Anyone else?

Boston Legal had a story that knocked around on FOX NEWS, but they never mentioned it. What happened is that a student at a public high school decided to sue the principal for using the gizmo technology that prevented the school from receiving the news transmission from all channels except for one conservative news channel.

It had to be FOX NEWS. But of course, it never mentioned at all. But the brilliant part of the story is that they brought the principal to take the stand in the court. That Principal is the same guy that used to act as the Principal of high school in FOX's Boston Public which folded few years ago!

Basically, the story was aiming at FOX NEWS but in a discrete manner. Let's see if the FOX can come up with the slam on ABC someday.

Too bad, I missed the ending part. Oy vey.

R-

NCAA Women's Selection Show

Category: Sports

This is bullshit.

I cannot believe this at all. The NCAA Selection Committee must have been snorting crack and heroin before doing the selection business!

East Regional

No. 1 Tennessee will play Western Carolina, coached by Kellie Jolly-Harper. Kellie Jolly-Harper used to be the quarterback of UT Lady Vols to 3 National Championships. Interesting match-up.

Temple will play Louisiana Tech. This is going to be very interesting match-up.

For the first time in years, Virginia and Tennessee will not be paired in the same regional. I'm so GLAD about it.

Mideast Regional

No. 1 Louisiana State seems to have an easy route to the Final Four. Its only formidable opponent seems to be Duke which may occur during the Elite Eight Match-up.

West Regional

North Carolina is No. 1 in Midwest Regional which is overseeded, in my opinion. Its strength of schedule is joke. Oh, well.

What truly baffled me the most is the Virginia-Old Dominion match-up! The NCAA Committee tends NOT to pair the teams that already met during the regular season. Virignia already beat Old Dominion last December, why pair us up in Minneapolis? Who will watch Virginia-Old Dominion in Minneapolis? Of course, Trudy wouldn't have the time to do that!

If Virginia takes care of Old Dominion, they have an unfinished business with Minnesota in Minneapolis. Last year, Minnesota whipped Virginia in Charlottesville, and this time, it could be our turn to take care of Minnesota in Minneapolis. An eye for an eye.

Baylor should be No. 1, not North Carolina.

Midwest Regional

Perhaps the surprising No. 1 is not Stanford but Michigan State.

Louisville vs. Southern Cal will ignite an old controversy among the Women's Basketball circles that the Committee wanted to pair teams that were coached by men to eliminate each other before facing teams that were coached by women.

Richmond made it to the Party this year, and they have to face Florida State. That's not bad opponent. I'm rooting for Richmond Spiders to go far.

Dartmouth will play Connecticut in Storrs. Knowing Dartmouth in the Party, Dartmouth has an attitude that has nothing to lose, it may present a problem for Connecticut who has so much to lose. Dartmouth nearly snapped Virginia in '96 and I was at the game. Whew.

Perhaps the best part of the tournament is that if Connecticut wins the first two games, they will face Stanford -- both coaches disliked each other and often badmouthed each other for years and refused to play against each other for years. They might have to play against each other. It would be delicious if Stanford topple Connecticut!

This is going to be fun tournament.

Let the March Madness begins!

R-

One More Story About Todd

This is based on a true story. When I first met Todd, we had a long fling that evolved into a boy-boy relationship which lasted almost two years and half. when I first met Todd, I was a junior at VSDB in the spring semester.

Of course, living in Shenandoah Valley is not something you can boast your love for Todd in front of folks. That is suicidal thing to do. However, we managed to learn how to lie and protect our relationship from anyone else, really.

During my senior year at VSDB in the spring semester, VSDB and Waynesboro High (Where Todd attended) had an annual field trip that exchanged the students for a day -- their students wanted to observe how we communicated, our students were curious about the hearing students in a local high school. Of course, I was part of this because I wanted to spend the day with Todd at WHS, and Todd did the same when they came to VSDB. It was not a case of puppy love, it was genuine love ... I hope.

However, during one period at Waynesboro High, I walked into a classroom with Todd and I noticed the local city police officer standing with the teacher. I turned to see lots of hearing students howling and all that. Todd was fluent in ASL, "The cop is here to talk about safety stuff in the class, c'mere sit with me over there."

I nodded and followed him to his desk and observed the students listening as the teacher introduced the police officer. After 30 minutes of lecture, there was the FAQ open to the students. One female student asked the cop to share his odd experiences with the students about being a cop.

I did not pay attention until I felt an eruption of laughters from the students as they cheered and whooed at the cop. Even the teacher grimaced and smiled. Todd choked and laughed. I was curious, of course. I immediately asked Todd about it.

Todd said, "The cop said that his strange experience as a cop was catching a couple having sex in the car right behind this building, he thought they were smoking marijuana but no it was two teenagers having sex. He scolded them and sent them home."

I said, "That's all? And the students guffawed on that?"

Todd shook his head and said, "No, actually, he added that it was a girl and a boy, but he threw in that if it was homo, he'd arrest them fo indecent exposure. He added about homo thing."

My curiosity turned into a growl. That was not nice thing to do. I glared at Todd, "That was not right thing to do. If he caught them having sex, arrest 'em! Be it gay or not, arrest 'em!"

Todd shrugged -- I slapped my hand on the desk which vibrated loud enough for Todd to look at me, "Tell him!"

Todd refused. Then I looked at the cop who thought it was so funny, he seemed to enjoy the attention by putting the gay people down.

When the bell rings, the students flocked out of the classroom, the cop and the teacher stood by the door to handshake each student -- the cop did shook every student until me ...

When he extended his hand to me, I looked at his hand then slowly at his face. I stared at him with dead eyes. Then gave him the look that indicated, "Who wants to handshake you?!" Then I walked out of the classroom.

Later, Todd said, "That was not nice thing to do."

I shrugged and proceeded to the gymnasium for his next period.

Today, I think I did the right thing.

R-