Misfortune Pronated

This past Monday, my son, or "The Upgrade" as I call him, had an appointment with a pediatric orthopedic specialist. It turns out he has a congenital condition in his left arm called Radioulnar Synostosis. What that means is that his radius and ulna are fused together at their upper end. This prevent him from rotating his arm past 90 degrees, or supinating it at all. It's uncorrectable, so he'll never have full range of motion in that arm.

It hit me at a really rough time. I'm still dealing with regret about not living with him 24/7 since his mom and I broke up, it's the holidays and I'm struggling to afford any gifts for him, and now, I get to wonder if my crappy genetics brought this on him.

Still, he's such a happy, active 5-year-old, and such a loving, considerate child, I think he's more of a comfort to me than I to him at this point.

An Inconvenient Atrocity

So since I closed this place down, in fact, just recently, domestic terrorism hit close to home. One of the reasons, in fact, that I decided to start blogging again. I'm talking, of course, about the Portland Christmas Tree Bomber. Oregon's in the national spotlight, and not just because the Ducks are kicking ass all over the west.

Here's the thing that disturbs me the most about the whole thing: as part of their sting operation, the FBI sold him the bomb he tried to use -- albeit, a fake one. that means the kid was buying a bomb from them.

And that's what's wrong with kids today: they want everything done for them. No work ethic, no patience, just instant gratification. What happened to the days of terrorist nutjobs with work ethic and pride in their craftsmanship, like Ted Kaczynski or Timothy McVeigh? Sure, they were psychopathic monsters, who deserve everything they got, but among all their evil faults, laziness was not one. On top of all the misanthropic psychosis of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, he was also a slacker, and a stupid, lazy one to boot.

Guy Fawkes would be spinning in his grave. If he were in one piece.