Borowitz: Move Over Al Qaeda, Congress is On It

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Andy Borowitz is a satirical columnist for the New Yorker magazine, NY Times best-selling author and winner of the first National Press Club award for humor.

Al Qaeda Disbands; Says Job of Destroying U.S. Economy Now in Congress’ Hands

By Andy Borowitz

Dec. 28, 2012

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The international terror group known as Al Qaeda announced its dissolution today, saying that “our mission of destroying the American economy is now in the capable hands of the U.S. Congress.”

In an official statement published on the group’s website, the current leader of Al Qaeda said that Congress’s conduct during the so-called “fiscal-cliff” showdown convinced the terrorists that they had been outdone.

“We’ve been working overtime trying to come up with ways to terrorize the American people and wreck their economy,” said the statement from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. “But even we couldn’t come up with something like this.”

Mr. al-Zawhiri said that the idea of holding the entire nation hostage with a clock ticking down to the end of the year “is completely insane and worthy of a Bond villain.”

“As terrorists, every now and then you have to step back and admire when someone else has beaten you at your own game,” he said. “This is one of those times.”

The Al Qaeda leader was fulsome in his praise for congressional leaders, saying, “We have made many scary videos in our time but none of them were as terrifying as Mitch McConnell.”

As for the future of Al Qaeda, the statement said that it would no longer be a terror network but would become “more of a social network,” offering reviews of new music, movies and video games.

In its first movie review, Al Qaeda gave the film “Zero Dark Thirty” two thumbs down.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/12/al-qaeda-disbands-says-job-of-destroying-us-economy-now-in-congress-hands.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2862%29

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Conveying the Most Important Impression of Who You Are

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Leo Notenboom runs a help site (www.ask-leo.com) answering readers’ questions about everything IT. To answer a question, though, he needs to understand what’s being asked. The inability to communicate in proper English is the subject of today’s column. Naturally, clear communication is not limited to asking Leo computer questions. As he points out below, “... it’s your written and spoken language skills that convey perhaps the most important impression of just who you are.”

 

The Most Important Skill

By Leo A. Notenboom

It’s all about your ability to communicate

The number one reason an Ask Leo! question goes unanswered is that it doesn’t include enough information.

The number two reason?

I can’t understand the question.

Now, you might be tempted to say that this would be because I have high percentage of non-English speaking readers – and yes, that does play a part, but not as large a part as you might think.

No, when it comes to writing unintelligible questions, it’s the so-called “native English speakers” that actually cause me the most difficulty ... and the most frustration.

After all, the folks from non-English speaking countries have a bit of an excuse.

So-called native English speakers do not.

And yes, with nearly 10 years of experience reading question after question after question, I can usually tell the difference between a native English speaker, and someone for whom English is a second language.

Poor-literacy spans all demographics

I’m not speaking of illiteracy – the inability to read or write your native tongue, I’m talking about poor literacy skills. What I see too often is the inability to write (or occasionally speak) in a clear and understandable manner.

I’m also not speaking specifically about so-called “text speak”, or similar shorthands that have evolved for various reasons and at various times. While they do contribute seriously to the overall problem, they’re certainly not – in my opinion at least – the worst offenders.

The worst are those questions that come in that are written in English, but the English is so poorly written that it ranges anywhere from simply unclear to completely incomprehensible.

It happens much more often that you’d expect, and it comes from all demographics: young and old, male and female, and from just about any English-speaking locale.

Why it matters: Getting your computer fixed

It seems pretty obvious: if I can’t understand a question, I can’t help. If it’s really hopeless, I’ll simply skip the question and move on.

But I often do try, and that’s where it can actually get more frustrating.

I often do try to answer poorly written questions. I’ll perhaps guess or try to infer what the problem is from unclear or incomprehensible English.

And sometimes, I get it wrong. I answer a question, but it’s not the question being asked. Or I ask for clarification, and the clarification is just as bad as the original question.

I’ve just wasted my time and the time of whoever was trying to get their problem solved.

All for lack of being able to communicate clearly in English.

It’s not just me.

Computers and technology in general are notorious for requiring clear and accurate descriptions of problems in order to get to the correct resolution. Whether it’s some random person like me on the internet answering questions, a home-town technician, or a company’s support representative – if they can’t understand you they can’t help you.

All for lack of being able to communicate clearly in English.

Why it matters: That high-paying job

It’d be easy to write off my little rant as that of a frustrated computer geek who’s gone over the edge after reading one too many questions.

If you did, you’d be missing my point.

The ability to write clear and proper English is about much, much more than just the ability to express a tech problem in language that can be clearly understood.

As an old commercial for a vocabulary improvement product used to claim, “people judge you by the words you use.”

It may or may not be fair, but it is absolutely true.

The same is true about your ability to write – anything – well.

Be it questions, letters to the editor, job applications, or anything else, something written that sounds like it came from a barely-literate teenager is likely to be treated as if that’s exactly who wrote it.

It doesn’t matter how smart you really are; it’s your written and spoken language skills that convey perhaps the most important impression of just who you are.

And even if the impression is wrong, it sticks and can be nearly impossible to overcome.

You’re not going to get that corner office if you speak and write like someone who never finished high school.

Why it matters: The computer programmer

I’m often asked what’s the most important language to learn when becoming a computer programmer.

My response is now: English.

That’s not what most people expect.

The fact is that even a job dealing primarily with computers still deals extensively with the people who use them. Be it the designers, the users, the repair people, the other programmers or managers on the team, it’s all communication, and it’s all an opportunity for you to present yourself as a literate professional.

Or as something else.

And that’s true for any job.

People judge you by the words you use. And how you use them.

It may not be fair, but it is real. You can object, you can insist that it shouldn’t matter, but it does.

If I had to do it all over again, I’d have taken more English classes.

English?

The arguments above really apply to whatever the language of your native land might be.

Naturally, I believe people living in English-speaking countries should be well versed in English and hopefully that makes sense.

However, there’s another characteristic of our planet that is easy to overlook, might also be considered unfair, and yet remains very important.

The vast majority of the internet is in English.

Even if you live in a non-English speaking country, the ability to read (and yes, write) English will open doors to immense amounts of information and assistance that would otherwise remain inaccessible.

Fair or not, it is what it is, and most of it is in English.

ESL: English as a second language

I have a soft spot for non-native speakers who truly make the attempt to learn English and learn it well.

You see, English is my second language. Even though, we were living in Canada at the time, I spoke only Dutch until I was about four.

Now, I also understand that my experience doesn’t really compare to the difficulty of learning a second language as an adult. Especially when that second language is English.

In helping overseas relatives and other friends and acquaintances with their English, it’s become very clear to me that English is an incredibly difficult language to learn. Just about the time you learn a “rule,” you find that there are exceptions, and exceptions to the exceptions.

The worst question that an ESL instructor faces, I’m sure, must be “why?”

The only answer I can often come up with is “Because it’s English, and that’s just the way it is.”

Once again, it’s not fair and it’s not easy.

But if you’re living in an English speaking country, if you’re expecting the respect of others in an even semi-professional job in an English speaking country, or if you ever want to access the vast amounts of information available only in English, there is simply no substitute for speaking and writing English.

And I do mean speaking and writing it well. “Enough to get by” isn’t really enough. How people judge you by your use of English, unfair as that might be, requires a lot more skill than just “getting by.”

Yes, it’s that important.

http://ask-leo.com/the_most_important_skill.html?awt_l=8FLnJ&awt_m=JBQDItxO7ZdfbL

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Happy Holidays

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NRA Executive’s Solution to Gun Proliferation: More Guns

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Defiant NRA leader rejects gun controls, asks to put police in schools

A protesters holds a banner in front of the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, during a news conference addressing the aftermath of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

By Michael O’Brien, NBC News

Dec. 21, 2012

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre defiantly blamed violent video games and movies, the media, gun-free zones in schools and other factors during the organization’s first public statement following the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn last week. 

LaPierre, who was interrupted by Code Pink protesters twice during a statement (during which he refused to answer questions), said that the students in Newtown might have been better protected had officials at Sandy Hook Elementary been armed. He said that putting a police officer in every single school in America might make schools safer.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said, asking Congress to immediately appropriate the money to put a police officer in every single school in the country.

The NRA executive’s statement was nothing short of defiant in the face of mounting discussion of the need for tighter restrictions on guns — including renewing a ban on assault weapons — in the wake of last week’s shooting.

Protesters twice interrupted LaPierre, who will appear this Sunday exclusively on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” holding signs reading “NRA KILLING OUR KIDS,” and screaming that the gun rights group has “blood on its hands.”

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/21/16068647-defiant-nra-leader-rejects-gun-controls-asks-to-put-police-in-schools?lite

^^^

 

The N.R.A. Crawls From Its Hidey Hole

Published: December 21, 2012

Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, would have been better advised to remain wherever he had been hiding after the Newtown, Conn., massacre, rather than appear at a news conference on Friday. No one seriously believed the N.R.A. when it said it would contribute something “meaningful” to the discussion about gun violence. The organization’s very existence is predicated on the nation being torn in half over guns. Still, we were stunned by Mr. LaPierre’s mendacious, delusional, almost deranged rant.

Mr. LaPierre looked wild-eyed at times as he said the killing was the fault of the media, songwriters and singers and the people who listen to them, movie and TV scriptwriters and the people who watch their work, advocates of gun control, video game makers and video game players.

The N.R.A., which devotes itself to destroying compromise on guns, is blameless. So are unscrupulous and unlicensed dealers who sell guns to criminals, and gun makers who bankroll Mr. LaPierre so he can help them peddle ever-more-lethal, ever-more-efficient products, and politicians who kill even modest controls over guns.

His solution to the proliferation of guns, including semiautomatic rifles designed to kill people as quickly as possible, is to put more guns in more places. Mr. LaPierre would put a police officer in every school and compel teachers and principals to become armed guards.

He wants volunteer and professional firefighters, who already risk their lives every day, to be charged with thwarting an assault by a deranged murderer. The same applies to paramedics, security guards, veterans, retired police officers. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Mr. LaPierre said.

We cannot imagine trying to turn the principals and teachers who care for our children every day into an armed mob. And let’s be clear, civilians bristling with guns to prevent the “next Newtown” are an armed mob even with training offered up by Mr. LaPierre. Any town officials or school principals who take up the N.R.A. on that offer should be fired.

Mr. LaPierre said the Newtown killing spree “might” have been averted if the killer had been confronted by an armed security guard. It’s far more likely that there would have been a dead armed security guard — just as there would have been even more carnage if civilians had started firing weapons in the Aurora movie theater.

In the 62 mass-murder cases over 30 years examined recently by the magazine Mother Jones, not one was stopped by an armed civilian. We have known for many years that a sheriff’s deputy was at Columbine High School in 1999 and fired at one of the two killers while 11 of their 13 victims were still alive. He missed four times.

People like Mr. LaPierre want us to believe that civilians can be trained to use lethal force with cold precision in moments of fear and crisis. That requires a willful ignorance about the facts. Police officers know that firing a weapon is a huge risk; that’s why they avoid doing it. In August, New York City police officers opened fire on a gunman outside the Empire State Building. They killed him and wounded nine bystanders.

Mr. LaPierre said the news media call the semiautomatic weapon used in Newtown a machine gun, claim that it’s a military weapon and that it fires the most powerful ammunition available. That’s not true. What is true is that there is a growing call in America for stricter gun control.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/22/opinion/the-nra-crawls-from-its-hidey-hole.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121222

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The Argument for Stricter Gun Control Laws

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In Other Countries, Laws Are Strict and Work

Dec. 17, 2012

Like other shootings before it, the Newtown, Conn., tragedy has reawakened America to its national fixation with firearms. No country in the world has more guns per capita, with some 300 million civilian firearms now in circulation, or nearly one for every adult. [emphasis added]

Experts from the Harvard School of Public Health, using data from 26 developed countries, have shown that wherever there are more firearms, there are more homicides. In the case of the United States, exponentially more: the American murder rate is roughly 15 times that of other wealthy countries, which have much tougher laws controlling private ownership of guns.

There’s another important difference between this country and the rest of the world. Other nations have suffered similar rampages, but they have reacted quickly to impose new and stricter gun laws.

Australia is an excellent example. In 1996, a “pathetic social misfit,” as a judge described the lone gunman, killed 35 people with a spray of bullets from semiautomatic weapons. Within weeks, the Australian government was working on gun reform laws that banned assault weapons and shotguns, tightened licensing and financed gun amnesty and buyback programs.

At the time, the prime minister, John Howard, said, “We do not want the American disease imported into Australia.” The laws have worked. The American Journal of Law and Economics reported in 2010 that firearm homicides in Australia dropped 59 percent between 1995 and 2006. In the 18 years before the 1996 laws, there were 13 gun massacres resulting in 102 deaths, according to Harvard researchers, with none in that category since.

Similarly, after 16 children and their teacher were killed by a gunman in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, the British government banned all private ownership of automatic weapons and virtually all handguns. Those changes gave Britain some of the toughest gun control laws in the developed world on top of already strict rules. Hours of exhaustive paperwork are required if anyone wants to own even a shotgun or rifle for hunting. The result has been a decline in murders involving firearms.

In Japan, which has very strict laws, only 11 people killed with guns in 2008, compared with 12,000 deaths by firearms that year in the United States — a huge disparity even accounting for the difference in population. As Mayor Michael Bloomberg stressed on Monday while ratcheting up his national antigun campaign, “We are the only industrialized country that has this problem. In the whole world, the only one.”

Americans do not have to settle for that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/the-gun-challenge-strict-laws-work.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121218

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My Son Terrifies Me

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I am Adam Lanza’s Mother

It's time to talk about mental illness

By Liza Long

Friday’s horrific national tragedy—the murder of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in New Town, Connecticut—has ignited a new discussion on violence in America. In kitchens and coffee shops across the country, we tearfully debate the many faces of violence in America: gun culture, media violence, lack of mental health services, overt and covert wars abroad, religion, politics and the way we raise our children. Liza Long, a writer based in Boise, says it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.

“They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.”

“They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”

“You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.”

I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

 “Michael” Long

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.

We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.

At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he’s in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He’s in a good mood most of the time. But when he’s not, watch out. And it’s impossible to predict what will set him off.

Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district’s most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can’t function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30-1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18.

The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, “Look, Mom, I’m really sorry. Can I have video games back today?”

“No way,” I told him. “You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly.”

His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself.”

That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right.

“Where are you taking me?” he said, suddenly worried. “Where are we going?”

“You know where we are going,” I replied.

“No! You can’t do that to me! You’re sending me to hell! You’re sending me straight to hell!”

I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waiving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. “Call the police,” I said. “Hurry.”

Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer.

The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork—“Were there any difficulties with… at what age did your child… were there any problems with.. has your child ever experienced.. does your child have…”

At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.

For days, my son insisted that I was lying—that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, “I hate you. And I’m going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here.”

By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I’ve heard those promises for years. I don’t believe them anymore.

On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”

And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.

When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population.

With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011.

No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”

I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal.

God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.

http://thebluereview.org/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother/

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