The Internet Confessional

“Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart. If we could just remember this, I think there would be a lot more compassion and tolerance in the world.”

I suspect this statement is true. Many of us carry around things inside of us that are traumatic, either to ourselves or to others. Finding someone to confide those traumas and fears in is a large part of our searches for companionship, for love, and for intimate partners. Clergy, especially those of religions where sin is an important thing, are often tasked with the hearing of secrets, and then with the further task of carrying those secrets with them for the rest of their lives. In the places specially designed for the release of secrets, the walls hold the confessions of all types of people. The Internet now makes it possible for one place of secrets to hold the confessions of a multitude worldwide, like PostSecret does.

Not that we ever think the Internet will run out of places for people to post secrets or confessions, but we thought that having a few more spots wouldn’t hurt any. So, for those who wish to unload their hearts or minds, or see what they can craft to shock or elicit sympathy from others, the following is offered:

Post anything that you want here, and post it anonymously. A story, a secret, a confession, a fear, a love, what you think of me, your parents, boyfriend, anything. Just make it honest. Make sure to post anonymously and honestly. Post as many times as you’d like. If you wish, then, put this in your LJ to see what others have to say.

Remember to post anonymously, please. The confessional is ruined if the priest or keeper starts blabbing who it was to others.

And here for the weekend - 27 June 2008

My professional self gets to lead today by echoing advice from The Happiness Project - Read for fun! For both children and adults alike, if the book isn’t something you’re interested in, it’s not going to be an enjoyable read. And if it’s something that there has to be memory on, well, that will make it even worse. This is why I cringe whenever someone imposes arbitrary “grade levels” on children or teens and their books. Read what you want to read. You’ll exercise the skills and enjoy it more.

The United States is still cautious about North Korea's cooperation in declaring the contents of their nuclear program, as they should be. Drawing countries away from the idea of using atomic weaponry is a good idea. The U.S. itself would do well to step back from the nuclear brink itself. Civilian use energy generation, though, still has potential, even just as a stopgap to renewable resources. The Wall Street Journal wants the Bush Administration to make Kin Jong-Il give up all of his nuclear data before rewarding him with something like being moved off the state sponsors of terror list.

The Quebec Superior Court has apparently overturned a father's grounding based on his daughter posting pictures of herself on a dating site. Bizarre, and there’s nothing in there about the logic behind the decision, how a judge decided it was worth accepting, et cetera. So... details, please?

Because the Nazis documented what they did so well, the opening of an archive to academic researchers adds more color and knowledge to those researching the Holocaust. More connections made, more pictures filled in, more possibilities and ideas given form.

Domestic-like, there’s still fallout from recent Supreme Court decisions. After the habeas hijinks, there came the D.C. gun ban overturning. Linda Chavez is grateful and believes the citys's crime rate will go down, now that law-abiding citizens can carry guns to fight criminals with, and generally, the opinion buzz in conservative circles has been “Hooray! Individual gun rights upheld! That pesky militia part doesn’t really apply!” Either that, or they’re willing to accept each of their fellow citizens as part of the militia. The most recent decision drawing interest is th SCOTUS striking down the death penalty sentence for any individual crime that doesn't result in death, which gives a child rapist, the person on whom the apeal was made, life in prison without parole. David Limbaugh pans the decision, considering it further examples that human arrogance believes it can improve on God's morals and that judicial activisim is taking us farther away from the Judeo-Christian intent of the Constitution, Crooks and Liars pans Senator Obama's response to the decision, as Liberal Eagle notes that Obama is, after all, a politician, and that saying "I don't think child rapists deserve to die, just spend the rest of their lives in prison" is not a statement that will endear a politician to the voters. In other words, there probably won’t be anyone happy with this decision, for one reason or another, whether trying to justify one’s understandable bloodlust at someone who would violate children as justice being served, or in wishing that the society could get beyond the Hammurabi-like punishments and retributions into a more “civilized” era.

As the investigation goes deeper into the DoJ’s preferential practices, more programs given preferential grants and treatment due to pressure from the administration appear. For this one, at least, DOJ staffers objected that the recipients weren’t up to snuff on the matter, and the grant was turned down by the recipient for bing too much, it appears. To hell with an independent Justice Department, it seems, is the words of the current administration.

dark_christian makes mention that Campus Crusade for Christ still wants to flood the military with Bibles. What’s potentially more disturbing in this forwarded memo is that someone ho is apparently in charge of a brigade (although that’s potentially doubtful) of troops wants to drop a Bible on each of them. I wonder how many members of his brigade aren’t Christian, or are of a different denomination (and thus “unsaved”, like the brigade commander’s brother)? If a soldier requests a Bible to be with them, there should be one available. If a soldier wants to request one for his buddy because he feels that his buddy needs to be “saved”, the chaplain should tell him to mind his own planks before worrying about the specks of others. I, for one, do not want to see a military steeplejacked and then set loose on others, domestic or foreign. The commentators, many of which have been in the military, note that there are a lot of other things that would be far more useful and morale-boosting than Bibles, and that Bibles are already available through the Chaplain’s Corps.

To balance, though, Time takes a look at the blacklash that nailed James Dobson after his "distorting the Bible" comment, with lots of conservatives and religious saying that Dobson doesn’t speak for them, and the general trends that keep pushing Dobson and his ilk further and further into the minority when it comes to religious opinions.

Yearbook prank replaces names of the Black Student Union with false and racially stereotypical names. Even better, the remedy for the school is to give printed stickers to the affected students and have them fix the problems themselves, rather than recalling the yearbook and reprinting.

I deal with a lot of children in my line of work. Some of them are great to work with, others can be terrors, but it’s always bad when a mother and her child are told to get off a place because the child couldn't quiet down enough. It was a meltdown on all sides, it looks like, and the child’s autism didn’t make things any better.

In the places where opinion matters, Brent Bozell III sees George Carlin's later work as an angry white man ranting, intending to wound, rather than a comedian making people laugh. Truth is still funny, or is it sometimes that the funniest things are still true... or maybe it was just that George had a way of telling people the truth so that they laughed and didn’t get angry at him. In that respect, that would make Carlin one of the world’s greatest jesters.

Oliver North wonders where the fanfare on Iraqi control of Anbar province is, and where the newspapers and media that isn’t Fox are when it comes to covering all the progress happening. Similarly rehashing an old idea, John Bolton says Israel will hit Iran before the new president is sworn in. One, why do we suddenly have increased "Israel will hit Iran" rhetoric, after a long time of it being "The U.S. will strike Iran." Two, why are we giving Mr. Bolton news coverage again?

In candidate ideas, Liberal Eagle wants a candidate that can do the job, not someone who touts his unrelated credentials with the media's backing. On a similar sort of mark, but on energy, Ken Blackwell endorses the candidate who will drill, build, and research, rather than one that will tax the profits and encourage reduction of consumption and using alternate energy sources and vehicles, without adding to production. I’m pretty sure those extra tax dollars are going to be spent on something. I would hope it is research into renewables.

Charles Krauthammer finds Senator Obama a flip-flopper who doesn't have to worry that the media or his own base will call him out on all his reversals of position, and expects the Senator to continue remaking himself into whatever looks appealing at the time.

In science and technology, build a better mousetrap, humanity will build a better way of fooling it, this time through using magazine photos to convince camera-equipped vending machines for age-restricted materials to dispense their goods. Ingenuity works wonders. There’s also the possibility of 25 percent of the plant having Internet access in four years, which can only make those who raid file-sharers even more nervous. Plus, we've managed to microchip the bees to see if we can find out why they're dying so much.

Plus, it looks like Martian soil could grow Earth crops, if there was enough atmosphere around to make it so they didn’t die of starvation, a conference on discussion and methods to defeat aging as if it were a disease will open, and a gigantic camera to try and observe the presence of dark energy.

Last for tonight, because I thought it deserved attention, Richard W. Stevenson, political editor of the New York Times, is answering questions from readers. He’s already covered issues like coverage "gaps", bias in the media, the role and impact of blogs and bloggers, and how much coverage is appropriate for candidates that don’t really have a shot at obtaining the Presidency or other offices.

And that’s all, folks!