Nathan Sheets

Currently in the United States there is quite a bit of controversy over our country's only form of torture used on enemies. It's called waterboarding, and I am perfectly willing to concede that waterboarding is, in fact, a form of torture. Does that mean I'm against it? No, of course I'm not.

Conservatives have continued to insist that waterboarding is not torture because, well, we approve of it, and torture is "bad", so it couldn't possibly be torture. I used to be on that bandwagon, but after doing some reading on waterboarding, I see absolutely no reason why it should not be considered torture. And for that matter, I see no reason why we shouldn't do it. Believe me, if you were ever to be tortured, this is the kind of torture you would want.

When people think of torture, they think automatically of unjust torture, being done by a corrupt government or religious oligarchy to obtain information out of a person or, perhaps, to merely punish them. We see Gary Larson's Far Side or we think of Amnesty International's work.
Amnesty International has taken the stand, along with a lot of other people, that torture is morally wrong at the most basic level (while, ironically, taking the stand that abortion is a basic, fundamental right). At first it makes sense. But really, especially in relation to waterboarding, I don't see how torture is any more wrong than, say, jailing someone for years until they confess to a crime.

It's interesting to note that the people at Guantanamo on whom the United States has used waterboarding were not random people who were disliked by the leaders of our country: they were known Muslim terrorists, whose macho, "Allah, bitch!" attitude was quickly drowned out (no pun intended) when we started pouring water on their faces. They sang like birds and, because of their confessions and leaks of information, attacks that were meant to kill several thousand Americans have been thwarted.

Take, for instance, the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed captured in Pakistan in March of 2003. One of the masterminds of 9/11 and al-Qaeda’s operational leader at the time, he possessed a wide-ranging knowledge of the network’s plans, logistics and personnel. Unwilling to share it voluntarily, he was subjected to forced interrogation. As resilient as he was and defiant, he held out until the interrogators decided to proceed with waterboarding. Two and a half minutes into the procedure, a broken Mohammed begged for relief. Stunned and shaken, his extensive confession amounted to nothing less than a treasure trove of priceless intelligence.

This case is unusual not in how quickly the waterboarding worked, but how long Mohammed was able to withstand it. Two and a half minutes is by all accounts a record of sorts, as most subjects usually break down inside a minute. CIA agents who undergo this procedure as part of their training rarely last more than 40 seconds. This despite the fact that they are in a friendly environment and know that death is not an option. --Vasko Kohlmayer, FrontpageMag.com

Republicans trying to make a distinction between "torture" and "harsh interrogation measures" has proved to be pointless in that many people still view waterboarding as torture, again because of the visions of dungeons and tables with spikes from the medieval era that the word "torture" produces.

Ann Coulter points out that, yes, there is a moral problem with torturing people that you don't like. But torturing people that you know for sure are withholding information from you "actually works quite well". Indeed, the question is: why are they being tortured?

America is at war with terrorists, and yet liberals (and John McCain, incidentally) do not want to use the most effective way of saving American lives that we have. That way happens to be waterboarding, which has no lasting health effects and lasts, at most, two minutes. It can break the most cocky Muslim, as it did with K.S. Mohammad. Indeed, many are now even calling for Guantanamo to be shut down and terrorists to be either released or put in the United States, all because of waterboarding!

If you think that thousands of innocent lives could be saved by torturing someone that is a) planning to kill them personally or 2) is involved in the plot to kill them for an entire two minutes is morally wrong, I'd have to ask why. We're not cheese-grating them to death, or pulling their bodies apart with rhinos. We're putting them in pain for a minute so they'll be broken and spill the information that will save countless lives. Have Americans already forgotten the horror of September 11th?

Today's Circus comic confuses me. Is it supposed to be preachy or cute? And why, secondly, is grandma saying the world's oldest joke randomly at the breakfast table? Is she reading it from the newspaper? If so, why does the newspaper have the world's oldest joke printed? IS SHE READING THE FAMILY CIRCUS COMIC???!!!?? *head explodes*

I think it's sad that Mrs. Keane (who's apparently named "Thel"--yes, short for "Thelma", as if those laboriously long two syllables needed to be shortened) and her mother cannot even sit down to breakfast without obsessing about the children. Perhaps if Mrs. Keane spent a little more time studying with her children, they wouldn't be relying on the prayers of the shallowest kind to get them through their public school education.

Does anyone else think that Grandma here looks like she's 7 feet tall compared to her daughter?

Today we have yet another example of the Keane children's bizarre practice of pointing whenever they say...anything. It's like some politicians not knowing what to do with their hands as they speak--here we have Jeffy not knowing what to do while he speaks, and thusly looking as if he's getting ready to pick his nose. That actually makes the entire meaning of the cartoon different. OK, not really.

This cartoon reminds me of my hatred for peanut butter. It's my parents' fault too: when I was little, they smothered the stuff everywhere, and now I am to the point where I can't even put a peanut butter jar away because the smell left on my hands would gross me out.

Today I am thankful for two things: the flush toilet and the fact that children really do not look like the Family Circus characters. If they did, I would be horrified.

I refuse to dignify today's Family Circus cartoon with commentary, as the theme is (once again) about Christmas. Seriously. Christmas (as the Keanes know it, anyway) is over. We must move on.

New Years Day, 2008


Wow. Imagine my disappointment after seeing today's pathetic cartoon. As I was clicking on, I was thinking, "Surely, today Billy will say something bizarre/thought-provoking/not-funny about New Years Day!" But no: instead we get Billy (at least I got the child making the idiotic statement right!) saying something that has nothing to do with New Years Day and everything to do with...nothing. Why is the cartoonist torturing us with such a mundane detail of a typical day in the Keane family? This would be like me saying, "Hey! Guess what grandma said yesterday! That today was garbage day!"

Note the old TV again. Either the Keanes have about 12 television sets, or for Christmas they got a nice television from the '50s to replace their decrepit plasma screen.

January 2nd, 2008


Not to make one of my Family Circus rants serious, but this is exactly what the problem with Christmas is. Children being good to please whom? Their parents? God? Nope! A non-existent magic man in the sky who will bring them presents no matter how beastly they are! Merry Christmas! Well, at least you guys won't have to hear me rant about Santa until December of next year.

I note that the Keane children have a habit of pointing at nothing in particular whenever they say...anything. I also note that no one actually points when they make a statement. Could--and this is just a question--finger pointing and speaking together indicate low IQ level?

I need not sink to a petty level and make the comment that today's comic resembles nothing in the way of humor. That would be a waste of everyone's time. I would, however, like to draw attention to the television behind Billy's Aryan head. I've pointed out before the Keane family's bizarre practice of putting their expensive plasma screen on the floor and allowing their children to sit literally millimeters from it. But now the TV has changed to one produced circa 1979. What happened to the plasma?

Billy is probably at grandma's, where she, unlike the parents of her grandchildren, will actually enforce some rules with the otherwise unruly children. I would hope that after this comment of Billy's, grandma gives him a good thwap and send him in to the kitchen to wash pots and pans. "A happy grandchild is a lazy grandchild."

This is yet another tragic example about how Family Circus is generally not funny in the least. Besides the confusing layout of today's comic (talk-bubble inside thought-bubble inside circle inside quote) there is not much worth mentioning.

It is kind of refreshing to see Mr. Keane doing actual parenting with Billy. Perhaps this is in response to the Christmas Eve fiasco in which Dolly had to intervene. Whatever the case, the Keanes obviously have not raised Billy with enough sense to interpret non-literal language. What happens when someone encourages Billy with "break a leg" or dismisses him with "go jump in a river"? One can only imagine...

12/24/2007
It's kind of touching that Billy and Jeffy's boyish fighting causes enough distress to Dolly that she reacts with righteous indignation, giving a phrase that usually old ladies would say. Note the hands on the hips: that cements her womanly rage. Perhaps mom wasn't around to stop the fight, and Dolly steps in to fill her place. It's nice to know that Dolly adds some class to her siblings, noting that, especially on Christmas Eve, it's not appropriate to be smarting each other.

You'll note that the fighting incident happened on Christmas Eve, before anything remotely exciting happens to children. Perhaps it was the sitting and waiting for Christmas to come that led to the fight. A type of Christmas cabin fever, if you will.

I also note that when I and my brother fought (which was often), my sisters didn't care one way or another. There was no intervention or rhetorical lashings. It was total complacency, sitting there watching TV or reading while my brother and I killed each other.


12/25/2007

Why does Billy—who is no older than 8—have an ipod in his hand? Are his parents nuts? From the looks of it, it's a video ipod to boot, which means that Mr. and Mrs. Keane just shelled out at least $300 for an ipod, the day after Billy was seen by Dolly thwacking his brother upside the head! This is how such behavior is rewarded in the Kaene household? The fact that Billy chooses to walk with the ipod and a football would not be especially reassuring to me as a parent of Billy's responsibility.

No doubt the sea of presents engulfing Billy at his moment are all his. If they were his brother's at one point, he very well could have taken them. How barbaric the Keane household is!

I can easily imagine this moment—a divine, religious moment of silence with the family contemplating the wonderful birth of Jesus in the cold, brisk air—ruined by Dolly's fake sympathy for Jesus not receiving birthday presents all of His life. It's almost as if everything is all about her, and while the savior of the world is (almost) literally right in front of her and her family, she decides she needs to speak up with some dumb comment. Suddenly, Mr. and Mrs. Keane's reflection upon the birth of the Messiah is, now, turned upon the cute moment with their daughter. Awww! Now let's go home and open presents!

And while Billy and Dolly are both dressed up snuggly, apparently Mrs. Keane didn't care about little Jeffy enough to put him in anything other than his thin "footsie" pajamas and a scarf. Perhaps they are planning on leaving him in the manger.

Dolly's speech problem is getting pretty bad. She is now twisting scripture to fit her own selfish needs—her gobbily gannity desire for pizza. But I can't help wondering: did her parents teach her this twisted sacrilege purposfully? As staunch Catholics, Mr. and Mrs. Keane could very well be Republican and thus not have any desire for "peace on earth" at all!

As someone who wants to be a parent of 12 children someday, the fact that Dolly is "singing" this (note the musical notes above her head) disturbs me. I find small children cute, but I must say that I'm not a fan of the singing. Perhaps it's because the vast majority of young children sing out of tune, or that their incessant songs have no actual rhythm or meter. It's just random bouts of sing-songy phrases, as if we were in a musical. But there's no accompaning music, and so it's not nearly as cool.

What is she pointing at?

Ah, the American tradition of children trying so hard to get your children to believe in Santa that you'll take them to a mall to present their list of demands to the man in the suit getting paid $9 an hour (that's in Oregon; your minimum wage may vary). Setting aside my obvious moral issue with lying to your children, I really do have to wonder how the Mall Santa responded to Dolly. (Who, you'll notice, looks quite smug in today's circle, almost as if she had just given some male pro-lifer somewhere a lecture on being male.) Was he at the beginning of his shift, and thusly refreshed enough to give her some generic answer such as "Making all of the children happy this Christmas!" or perhaps "That Donner won't have to stop to go to the bathroom every third country! Ho! Ho! Ho!" Or, perhaps, was he was like 95% of all of the mall Santas everywhere, at the end of his shift, and said something mean like, "To never have to work this gig again" or something mean about his "Mrs. Claus"?

What do these Santas do in the off season? I don't know for sure now, but I could swear that they are the same men who drag around shopping carts and black trash bags down town during the rest of the year. Perhaps 60 Minutes could look into it.

Another thing: I wonder how these accomplices to "The Great Lie" respond when some pathetic child crawls onto their lap asking for something they should be asking, I don't know, God for? Oh yes, you think you're giving children joy as a Mall Santa until one child asks you to make mommy walk again. What do you say to that? "Um, no?" "Mommy's happier in a wheelchair, Johnny. Oh, she's bedridden? We'll, she's catching up on all of the sleep she lost while nursing you! Ho! Ho! Ho! Next!" Revolting.

Can I also just say that I never even heard the phrase "apple polisher" until I was in Jr. High? Perpetually 8 year-old Billy has no business using that phrase!

Mrs. Keane is looking anorexically thin in today's strip. Doesn't she eat between bouts of feeding her four children and husband? Or does she have a modeling job on the side which she runs off to when sending her children to the mall with dad?

The pained expression on Mr. Keane's face obviously means that, while he is working hard to pay the bills so little Jeffy and PJ can have basic necessities like running water and electricity, his two thoughtless children come up to him and ask him inane questions. Even though the Mrs. Keane would know the answer to this question more than Mr. Keane, she is obviously busy trying to constrain herself from screaming at her daughter's incessant questions in some other room somewhere. Or perhaps she is out shopping. Thus, these two inquiring minds had to wander over to daddy when he is is busiest.

Or, on the other hand, daddy could just have been reading the news of an old army buddy who just passed away. Whatever the case, the preciousness of the Keane children comes full-throttle on the reader today.

One doesn't even need to think about the answer to this question: "Little PJ is adopted, Jeffy, little PJ is adopted."