A 7yo boy was kidnapped from someplace in Oregon.  It's received the kind of coverage parents can only get when their missing child is cute enough to imply profitability to network news directors.  During a one-year period studied by the DOJ (stat via missingkids.org), an average of 2,185 children were reported missing each day.  Paring the news coverage down to the occassional poster child makes the subject more manageable, but it also gives the illusion that kidnapping is a rare occurrence.

According to the latest ad for Kings Island amusement park, riding their roller coaster makes you a "ride warrior".  I guess we can add it to the list with "road warrior" and "war on poverty".  It's standard identity advertising -- that is, making people want something because they want to think of themselves as the kind of person who wants that thing.  It's ridiculous, and it sells.  There's a reason that the "warrior" image can sell Americans on just about anything these days, and it's a symptom of a real problem with some pretty terrifying results.

Today's mail brought a very nice card from my son's and my old Sensei and his wife asking how we've been since we moved, and whether we'd found a new place to study karate. I wrote a short letter in return, letting them know that our new city is treating us well, that we found a great new dojo (which I'll post more about later), and mentioning my son's new found diligence in practicing each day.

My son drew a picture for Sensei's wife (a great lady who also helps with karate classes). I asked whether he'd drawn one for Sensei, too. He said "No, Senseis don't want pictures. Sensei will like this," handing me a second piece of paper. It read:

For the second time in the last few weeks, a loved one posted pictures of my son online without my permission. Neither person involved thought anything of it but that they love my son and wanted to share happy memories with their friends. Unfortunately, our culture has embraced technologies without understanding them, and there is *huge* social pressure not only to share intimate details of our lives online, but to think nothing of sharing others' info. In other words, everyone assumes it's not a problem because everyone else assumes it's not a problem.

Sandisk has finally created an MP3 player that I can buy my son. The only improvement I can think of would be the ability to play Ogg Vorbis in addition to or instead of MP3s.

Today was an awesome day. A good friend and her grandson took my son and I out on her sailboat this afternoon. There was no wind, so we ended up motoring around Budd Inlet (part of Puget Sound) for a while, which was plenty of fun. The weather was beautiful. After a couple of hours ride, we moored the boat and returned to dry land for sandwiches and a round of ice cream cones at the marina. I'll post a couple of photos in the family gallery later tonight if they are any good. I spent so much time trying to keep up with the three year old boating wonder that very little photography happened. Life is good.