:: heartattackmachine ::

:: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 ::

wait a minute before you trash this altogether: part two with dedications (or in other words, geesh. I don't think I can get to sleep before I finish this fucking story.):
The morning after I moved in, I woke up and found my arm around her bare chest. We had slept together a few times before, but I had never spent the night together with her.
Though I would've liked to continue in that position, I noticed the time and realized that I would have to leave soon.
I tried to pull back my arm, but my hand seemed tangled in the thin chain she had around her neck. She woke up and I noticed she wore the star of david.
"Why do you wear that charm? You're always talking about your disenchantment with religion."
"During the Holocaust, Hitler made the Jews wear yellow, cardboard tags. He killed them all the same. Do you think it mattered who believed and who did not?"

---

Though we hadn't planned any trips in the near future, she decided to obtain a passport.
I found her one day sitting at the kitchen island, grimacing at the photo. I told her that it couldn't nearly be that bad. Unconvinced, she handed me the small folio.
As I expected, the picture was far from terrible. In a quirky way, she had even been cute. What puzzled me was that the printed name was Sarah Libitz-Casey and not simply Sarah Libitz. I asked her about it.
"When I was ten, my mother remarried to a horrible, abusive man. He left her fortuanately. But not without changing her daughter's name."

---

After I had left her, I was in shambles. I went to a bar across the street and downed a few too many shots. I called my friend Ross. He told me to come right over.
I waited a few minutes for the cab I had called. Worried that I had missed it, it took some effort to find someone able to drive to his neighborhood.
When the cabbie asked what race I was, I responded that my father was Spanish while my mother was Mexican. Soon I realized that he had asked the question to tell me a story he had once heard on the radio about how a Cuban woman had cut off her husband's pennies. I gritted my teeth a little but was glad that there are still people out there who can sustain as simple pleasures.

---

I had to call out a few times before anyone came to the third-story window. (There was no buzzer)
Ross' roommate Jack came. "Ever had ham soda?"
No, I couldn't say I had.

---

This story is dedicated to Ross Popoff (Walker). Loosely fictionalized around my relationship with him, it is far more a statement about what occurred than anything I can imagine. Rarely are tributes written to failed relationships. I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry. It was the loneliness that frightened me away. And what still does. This is also dedicated to Jamison King who helped me out that night and John Galvin who continues to. Also a small thank-you is needed to that cabbie for his simple form of optimism. However twisted.

:: judy nguyen 11:59 PM [+] ::
...

like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

:: judy nguyen 9:00 PM [+] ::
...

wait a moment before you trash this altogether: work in progress:
That was the last thing I heard when I walked out of the apartment. What had she meant by waiting a moment? I wondered. I had been holding my breath forever.
Even though it had torn me apart to end it all, I had been long reduced to pieces by the whole charade.
It's so hard to not understand. And yet, it's often so much harder when you do. I once heard in a song that one act of kindness can be deathly. By now, I knew what that meant all too well.

---

There was a time where I hadn't seen her for a very long while. I admit it's more than a little hard to see someone who, in addition to going to school full-time, worked two jobs to support herself. But we had seemed to manage when we first met.
It was only after months of unreturned phone calls and pleads of it being four a.m. in the morning and dead asleep that I began to think about all those advances by doe-eyed, waifish boys and girls that I had passed up. Not that I experienced any pang of regret. None of them had the same fire as she. And anyway, I was not yet near giving up.

---

I had reached her once in a caffeinated daze on the last stretch of writing a lengthy paper.
She described her schedule for the following week, bemoaning the fact that she never had a moment free and excited that it was nearly finals.
Casually, I asked if I could see her soon.
There was a long pause where I imagine she was searching for a plausible excuse.
"I don't know, David. Finals will be a real drain. And even after. I'm doing more hours at the coffee shop. Also, I thought it would be wise to take up another job."
"But there's no time at all? You'll be free all day Thursday. After all, everyone needs a little study break."
After much haggling, she finally let in and agreed to tea at her apartment. But only for an hour.

---

When I got there, I sniffed out the place, searcing for evidence of an elusive lover who spent long hours lost between her sheets. Of course, I knew there was no such thing. But that idea seemed much more sane than the one I knew to be true.
In conversation, she was pleasant but restrained. She had not yet mentioned the time, but she frequently looked at the clock on the wall behind me.
Then I started in. Her indifference was horrifying. Eventually she began to weep uncontrollably. She apologized. She gestured to her machine, telling me that there were thirty messages on it, and they were all from me. She did everything but offer any plan, any mere shred of hope, that could, in any way, console me.
And I told her so.
She grew quiet, and with tears still welling in her eyes, turned around to face me. (In her hysteria, she had been pacing in her small room. Around me but clearly avoiding my eyes.)
A few minutes passed and before I could apologize, she spoke up and muttered, "Maybe you can move in."

:: judy nguyen 8:46 PM [+] ::
...

Subj: (no subject)
Date: 7/31/02 11:09:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: j. nguyen
To: j. galvin

I was wondering this morning why I had even started on ross yesterday.
well, I told you some of this before but it seems fresher in my mind now:
was talking to jamison (couldn't imagine him any older than 26) on aim. had me call him because I seemed so messed. I hadn't really met him before but he mentioned being at this show at the middle east that I had gone to. I remember eying someone that seemed to fall within his characteristics. anyway, nice guy. fairly cool. so it took me a while to get there. failing to find the cab that he called, getting the nerve to try to call a cab, finding one that could take me there, listening to the cabbie's story that he had heard about a wife cutting off her husband's pennies, being completely unsure of what end of the street he lived on... when I was up there he was already in bed with his friend marie. he didn't know that she would be over before talking to me, but she had come over on a whim to see one of jamison's roommates... (for some reason related to his going back to school in the fall, he had to move out. periodically he lived at his girlfriend's house. she was gradually going more and more nuts and he left because he thought she would be better at getting her shit together if he wasn't living with her. now he's sleeping in an office?) and they couldn't wake him up. we had a fairly good time. when we hugged we fell off the bed (I think this is why I thought of it). at first I slept in the middle, but sleeping three in what must've been a full bed was getting a little on my nerves and I got on the floor.
in the morning, he played tigermilk and made me a nice cup of sugary earl grey.

:: judy nguyen 8:17 AM [+] ::
...

Subj:
Date: 7/31/02 10:43:17 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: j. galvin
To: j. nguyen

ugh. i don't think i like that picture of me. i look so pasty. white. sallow.
but it's ok that it's there. i like that you like it. you do?
j

:: judy nguyen 8:12 AM [+] ::
...

dave says I have a californian accent but doesn't know where I got it.* john didn't have a strong comment.
I must've spent a week tops in that damn fucking place.

---

*annie said I didn't sound asian

:: judy nguyen 8:47 PM [+] ::
...

rumblebunny:

:: judy nguyen 8:25 PM [+] ::
...

john says that greil marcus would write an essay about this:

:: judy nguyen 8:24 PM [+] ::
...

we had agreed to meet at the middle east at one and I arrived a few minutes early. deciding that I rather not wait inside, I think I leaned against a tree, tearing the plastic off beth's new album, somewhat engrossed in her thank you's. I heard someone call my name. I looked up to judge the direction and saw a man with blood down his bare chest and splattered all over his pants. he appeared unaware of the bleeding. if the others by his side had any blood of them I would've wondered if he was even wounded. john found me and pulled me away. I eventually ate healthier and more suited to my appetite, but in the face of a situation like this, what does what we eat matter?

:: judy nguyen 7:20 PM [+] ::
...

favorite foods:
black black gum
cognac*
apricots
escarole
pesto**
mulligatawny soup***
lime rickey

---

*john tells me that I can very seriously hold my own with this drink
**with everything
***with lots of basmati rice

:: judy nguyen 7:07 PM [+] ::
...

kim says he looks younger in this:

:: judy nguyen 3:25 PM [+] ::
...

a photograph of photojenny:

:: judy nguyen 3:23 PM [+] ::
...

as I was telling john:

about this girl's rose necklace, I think I would want one* on my back.
somewhere above the bra line. half navy. half lavender.

---

**a rose. not a necklace.

:: judy nguyen 1:25 PM [+] ::
...

:: judy nguyen 12:53 PM [+] ::
...

you sure this ain't no sociology project?
last night john told me that annie's new boyfriend was twenty. not only does the fact that she wasn't single significantly alter the context in which I held the weekend,* but the idea that she was also dating someone ten years younger, when I thought about it, feels almost eery.
I've grown to understand that age, though not merely a number, is a moot point in many contexts. though any other relationship I've had has been with someone within two years of my age,** my relationship with john is the only one to have invaded as many aspects of my life.
someone my own age would not necessarily have significantly more experiences that I and neither would they have the same. something about that is incredibly scary yet beautiful in the same.

---

*not only was he held responsible to a third party* but so was she**
**with the exception of ross who was twentyfour. the relationship was problematic if relationship at all.***

---

*me
**not that I have ever had any reason to doubt john's words. I like to associate with people who don't. I don't look for it as a primary desirable characteristic, but it's a symptom.
***don't dare tell me I didn't call don't dare say I didn't care

:: judy nguyen 4:43 PM [+] ::
...

you ask what need I have for a thousand houses. I respond that it's only metaphor, but you tell me that's not answer enough:
just a few years ago, existentialism* seemed enough. a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts covered all the necessary bases as a moral system substitute. if anything should dictate how someone should act, why not a meditation of real-world effect?
however in the past year or so,** I have been obsessed with the idea of human existence in general: she looks like the real thing she tastes like the real thing my fake plastic love but I can't help the feeling I could blow through the ceiling if I just turn and run(radiohead, fake plastic trees).***
I looked at my father, at his hands, his face, his eyebrows, and I knew that this man had nothing to do with me. he was a stranger. my mother was non-existent. I was cursed. looking at my father I saw nothing but indecent dullness. worse, he was even more afraid to fail than others. centuries of peasant blood and peasant training. the chinaski bloodline had been thinned by a series of peasant-servants who had surrendered their real lives for fractional and illusionary gains. not a man in the line who said, "I don't want a house, I want a thousand houses, now!" (bukowski, ham on rye)

---

*I was reading a book of sartre's plays*
**perhaps it is time for a little prozac

---

***I've considered tattooing this on my body but have realized that I probably could never get the words small enough
*nausea wasn't very good at all

:: judy nguyen 4:51 PM [+] ::
...

funkcornbread: what's up?
getoutyershirt: hmm.
getoutyershirt: spoke to john's love of his life
funkcornbread: huh?
getoutyershirt: you have to be creative
getoutyershirt: if you can conceive of not being with the one you love most deeply
funkcornbread: what's stopping him?
getoutyershirt: things happen
getoutyershirt: I'm not with the love of my life
getoutyershirt: it becomes inconvenient
getoutyershirt: and often inconceivable
funkcornbread: but if it's truly meant to be....
getoutyershirt: you can't just say you love someone and have that be the end of that
getoutyershirt: maybe it isn't
getoutyershirt: I can't assign assumptions like that to the term I'm using
funkcornbread: why not?
getoutyershirt: (or john or annie (person being spoken of))
getoutyershirt: because you can't
funkcornbread: take a chance
funkcornbread: don't play it safe
getoutyershirt: maybe if you can love someone one at a time without giving that much of a shit about the people in the past who things might not work out at the end with, you can be with the love of your life
getoutyershirt: but if you don't do that, maybe you can't be with that person
funkcornbread: hmm
getoutyershirt: the person who I consider (though warily) the love of my life is david
getoutyershirt: and I'm not with him
getoutyershirt: something like that isn't even in discussion
funkcornbread: why do you consider him as such?
getoutyershirt: because my feelings for him almost lie at the core of my very being
funkcornbread: what does that mean anyway?
getoutyershirt: I don't know. that's how the articulation of what I'm feeling comes out.
funkcornbread: why can't you be with him?
funkcornbread: too far away?
getoutyershirt: that and other things
getoutyershirt: which include being with john right now
funkcornbread: well, ya
getoutyershirt: not having talked for a long period of time
getoutyershirt: (and things can happen even in much shorter periods)
getoutyershirt: like being with john or in david's case for a while, being with lindsay
getoutyershirt: or in my case initially, about two years ago, my being with chris
funkcornbread: I guess my feeling is that if a bond between two people is so strong, there must be something real about it
getoutyershirt: beginning to form ideas about life that aren't necessarily shared by the other person
getoutyershirt: there is
funkcornbread: maybe I'm simpleminded
funkcornbread: people grow apart
getoutyershirt: but it doesn't necessarily have to be one thing or other
getoutyershirt: I guess, but that doesn't mean that you don't still feel for some of them
funkcornbread: where's the gray area?
getoutyershirt: and what's really growing apart?
getoutyershirt: how do you define that when it seems ambiguous?
funkcornbread: developing diverging ideals
funkcornbread: maybe it's the point when the intense feelings disappear
funkcornbread: or are diverted to someone else
getoutyershirt: then what explains still feeling that way?
getoutyershirt: or what justifies still feeling that way?
funkcornbread: you still feel the same towards him even today?
getoutyershirt: I think I do
funkcornbread: I can't relate
getoutyershirt: mrr.
getoutyershirt: you've only loved one person?
getoutyershirt: so maybe it doesn't apply*
funkcornbread: I thought I loved someone before her, but I was 13
funkcornbread: and it was nothing
getoutyershirt: ok
funkcornbread: so, I guess it doesn't apply
getoutyershirt: it might apply some day
funkcornbread: I know that I certainly don't feel the same about jehae as I did when we were together
getoutyershirt: a lot of what I'm saying is just relative to me and john and david and annie and other people floating around out there who share similar experiences.
funkcornbread: back then, my whole being focused on her
funkcornbread: right
funkcornbread: I was deeply concerned about whatever she was doing
getoutyershirt: I don't know. neither do I think that the relationships here when there were no extenuating circumstances were ever quite normal "seeing one another" type relationships (from what I've heard from john and what I've experienced with david)
getoutyershirt: ok
getoutyershirt: though that doesn't necessarily cause any of what I've mentioned about
getoutyershirt: above rather
funkcornbread: does the fact that the relationships weren't normal mean anything?
getoutyershirt: that was what I just said
getoutyershirt: maybe
getoutyershirt: but I don't know
funkcornbread: afterall, given the chance to spend lots of time together, who knows how you're feelings about david might have changed
funkcornbread: oh
getoutyershirt: some say that ghosts exist because they have unfinished business**
funkcornbread: right
getoutyershirt: the term ghost can be metaphorical
funkcornbread: but what kind of business? was it just that there was no defining "end" to the relationship?
getoutyershirt: if things don't play out until their extent, who knows what would happen?
funkcornbread: right
getoutyershirt: but then why weren't the relationship normal initially?
getoutyershirt: anxieties?
funkcornbread: you tell me...I don't know
getoutyershirt: anyway, bleh. I hate rationalizing things to nothing
funkcornbread: hey, absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?
getoutyershirt: *hates rationalizing things to nothing
funkcornbread: ha

---

*I feel the same way about the little prince. I mean, yeah, same with other books, but I didn't get stuff about st. exupery's* work for a while.
**I have had many other ghosts outside of david. many of whom I've realized weren't worthy of the categorization.** I think I would've long knew if he was not.

---

*ah. just now reminded of quebec city. why does that feel really really nice?
**though sometimes I wonder what side of the line dan really falls on.*

---

*really wasted too much time there.

---

is snow that lasts only for a day white as snow that lasts forever because that snow didn't last two days? or three?

:: judy nguyen 10:31 PM [+] ::
...

before that, however:
I have spent the entire day with hearing that recalls the experience of being in water.
briefly, just now, my ears popped and I could hear fine. but barely for a moment.

:: judy nguyen 10:04 PM [+] ::
...

talked to annie* tonight for the first time.
I know that leaving it as merely that will be horribly ambiguous and insufficient to anyone outside my own head because I don't think I've said so much to one person about what goes on in my head about conversations and what goes on in those actual conversations.**
anyway, I was going to leave out all other details, but as you will see, I decided to leave one in...

---

*pronounced the way one does in ani difranco world. apparently she's french-canadian.
**though maybe annie caught a whiff

:: judy nguyen 10:00 PM [+] ::
...

moving out and who knows... I might take my stuff with me!:
after much deliberation, I decided to move to blogger. I don't know what having a lj paid account is like (though I've considered the idea, I've never been fully convinced), but the servers there are much faster. though introductory annual pricing is a full ten dollars more, the options on problogger are drool-worthy and I may be convinced into shelling out the thirty-five. curiously I wouldn't be able to do so without upgrading, but I'm also considering moving the current contents of my lj onto blogger. a large project.
I hope people give a shit, even if only about inconsequential little me. nevertheless I'm retaining my lj account if little more than an archive. I've even been keeping up a little more recently.
note: the fruits of yesterday's braindrain have been posted.

---

[7/25/2002 20:52 | kennedycrash]
me, everything makes me tired:
but yes, if it works for you, do it--please keep us posted where you go--I'd like to stay in touch even if I am never on IM.
[7/26/2002 22:39 | loopbliss]
Re: me, everything makes me tired:
and neither am I. yahoo! messenger got deleted on this computer sometime when I was away and I never bothered to redownload.

:: judy nguyen 8:50 PM [+] ::
...

research:
as I've told the few people (only john and michael come to mind) I have, work on my thesis/book of meditations on beauty and its relationship to death is indefinitely postponed.*
however, I'm beginning to reread white noise.** I've realized just how imbued with themes of death and aesthetic delillo's work is. the protagonist's difficulty with the german language (even as the founder of hitler studies) is tied to his obsessive aversion to death: what we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation. why not begin taking notes now I wonder as I read?
might as well later.

---

*I suspect a lessened pretention and a sizable grant necessary. also, a little more ambition.
**delillo, I now think, is one of the few writers I find consistently compulsively readable. who are the others? (he's no dummy either)

:: judy nguyen 5:40 PM [+] ::
...

I've been in a very good mood in the past few days.
or a very good state of being.* with those I enjoy, I suspect I am a fuck awesome individual to be around.

---

*can one be saddened in a favorable mood?

:: judy nguyen 5:15 PM [+] ::
...

what this is all about:
heartattackmachine is derived from desolation row. the phrase isn't particularly meaningful. I merely like the sound of it. besides, it's a fucking clever song.
wait a moment before you trash this altogether originated as a headline I wrote for nerve. just today I realized how far this theme goes. see my oft-quoted passage from calvino.

:: judy nguyen 4:26 PM [+] ::
...

death=beauty=fragility

---

Would beauty have any intrigue or presence at all if there was no knowledge of death?

---

instinct=attraction to signs of health. animals--vividness of color
humans--tangible signs of fertility

---

would there be any distinction between how healthy one is over another if there was no death?
is there an ultimate form?

---

however health is not the only mark
signs of death or the frequent permanency of fragility (tragedy)

---

girl in wheelchair struck me as incredibly beautiful. would not have been so striking without her disability. she also smoked

---

inanimate objects. events

---

relationships. precious only because they end?
(countless references in pop culture. see Virgin Suicides, etc.)

---

concept of afterlife an antithesis of beauty?

---

both are fearful (awesome?) things for their sheer immensity and ambiguity, but do those who hate death hate beauty (degrees of hatred)

---

is beauty quantifiable?
in certain contexts much of it can. however there are many complexities involved in relationshipal beauty.
I do not think there exists or could very well exist a sufficient authority short of god (and do not even ask if the existence of god necessitates afterlife) that can conclusively distinguish the valve between platonic and romantic relationships. perhaps all unanswerable questions can be answered by the number 42.* Neither does length determine value. Aristotle: Is snow that lasts a day any whiter than snow that lasts forever?

---

*geek!

:: judy nguyen 6:45 PM [+] ::
...

my intellectual capabilities are spent for the day.
more word later after I recover a little.

:: judy nguyen 3:52 PM [+] ::
...

feeling sort of lousy. a couple doctor's appointments. everything I've been concerned about checked out pretty well (apparently I probably have short roots and depo provera might be a better option). except for, well, my hearing. damn machine was broken. I hope that I'm not actually going deaf in my left ear. but then fuck it if I am. I guess. a bit like the narrator's attitude toward death in slaughterhouse-five. if it happens so it happens and how can it be helped. though I'm not sure if vonnegut was as outraged by deafness as he is by death. that could've be sort of witty. there's probably a term for it. there are terms for everything.
at the library right now. have been here since five though I had about a half hour dinner at friendly's. the last time I've been in one was sometime in late winter. with whathisname. geesh. if there's something I've acquired in the past year it's better recognition of jerkoffs though as one of things john confronted me (I should say a lot more nice things about him. because there are nice things to say I think. and not merely out of some false duty.), last night and today, is that I don't yet necessarily know if in those situations what the right thing to do is.
oh. and the first couple of chapters of coetzee's disgrace pissed me off and I think eco's name of the rose may be a little too much for right now.

:: judy nguyen 7:53 PM [+] ::
...

if this isn't scary, I'm not sure I can say what is: beyond the rubber bullet:
lev grossman, time, 7/29/02

the u.s. armed forces don't do much shooting anymore. even in afghanistan, they engage in more advising and guiding than gunplay. soldiers today are asked more often to keep the peace or defuse demonstrations, and the last thing they want in those situations is to fire a lethal weapon. that's why the pentagon is spending more and more research-and-development dollars on weapons that stun, scare, entangle or nauseate--anything but kill.
the u.s.'s nonlethal-weapons programs are drawing their own fire, mostly from human-rights activists who contend that the technologies being developed will be deployed to suppress dissent and that they defy international weapons treaties. through public websites, interviews with defense researchers and data obtained in a series of freedom of information act requests filed by watchdog groups, time has managed to peer into the pentagon's multimillion-dollar program and piece together this glimpse of the gentler, though not necessarily kinder, arsenal of tomorrow.

directed energy weapons imagine a cross between a microwave oven and a star trek phaser: a tight, focused beam of energy that flash-heats its target from a distance. directed energy beams do not burn flesh, but they do create an unbearably painful burning sensation. the air force research laboratory has already spent $ 40 million on a humvee-mounted directed-energy weapon. expect to see it in the field by 2009.

antitraction material sometimes keeping an enemy down but not out is good enough. the southwest research institute in texas has created a sprayable antitraction gel for the marines that is so slippery it is impossible to drive or even walk on it; one researcher describes it as "liquid ball bearings." spray the stuff on a door handle, and it becomes too slippery to turn. the antitraction gel is mostly water, so it dries up in about 12 hours. it is also nontoxic and biodegradable.

malordorants working for the pentagon, the monell chemical senses center in philadelphia has formulated smells so repellent that they can quickly clear a public space of anyone who can breathe--partygoers, rioters, even enemy forces. scientists have tested the effectiveness of such odors as vomit, burnt hair, sewage, rotting flesh and a potent concoction known euphemistically as "u.s. government standard bathroom malodor." but don't expect to get a whiff anytime soon. like all gaseous weapons, malodorants once released are hard to control, and their use is strictly limited by international chemical-weapons treaties.

projectiles no one likes rubber bullets--not the people being fired at nor the people doing the firing. "it's very easy to put out an eye, to blind someone," says glenn shwaery, director of the nonlethal technology innovation center. "how do you redesign a projectile to avoid that?" the answer is, with softer, flatter bullets, beanbags and sponges that spread out the impact and hit like an open-handed slap from andre the giant. shwaery's team is looking into an even more radical solution: "tunable" bullets that can be adjusted in the field to be harder or softer as the situation warrants. "we're talking about dialing in the penetrating power," he says. "it's the difference between 'set phasers on stun' and 'set phasers on kill.'"

webs and nets spider-san has competition. a firm called foster-miller, based in waltham, mass., has created the webshot, a 10-ft.-wide kevlar net. packed in a cartridge and fired from a special shotgun, the webshot can entangle targets as far away as 30 feet. bigger nets can work on bigger targets. the portable vehicle arresting barrier, developed for the pentagon by general dynamics in falls church, va., is a tough, elastic web that springs up from the ground in an instant to block a road. it can stop a 7,500-lb. pickup truck traveling 45 m.p.h. and then wrap around it to trap the occupants inside.

real ray guns further out on the horizon, the line between weapons development and science fiction becomes perilously thin. mission research corp. of santa barbara, calif., is working on a pulsed energy projectile (pep) that superheats the surface moisture around a target so rapidly that it literally explodes, producing a bright flash of light and a loud bang. the effect is like a stun grenade, but unlike a grenade the pep travels at nearly the speed of light and can take out a target with pinpoint accuracy. or picture this: a flashlight-size device, currently in development at hsv technologies in san diego, that transmits a powerful electric current along a beam of ultraviolet light. shine that light on a human target, and you have a wireless taser that can paralyze targets as far away as 2 km.

drugs, bugs, and beyond even their supporters agree that "nonlethal weapons" is a dangerous misnomer and that any of these devices has the potential to injure and kill. what is more, some of them may not even be legal. over the past three months, a chemical-weapons watchdog organization called the sunshine project has obtained evidence that the u.s. is considering some projects that appear to take us beyond the bounds of good sense: bioengineered bacteria designed to eat asphalt, fuel and body armor, or faster-acting, weaponized forms of antidepressants, opiates and so-called "club drugs" that could be rapidly administered to unruly crowds. such research is illegal under international law and could open up terrifying scenarios for abuse. "this is patently quite dangerous and irresponsible," says human-rights activist steve wright, who, as director of the omega foundation, works with amnesty international to monitor nonlethal weapons. "what the u.s. invents today, others, including the torturing states, will deploy tomorrow." just how much is that magic rubber bullet worth to us? maybe some science fiction should remain fictional.

:: judy nguyen 7:37 PM [+] ::
...