living in a foreign country can turn you into the worst possible version of yourself.

right now i am back in america: visiting with my family, hitting up the sturgis south biker rally, eating fattening foods, trying to determine which city's housewives are the real-ist. i'm going with new jersey, mostly because they are the housewives i fear the most.

(side note: it turns out that when one is actually sober enough to walk around the sturgis south biker rally, it ends up being a little bit like every other outdoor happening in mississippi. sunburned people who have no business being shirtless eating funnel cake and drinking beer at 11am. but maybe with a tad more racism.)

amongst the many things that i miss in korea (kimchi, my girls, being able to afford stuff), i really miss being able to talk about strangers with impunity. yes, i understand that makes me a bad person. you see how polite and civilized you are when there's a 97.8% chance that no one else on the subway will understand what you're saying.

a while ago my good chingu william and i were walking in downtown daegu when a poorly dressed woman ran into traffic.

william: she just tried to kill herself!
me: oh, god, look at her shoes!
william: look at her hair!
me: it's like she's already dead.

just can't do that in america.

the first and second ammendments

let me begin by saying that i may never forgive the media for making me re-think my stance on gun owners. i do not like being wrong.

also, i do not like guns. i think guns are terrible, awful things. guns are the only things in the world that exsist solely to take life. sure, you can kill someone with a knife, but you can also slice bread or spread peanut butter. can't slice bread with a gun. i guess you could make some fairly leaden bread crumbs, but that's another story.

i've, like every other person with a television and eyes, been watching the controversy over the islamic center in new york unfold. and i don't understand the big deal. the first ammendment says that everyone has the right to practice the religion they choose. so, you know, case closed.

which got me thinking about the second ammendment. which says that people can own guns. i don't really care for this ammendment. i like the ammendments that let me vote and make my classmates not slaves, but i just don't think people need guns. oh, if only that were how the constitution worked!

plus, if we're being honest, it's not really the guns i have trouble with. i don't like the people who like guns. in my mind, people who like guns are this guy or these guys .

here's what i've come to understand: i don't have to like gun owners. don't have to invite them into my house or meet them for drinks or swap bread crumb recipies. but i do have to respect that the constitution gives them the right to buy guns and sell guns and keep guns in their homes. and the people who want to buy guns and sell guns and keep guns in their homes are only asking to do something the constitution promises them the right to do.

you don't have to like what a person does, and you don't have to like what a person believes, but until someone shoots up a school or crashes a plane, he isn't a criminal. he isn't evil, and he isn't out to destroy your way of life. he's just doing what the single greatest document ever written affords him the right to do.