Well, enough navel probing over being 40 years old now. Back to reportage!

First, some video content. Some very special and extremely unique video that lets you know what it would look like to have something very bad happen to you while you stay safe at home.

Warning, the following video is disgusting, frightening, and hilarious.

See what I mean? This is as close as most of us want to get to the actual experience of being eaten by a bear. If Stephen Colbert saw this, he’s shit himself so hard, he’d deflate.

Yes, I said “most”. I know of people for whom that would be wildly pornographic.

But then, what isn’t porn to someone? I am sure some people beat off to the Antiques Road Show and climax just when he says how much the thing is worth.

I find I can only watch the video around a minute at a time. Any more than that and the disgust starts to overwhelm me and I find myself beginning to try to imagine what his breath must be like.

I mean, look at those teeth. Ewww. No such thing as a dentist for bears, I guess. On the other hand, his palate and uvula look nice and healthy. We get a nice long look at them.

The most amazing part is that the camera survived undamaged! Whoever makes GoPro cameras should totally use this fact in their advertising.

Fast. Fun. Functional. Feature-rich. Bearproof. GOPRO.

Also in video content, something even more disturbing and horrifying than the last one.

Apparently some chick known as Tan Mom made a music video.

And it is one of the worst things I have ever seen.

Seriously. That is so bad it would not make an episode of Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show. Even their most strenuous efforts to make things which are deliberately as awful as possible can’t keep up.

I have no idea why she is called Tan Mom or why that makes her famous.

I just know that I feel violated.

Moving on, let’s talk news. First we have this item about how the nurses who are treating Dzhohkar “The Boston Bomber” Tsarnaev feel about the experience.

The part of this that really struck me was this :

“You see a hurt 19-year-old and you can’t help but feel sorry for him,’’ one nurse told reporters. She said she and another nurse had to form a pact after she accidentally called Tsarnaev “Hon,” and they agreed to alert each other if they used a term of endearment with him again.

The nurses also declined to use their names in the interviews, fearing judgment from the public. Others said they felt guilty for doing a good job treating him.

“When you’re in the room, it’s just a patient. You’re here to . . . make sure they’re feeling better,” a 29-year-old nurse who initially treated Tsarnaev said. “When you step away, you take it in. I am compassionate, that’s what we do. But should I be? The rest of the world hates him right now. The emotions are like one big salad, all tossed around.”

And I just wanted to go on record as saying nobody should expect a nurse to be anything less than completely professional and compassionate. That is their job. It is not their job to pass judgment on those they treat and decide who deserves sympathy and who does not.

And really, this goes straight to the heart of my feelings about the spiritual nature of compassion. At this point, he really is just a hurt 19 year old boy. Human beings rarely turn into monsters in order to make it easier for us to hate them for what they did.

The worst villain you can imagine is still just a fragile, confused, imperfect human being who deserves compassion just like anyone else. That is why we call them human rights. They are the rights of all human beings, and nothing you or anyone else can do will ever change that.

I know that people get angry and when we are angry with someone we want to punish them. The easiest thing in the world is to decide people who have done terrible things are not human beings any more. Then we can do whatever we feel like to them and not feel bad about it.

But what can be more evil than hurting someone who is helpless before you, just to make yourself feel good? The line between them and us is thinner than we would like to believe.

For all we know, Dzhokhar thought he was punishing evil people who deserved whatever they got because their crimes meant they were less than human now.

I am not saying he is innocent or that he should go free. Justice must be served and he needs to be put someplace where he can’t hurt anyone any more.

I am just saying that the true test of our compassion is how we treat those we have every reason to despise. And if our ethics be true, we will treat them just like anyone else.

Lastly, we have this story about a school district dealing with a budget crisis in the most extreme way possbile : by just plain shutting everything down.

All the schools, all the classes, shut down as of now. They are not even going to finish out the school year. And I, for one, applaud this decision.

With the best of intentions, people in caring professions like nursing and education enable the abuse of those people in their care by always managing to make do with less every time their budget is cut.

This protects Philistine politicians from any and all consequences of their callous and thoughtless actions, and insures that their bad behaviour will continue.

The only way people will get the message is if they are the ones who will suffer for it, and that means no longer protecting them from the consequences.

And nothing lights a fire under parents’ asses like suddenly having to find and pay for a babysitter in a town where demand has suddenly shot through the roof.

There will be hell to pay. Heads will roll.

And because the teachers won’t even be teaching any more until the budget is fixed, the people’s wrath will have only one target : the budget-slashing assholes who caused the problem.

Society costs money, people. Civilization doesn’t come for free.

Grow the fuck up.