Last December, when he was 19 years old, Zachery Anderson met a girl on Hot or Not who told him she was 17. After the two had sex, Anderson learned from her mother that the girl was actually 14. He subsequently turned himself in to police, pled guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual misconduct, and spent 90 days in jail. But under Indiana law, he will remain a registered sex offender for the rest of his life. Anderson was studying computer science, but now he is forbidden from having an email address or accessing the internet. He cannot live near a school or park, including the boat launch 1000 feet from his parents’ house. And as he looks for a home and a job, he will have to tell prospective employers and landlords that he is a sex offender.
Author: Dan Brooks
Friday links! Half-remembered pasts edition
First of all, sorry for scaring everybody yesterday. I’m still vertiginous, and the Missoula health care system is still unwilling to care for my health on shorter notice than it takes to quit a job at Taco Bell, but I have not given up on life. One reason I will not just sicken and die is that I live in a tower of iron will. Remember the six months in 2007 when I broke my hand, dislocated my shoulder and tore my transverse abdominus? This is not as bad as that, although I’m pretty sure music was better then. It’s hard to remember, because drugs were better, too. Today is Friday, and I suspect that everything was easier in the past, but I can’t prove it. Won’t you compare epochs with me?
Combat! blog spins again, isn’t useful
There is no Combat! blog today, because vertigo came back. Maybe it’s just a brief dip in the upward-tending line of my recovery, and everything will be fine. Or maybe not. When you think about it, there’s no reason I shouldn’t just sicken and die. The important thing is that my doctor can’t see me until July 14, and no other doctor in Missoula covered by my insurance is taking new patients before September. So whatever happens will happen, and I will get better or not, and in the meantime I will keep not writing and not doing the fun things I planned to do this summer. I suppose I will keep throwing up, too, and continue to lose weight. There’s no reason it should ever stop, really. There’s no reason any doctor should be able figure out what is wrong with me, and there’s no reason what is wrong with me can’t just be everything—getting sick over and over for no particular reason but coincidence. There’s no reason I should be well. There’s no reason I should even be able to stand up. There’s no reason anything should get better, because fuck me, right? If you need me, I’ll be in my apartment, where it’s been record-hot all week for no reason at all, too. Don’t read this post aloud at my funeral.
Who gets to overrule democracy?
Seven black churches in the South have burned down over the last ten days, although officials in Greeleyville, SC say that the fire at Mount Zion AME last night was probably accidental. It burned down during a storm, and “the accidental burning of churches is not uncommon across the US.” That’s one for Fodor’s. It seems possible that various white people in South Carolina, angry their legislature would have the audacity to take down a flag in response to the murder of nine black people, have set things right by terrorizing more black people. It’s a confident moral system that turns to arson. There’s no money in it. The people who do such things must be inordinately convinced of their own rightness.
Combat! blog returns from dead, rotates gently, pities self
Close observers of Combat! blog will note that it ceased to exist for the last several days. That’s because I have been what doctors call super fucked up. Two weeks ago today, I woke in a cold sweat with the room spinning about me. As is my practice in such situations, I vomited, went back to sleep, vomited, tried to work, vomited, and then conceded that maybe I should see a doctor. I am fully insured thanks to the dread Obamacare, but my doctor was booked for weeks, so I went to the clinic for people without insurance. They diagnosed me with an ear infection and prescribed antihistamines. I spent the next few days in bed and mostly recovered; I would get really dizzy and fall over if I looked down and to the left or if—heaven forfend—I rolled onto my left side in my sleep. But mostly I was okay.




