On the anime Death Note

If there's one lesson to be learned from Death Note, it is this: boredom kills. However, there are other lessons to be learned from this anime, one of which is "Do not fight with monsters, lest you become a monster." (Fredrick Nietzche).

For those of you readers who are unfamiliar with Death Note, let me give you a summary. Light Yagame (pronounced Ya-ga-may) is the top student in his school. He is troubled by the high crime rate in Japan (which, in this world, is pure fantasy. Japan has a very low crime rate). So when he discovers a notebook that causes the death of any person whose name is written in it, he comes up with a plan to rid Japan of its criminal elements. Noble, right? Wrong. This becomes evident when Light tells the previous owner of the Death Note, a Shinigami (death god) named Ryuk, that he intends to create a world free of crime and set himself up as its god. The reason for doing this? He's bored. The response to the sudden deaths of criminals is fairly obvious: the public adores "Kira" (Japanglish for "killer", although the name Kira also means "Dark". Get it? Light and Dark?), viewing him as a savior, while the law condemns him as a mass murderer. Therefore, Light is forced to contend with the law as well as with criminals.

To tell more would give away some plot twists and turning points in the story. What I've told you already leads to some very important questions:

Does Light have the right act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner even though the crime rate shows law enforcement's incompetence?

As a member of the public, how do you react when somebody does a good thing using unscrupulous means? Does the end justify the means?

We are a country familiar with superheroes. In their respective universes, do Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, and Ironman have the right to take the fight to crime?

Did Light move in the right direction but just go too far or did he move in the wrong direction entirely? Do we, as American citizens, have not only the right, but the responsibility to stop crime whenever we see it? Assuming we do, where do we draw the line concerning the actions we take?

Summer Games

Special Olympics of Pennsylvania will be holding its biggest tournament: the Summer Games at Penn State University. I am an athlete for Berks County. Berks athletes will be participating in three sports:

• Basketball
• Softball
• Track and Field

I'm a member of the Berks Angels softball team. I play Left Center fielder. I'm pretty good on defense, although I don't make catches as inspiring as Chris Boyer, who plays Left fielder. Unfortunately, we will have to play without Rodney Delp, one of our star players. He had to be somewhere else.

We'll play preliminary games Thursday afternoon to determine which division we'll be playing in (Teams are sorted according to skill level, Div 1 for the best teams and Div 7 for the worst teams). We're pretty good, though not the best.

Last year, we took our rivals, Delco (Delaware County) into extra innings before they won. Maybe we'll beat them this year. I hope we don't get creamed. The tournament closes on Sunday. I plan on playing Soccer this fall.