I Ain't Your Ho: Vol. 3

Total Shout-Out and a Stirring Song Dedication

2010-01-08T09:56:00.000-06:00

I want to give a shout-out to Deffenbaugh, the trash and recycling people who drive around in -15 degree weather and pick up trash and recycling on the snow-filled unplowed streets of Kansas City. They are brave and fearless souls who deserve a hug and some hot cocoa. They are the wind beneath my wings! Amazing, actually.

I realize this is a totally ineffectual "shout-out" due to the fact that none of those people are know who I am or read my blog, but it's from my heart that will be cosmically beamed into the universe and into the hearts of the poor refuse collectors in the form of the following song:

It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that's your way.
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?
You're everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?
You're everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings,
'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,
so high I almost touch the sky.
Thank you, thank you,
thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings

This Is My Cat, Disco

2009-09-15T19:08:00.001-05:00

Do Not Look At These Photos If You Fear the Devil

2009-08-16T17:10:00.003-05:00

Staycation 2009: I go camping in Kansas.

State of the Union

2009-08-04T12:14:00.001-05:00

My "State of the Union" essay for age 35.

At age 35, I've found that suddenly this year I ‘m allergic to GRASS, you know that stuff that grows kind of like EVERYWHERE. Basically it’s like being allergic to life. Claritin-D is the only thing that helps. There’s another pill to pop in the morning.

I am finally, at the age of 35, beginning to feel less self-conscious, which is to say that I care slightly less what people are thinking of me at any given moment in time. There’s a realization that I can’t control what people think of me, but also a small sense of comfort with myself, being who I am. I don’t know if the self-consciousness ever goes away, but it does fade somewhat, which is awesome. Come to find out, being in a continual state of always questioning whether everything that I’m thinking, believing, and doing is okay is actually exhausting. Part of it is that I just don’t have the energy to constantly care anymore. If you don’t agree with my opinion, feeling, or action, that’s okay. IT’S OKAY. YAY! For realz.

I’m better able to realize my limitations. For example, I am by nature very high-strung. Basically what it comes down to is that I can’t drink that much coffee, especially at work. Caffeine makes me more high-strung. Though I have a low stress job, and it’s hard to more low-key than a library, work is a major stressor for me. I feel stupid admitting it, but sometimes it gives me hives, makes me ill, or gives back pain, etc. I must employ numerous tactics in order to deal with the day: listen to smooth jazz on headphones, sip soothing chamomile tea, paint little watercolors of flowers, take mini walks in the galleries or sculpture park, and think pleasant thoughts. Otherwise, the tension builds. That is my limitation, because I can’t ignore it. It doesn’t go away on its own, which leads me to my next point.

My life becomes more high maintenance the older I get. I’m starting to understand why it takes so long for old people to do anything. You can’t just DO something in a pure and simple way, because you have to do ten other things in order to do the one thing. For example, I can’t just go to work and sit and work all day. I have to listen to the smooth jazz, drink the calming tea, and take the motivational walks. I can’t just eat my breakfast in the morning, because I have to also open ten supplement bottles in order to take my multi-vitamin, vitamin c, fiber tablets, and calcium chews with my meal. I can’t just go to the gym, because I have to also do a series of yoga and pt stretches for my arthritic back, or else I’m in pain the next day. I can’t just stay out late at a club to see a band play, because I have to take a nap first and prepare for the next day so that I can be properly rested up and receive eight hours of quality sleep. Anything less than eight hours and I’m wiped. I know, right? So. Much. Work.

Disco vs. the Vietnam War

2009-07-15T20:40:00.000-05:00

Lately, as I've been sad about my dying kitty, I have felt the urge to listen to disco music. In fact, disco is the only thing that cheers me up. Well, that and brownies.

Then I had a revelation that disco was invented during the Vietnam War! During one of the most tragic and heartbreaking times in our recent history, people turned to disco, because it's just that good. It's like a salve to the wounds of the desolate, broken hearts of our modern times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DLMBmj8xY

I'll Never Play Football Like I Thought I Would

2009-06-23T20:32:00.001-05:00

So you think I’m a loser. Just because I have a stinkin’ job that I hate, a family that doesn’t respect me, a whole city that curses the day I was born. Well, that may mean loser to YOU, but let me tell you something:

Every morning when I wake up, I know it’s not going to get any better until I go back to sleep again. So I get up, have my watered down Tang and still-frozen Pop Tart, get in my car with no upholstery, no gas, and six more payments, to fight traffic just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes on the cloven hooves of people like YOU.

I’ll never play football like I thought I would. I’ll never know the touch of a beautiful woman. And I’ll never again know the joy of driving without a bag on my head. But I’m not a loser.

‘Cause despite it all, me and every other guy who will never be what he wanted to be are still out there being what we don’t want to be, 40 hours a week for life. And the fact that I haven’t put a gun in my mouth, you pudding of a woman, makes me a WINNER.

--Al Bundy, "Married With Children"

Hate Crimes and the Gays and Their Crazy Agendas: a.k.a. Dawn's Treatise On Hate Crimes Legislation

2009-06-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

I receive political e-mails from my uncle on a semi-regular basis now. My response upon reading one is “What? Really? That doesn’t make sense. ” I have to re-read several times before I get it, because my life is a sheltered and naïve metropolitan bubble of urban bliss that forgets about 90% of America’s Midwestern rural population who refer to the current Presidential administration as “Hussein’s terrorist-loving illegal Totalitarian regime, God’s allowance of the Biblical prophecy of end-times.” I know, right? Here I am calling him “Obama,” silly me. I think Obama’s doing pretty good considering the circumstances; I mean, what do I know?

My uncle, who lives in rural Kansas, believes that the government considers him a “Potential Domestic Terrorist,” along with those who support the Constitution, are pro-life, and are opposed to government control. My uncle doesn’t work. Literally all he does is sit in his recliner, watching monster truck rallies and WWF wrestling matches on the tv. He also occasionally checks his e-mail. I’m pretty sure he only leaves the house once a week to run errands, such as going to the grocery store to purchase Doritos and hot dogs. Therefore, I have my doubts regarding his domestic terrorist status. Government, this is a message to you: If you are monitoring my uncle, YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.

The most recent e-mail was about hate crimes. My uncle wrote, “You can't possibly say anything good about this bill. I don't see how you/anyone could/can.” The bill he’s referring to is the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. New hate crime legislation was initiated following the infamous and horrendous hate-motivated torture-murder of a college student in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. Congress has been debating the inclusion of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, gender, and people with disabilities.

My uncle forwarded e-mails about the hate crimes bill from two organizations, the American Family Association (AFA) and Concerned Women for America (CWA). These organizations are tremendously, vehemently opposed to the hate crimes bill, because of its inclusion of homosexuality, more so than for any other reason. That’s my opinion.

THE AFA

The first organization, AFA (www.afa.net), is a Christian group that stands for traditional family values. They don’t hate homosexuals, but are motivated “to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture.” AFA has a whole page devoted specifically to the homosexual agenda, which I find exciting, because this whole “agenda” thing continues to elude me. http://www.afa.net/homosexual_agenda/

The e-mail from the AFA about the hate crimes bill was titled: “Senate Poised to Give Special Protection Status to Pedophiles: Your Calls Are Needed Today!”

It made only one point,
1. “The U.S. Senate is set to give legally protected status to pedophiles and 30 other sexual orientations. The Senate refused to define what is meant by sexual orientation in S. 909, the ‘Hate Crimes’ bill. This means that the 30 different sexual orientations will be federally protected classes.”

THE CWA

The second organization, CWA (http://www.cwfa.org), is a Christian group whose mission is to bring Biblical principles to all levels of public policy. CWA believes that gay people aren’t born that way, but rather exhibit a behavior that can and should be resisted. Also, homosexuals are inherently dirty, unhealthy, and disease-ridden. I don’t exaggerate. http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=959&department=CWA&categoryid=family

One CWA article says, “Despite the clear medical evidence that homosexual behavior is at its very essence unhealthy, many advocates and activists insist that we cannot counsel these people to change their behavior, because it is an innate genetic trait. These advocates make reference to several medical studies that claim to have established a biological link to homosexuality. However, fair evaluation of these studies proves that they are anything but conclusive.” It therefore follows that CWA also feels that people can be counseled out of being gay.

The CWA, being more elaborate than the AFA, had three points to say about the hate crimes bill,
1. “’Hate Crimes’ is an overreach and overbroad . . . Over 30 kinds of sexual behaviors could be covered, including pedophilia and bestiality.”
2. “’Hate crimes’ laws lead to religious discrimination. These laws have been used in Europe, Canada – and even American – to intimidate and punish people who honor natural sexuality and value marriage as the union of a man and a woman. If a person speaks out against various sexual behaviors, they may be accused of ‘hate speech’ and promoting ‘hate crimes.’”
3. “’Hate crimes’ creates special classes of victims based solely upon their ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.’ Victims who engage in homosexual, transgender, fetish, or other sexual behaviors would get preferential treatment over victims who are grandmothers, veterans or children. In other countries, it has lead to punishing people for their Biblical views on sexuality.” http://www.cwfa.org/factsheets/thoughtcrimes-factcard.pdf

MY RESPONSES

POINT 1: PEDOPHILES

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning website, PolitiFact.com, a site managed by journalists from the St. Petersburg Times, is dedicated to fact-checking statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists, and interest groups, and rating them on a “Truth-O-Meter.” The truth-o-meter rates true, mostly true, half-true, barely true, false, pants-on-fire, and full-flop.

The claim that the hate crimes bill will protect pedophiles received a PolitiFact rating of “Pants-On-Fire,” meaning that it’s essentially ridiculous. It elaborates. For one thing, pedophilia and sexual orientation aren’t the same thing. “Sexual orientation relates to the gender to which a person is romantically attracted while pedophilia relates to age, adults who are sexually fixated on children.”

Furthermore, the FBI's Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines currently defines “sexual orientation bias” as "a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons based on their sexual attraction toward, and responsiveness to, members of their own sex or members of the opposite sex, e.g., gays, lesbians, heterosexuals." This is how our own federal government already defines it. It doesn’t include pedophiles.

Additionally, 31 states have had hate crime laws on the books for decades that include sexual orientation, and there hasn’t been a single case ever of a pedophile being involved. Why would the federal government expect it to happen, if it has never happened before on the state level?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/may/14/steve-king/rep-steve-king-claims-federal-hate-crime-law-would/

POINT 2: RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION

To say that it’s religious discrimination to punish someone for committing a CRIME against another human being, someone who violently ASSAULTS an innocent, law-abiding person, is crazy. Sorry. You don’t have to commit a crime to value marriage as the union of a man and a woman. There’s no correlation. People who commit crimes should be punished, because they committed crimes, which leads me my next point.

POINT 3: SPECIAL TREATMENT

This is the surprise ending where I wind up agreeing with my uncle on this one point. A valid argument can be made against the idea of hate crime legislation in general. Hate crime legislation can be considered to be redundant, because legal prohibitions for traditional crime already exist. It’s essentially recriminalizing actions that are already criminalized.

All crimes against all humans are bad, because all individuals are EQUAL under the law. A crime is a crime, whether or not it’s driven by hate or a senselessly random act of violence. Legally speaking, we look at the crime and determine judgment based upon the crime itself. To single out certain groups for special treatment is, perhaps, undemocratic. However, I can understand both sides of the problem. This isn’t a simple, black-and-white issue.

I realize that hate crime legislation was originally based on the belief that hate crimes cause greater individual and social harm, because they attack a person’s core identity and cause severe dehumanization resulting in emotional and psychological problems, and then society suffers from the disempowerment of the group of people. I understand that, but some crimes against people are just BAD, no matter what. Violent assault, dehumanization, and victimization all have damaging effects on everyone who experiences them.

Ultimately my response to, “You can't possibly say anything good about this bill. I don't see how you/anyone could/can,” is that I can appreciate that this bill and hate crime legislation in general have good intentions. If hate crime legislation is going to exist, then certainly, sexual orientation should be a part of it. There’s no reason to ever discriminate against or commit a crime against someone based on their sexual orientation.

People Who Live In the Country Will Not Be Excited By This Story

2009-06-15T09:52:00.000-05:00

People who live in the country will not be excited by this story, but I live in middle of a city. The country may be replete with exotic wildlife, but the city has different yet equally special features, such as bus stops and fast food restaurants.

This morning I was sitting on the floor of my office, playing with my cat Pickles. It’s the second story of a 1920’s bungalow, a room with seven large windows offering an expansive view of the sky and all that is around me. I was doing this game where Pickles lies on her back, and I reach around to one side and tickle her. She rolls completely over to that side to grab my hand. I quickly snatch the hand away and tickle her other side. Then she rolls completely over to the other side to grab my hand, and I snatch it away and tickle her other side. She’ll continue to roll back and forth in this fashion easily for 15 minutes, and I think it’s the most hilarious thing ever.

All of a sudden, an insanely gigantic hawk landed on my next door neighbor’s roof, right in front of my window, facing me. My neighbor’s house is about five feet away; the houses are very close together. I became totally still so I could watch it. It sat there for quite awhile, mostly looking around. All kinds of birds were flying in every which direction in the sky. I think another big storm is coming. The clouds were ominous. Birds like mornings and storms.

Pickles started making the noise in the back of her throat that she only makes when she sees pigeons. She doesn’t do it for any other kind of bird, just pigeons. It’s a cackling sound, “ka ka ka,” in a low tone. I’m pretty sure she is saying, “Fat. Stupid pigeons. Need to die!”

Slowly she inched toward the window, and jumped up on her window perch spot. The hawk looked STRAIGHT IN AT US. It turned its head ninety degrees sideways and peered in at us. Looking at my cat and my hawk that close together, I could see that the hawk was bigger than Pickles. In a fight between the hawk and Pickles, the hawk would totally rip my cat’s head off and eat it for breakfast.

I said, “No Pickles, that’s not a pigeon. It is neither fat nor stupid. It’s smarter than us, and we should not anger it. We should appease it with offerings of bunnies and chocolate.” Pickles understood and fell silent.

Then the hawk started grooming. It spread out its majestic right wing and reached around to give itself a shoulder massage. With muscles that big, it probably requires frequent massage therapy and spa treatments, no doubt. It might even have a personal Pilates trainer. Then it spread out its majestic left wing and massaged that side too.

Eventually it flew away. The ending is kind of anti-climactic. If I had powers, it would have spoken of wise wiseness to me, and I would be able to impart the cosmic wisdom. Maybe it’ll come back and look at me again. I think it liked me! I’ll have the chocolate offering ready for next time.

I Found the Homosexual Agenda

2009-06-07T18:24:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I attended a Kansas City gay pride celebration. I have friends and family who are gay, so that seemed like a good enough reason to go. I’ve always been curious as to what the “homosexual agenda” is that everyone talks about. My uncle sent me an e-mail about a month ago that said Pepsi sponsored a gay pride event in NYC and therefore Pepsi supports the “homosexual agenda.” The e-mail ended with a call for me to boycott all Pepsi products. I don’t know what the agenda is, but I figured if I were to look for it, the gay pride festival would be the perfect place to find it, right?

From what I could tell, people who have gay pride enjoy buying jewelry, eating food, and drinking beverages. They also dance to booty jams and sometimes wear wacky hats that glow in the dark. They love dogs; there were a lot of dogs. I imagine some cat lovers were in the crowd, but cats don’t really do festivals. The gay pride festival also had carnival game booths where people throw oversized basketballs into tiny hoops or balance bottles in some strange, impossible way in order to win stuffed animals.

Seek and you shall find. Here it is - the homosexual agenda as represented in a stuffed animal: a pseudo Hello Kitty. It has crazy feet and a yellow heart nose. I won it by playing a carnival game that involved throwing darts at balloons. I saw it from across the field and knew it was meant for me. I won’t say how much money I spent to win it. The carnival guy said the pseudo Hello Kitty was worth at least $80, and I was totally getting an awesome bargain. I believe him. She can touch her chin with her toes.

So I present my findings. This is what I came back with. I was chatting with a couple there, and they asked where my friend and I worked. We said we worked at The Nelson. They had no idea what we were talking about. For Kansas City, this is equivalent to going to NYC and not knowing what the Metropolitan Museum of Art is. So I asked them where they were from, and they said Texas. It never occurred to me that this event was important enough for people to travel to. I honestly assumed that everyone there was from midtown.

Ultimately, my conclusion is the fact that people are bound to exert a grand effort to go someplace that celebrates being able to love who you want is sort of laudable in the face of a society that fails to see all people as equal. Isn’t everyone’s agenda the same? Don’t we all just want to be happy?

WOMANIZER

2008-12-22T10:26:00.001-06:00

WOMANIZER
Originally uploaded by desanders

The best part of Saturday night.

Gorillaz- DARE (LIVE)

2008-09-19T15:30:00.001-05:00

Reporter turns ghetto in 3 seconds

2008-07-15T22:28:00.001-05:00

This is the funniest thing I think I have ever seen. It gets funnier the more times you watch it.

Rock Band

2008-07-13T18:32:00.001-05:00

Rock Band
Originally uploaded by desanders

I should have recorded more. It fascinates me.

Nameneko Japanese Punk Rock Kittens

2008-07-10T15:37:00.001-05:00

Bamboo Hut

2008-07-07T12:59:00.001-05:00

Bamboo Hut
Originally uploaded by desanders

Bamboo Hut restaurant, on 40 Hwy, Independence, MO - GO THERE NOW. You can get fried frog legs on a bed of Wonder Bread Texas Toast and tator tots.

NKOTB

2008-06-30T13:45:00.000-05:00

NKOTB: "1. Summertime - New Kids on the Block"

MY WORST NIGHTMARE COME TRUE

2008-06-30T12:56:00.001-05:00

BreakingNewsOn Paramedics on standby after more than 12 million honey bees were released in Canada's New Brunswich after a transport truck overturned - AP.

Pancho's

2008-06-23T22:45:00.007-05:00

You know how much I LOOOOOVE Pancho's "Super Nachos," right? It used to cost $15 to get two orders, and now it costs $20. Additionally, the super nachos are NO LONGER SUPER! They don't have as much substance to them, and they don't taste as good. Plus they've totally increased the ratio of gross refried beans. I feel like I've been cheated on by a lover that I've been dating exclusively for several years. It is a sad state of affairs. Also, I have indigestion now. Super nachos never used to give me indigestion. Boo.

Furthermore, they've redesigned their drive-through menu. It now has pictures on it. It's still not fancy, but it's not the same. I don't like change. I resist all change.

Audacity of Hope

2008-06-19T09:43:00.002-05:00

My review rating: 3 of 5 stars
I didn't finish it, though I'm sure it's a fine book. Was a little dry for me, and started feel like something I *should* read rather than something I was really excited to read. I like Obama fine, but enjoy watching him more than reading, I think.

Awwwww

2008-06-16T22:01:00.001-05:00

Study: Chimps calm each other with hugs, kisses

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer 1 hour, 45 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - For most folks, a nice hug and some sympathy can help a bit after we get pushed around. Turns out, chimpanzees use hugs and kisses the same way. And it works. Researchers studying people's closest genetic relatives found that stress was reduced in chimps that were victims of aggression if a third chimp stepped in to offer consolation.

"Consolation usually took the form of a kiss or embrace," said Dr. Orlaith N. Fraser of the Research Center in Evolutionary Anthropology and Paleoecology at Liverpool John Moores University in England.

"This is particularly interesting," she said, because this behavior is rarely seen other than after a conflict.

"If a kiss was used, the consoler would press his or her open mouth against the recipient's body, usually on the top of the head or their back. An embrace consisted of the consoler wrapping one or both arms around the recipient."

The result was a reduction of stress behavior such as scratching or self-grooming by the victim of aggression, Fraser and colleagues report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Frans de Waal of the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta said the study is important because it shows the relationship between consolation and stress reduction. Previous researchers have claimed that consolation had no effect on stress, said de Waal, who was not part of Fraser's research team.

"This study removes doubt that consolation really does what the term suggests: provide relief to distressed parties after conflict. The evidence is compelling and makes it likely that consolation behavior is an expression of empathy," de Waal said.

De Waal suggested that this evidence of empathy in apes is "perhaps equivalent to what in human children is called 'sympathetic concern.'"

That behavior in children includes touching and hugging of distressed family members and "is in fact identical to that of apes, and so the comparison is not far-fetched," he said.

While chimps show this empathy, monkeys do not, he added.

There is also suggestive evidence of such behavior in large-brained birds and dogs, said Fraser, but it has not yet been shown that it reduces stress levels in those animals.

Previous research on conflict among chimps concentrated on cases where there is reconciliation between victim and aggressor, with little attention to intervention by a third party.

Fraser and colleagues studied a group of chimps at the Chester Zoo in England from January 2005 to September 2006, recording instances of aggression such as a bite, hit, rush, trample, chase or threat.

The results show that "chimpanzees calm distressed recipients of aggression by consoling them with a friendly gesture," Fraser said.

Consolation was most likely to occur between chimpanzees who already had valuable relationships, she added.

The research was supported by the Leakey Trust.

___

On the Net:

PNAS: http://www.pnas.org

Tom Waits hits on a chick at a party

2008-06-14T23:07:00.001-05:00

Tom Waits- Chocolate Jesus

2008-06-12T21:02:00.004-05:00

Fuck yeah!

Shiver Me Timbers-Tom Waits

2008-06-12T20:59:00.002-05:00

My favorite Tom Waits song. This YouTube version is interesting.

Washington State Domestic Partnership Laws Change

2008-06-11T10:05:00.004-05:00

Article taken from today's Seattle Times.
-----------------------------------------------

Domestic partnerships benefit from new laws
Monday, June 9, 2008 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
By RACHEL LA CORTE
The Associated Press

OLYMPIA — Same-sex couples gain dozens of new rights, cougar hunts with dogs are expanded and authorities will work to track gang activity statewide.

Those are just a few of the 280 new laws taking effect at midnight Thursday, when the bulk of the more than 320 measures lawmakers passed this year kick in.

Domestic partners registered with the state will get more than 170 of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, another step toward what supporters hope will eventually be full recognition of same-sex unions.

"It's an exciting step forward," said Josh Friedes, advocacy director of the gay-rights group Equal Rights Washington. "This new law provides a significant basket of new rights, nevertheless, the safety net for our families remain inadequate."

The underlying domestic-partnership law, passed last year, already provides hospital-visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will.

In a provision similar to California law, unmarried heterosexual senior couples also are eligible for domestic partnerships if one partner is at least 62. The provision was included to help seniors who are at risk of losing pension rights and Social Security benefits if they remarry.

The enhanced measure makes dozens of changes to state law, including requiring domestic partners of public officials to submit financial-disclosure forms, just as the spouses of heterosexual officials do. It also gives domestic partners the same spousal-testimony rights that married couples have, allowing domestic partners the right to refuse to testify against each other in court.

The process of ending a domestic partnership also changes. The partnerships can be ended by the secretary of state only in the first five years, with several more restrictions relating to children, real property or unpaid debts. All other partnerships would be dissolved in Superior Court — similar to conventional divorce.

"It's a more serious commitment than the previous statute was," said Julie Shapiro, a law professor at Seattle University. "People ought to think a little harder before they register, just as people ought to think a littler harder before they marry."

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Redneck lookin for a goth babe - m4w

2008-06-10T13:35:00.002-05:00

redneck lookin for a goth babe - m4w
Reply to: pers-714689146@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-06-10, 10:06AM

I am a large man that works nights, and would like to try hooking up with a beautiful dark goth chick... pagan a bonus. seriously.
about me
6'even, 320#'s and under avarage endowed... sorry, figured i better not surprise ya with that. VERY dexterious, and up for exploring you entirely..
please send pic and real addy or phone number with best time to call

Location: claycomo
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Original URL: http://kansascity.craigslist.org/cas/714689146.html
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You'll Dance To Anything

2008-06-10T10:51:00.001-05:00

by Dead Milkmen

You'll dance to anything
You'll dance to anything

Okay, look at you
Don't you look like Siouxsie Sioux
How long did it take to get that way
What a terrible waste of energy
You wear black clothes say you're poetic
The sad truth is you're just pathetic
Get into the groove get out of my way
I came here to drink not to get laid
So why don't you just go on home
If you want to moan you'll have to moan alone
You'll dance to anything...
You'll dance to anything...
Don't try to tell me that you're an intellectual
Cause you're just another boring bisexual
("I met Andy Warhol at a really chic party")
Blow it out your hairdoo cause you really work at Hardees
80 pounds of make up on your art school skin
80 points of I.Q. located within
Know what you are? You're a bunch of ...
Artfags! Artfags!
Choke on this you dance-a-teria types!

You'll dance to anything by the Communards
You'll dance to anything by Book of Love
You'll dance to anything by The Smiths
You'll dance to anything by De-peche Mode
You'll dance to anything by Public Image Limited
You'll dance to anything by Naked Truth
You'll dance to anything by any bunch of stupid Europeans who come over
here with their big hairdoos bent on taking OUR money instead of giving
your cash, where it belongs, to a decent American artist like myself!
You'll dance to anything!

Dear Dawn (Part Deux)

2008-06-09T16:44:00.002-05:00

Oh no ... not at all. It's easy to tell the constructive criticism from the constant complainers. You're right we can't please everyone but our job is to try and the more communication we get from you the better. It was just nice to receive a professionally written letter from someone who obviously has good manners and can spell words with more than two syllables! :)

Write or call anytime you want.

Dear Dawn

2008-06-09T16:43:00.001-05:00

Many thanks for taking time to write. Biggest complaint from listeners - don't hear the artist/title. Tried to do it kind of subliminally so it wouldn't get too much in the way. It is a real voice, just slightly filtered. Always good to know what you're hearing out there.

Dear KUDL

2008-06-09T10:45:00.002-05:00

Dear KUDL,

Just wanted to say that I listen to 98.1 a lot, and I pretty much hate the (sort of new-ish) new voice that announces the names of songs after they play. In addition to being annoying, it sounds like a robot speaking, which is dehumanizing. Just my opinion! Otherwise I love the format. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Dawn Sanders

Most Popular Girl

2008-06-08T17:22:00.002-05:00

Kitty! Eeeeeeee!

2008-06-04T21:59:00.002-05:00

Kitty! Eeeeeeee!
Originally uploaded by desanders

My cat, Porter. She's very fluffy. Also she has a pure soul. She will be the savior of humanity.

2008 Bloom Party

2008-06-03T21:48:00.001-05:00

This is the first video I ever made. It's really expert.

The Drum Circle of Strife

2008-06-03T13:48:00.003-05:00

Totally my new favorite song!

Stress

2008-05-29T09:08:00.001-05:00

It's 9:08 and I already feel overwhelmed with my day. I hit snooze one extra time, was running late, didn't have time to finish breakfast, put it in a tupperware bowl, rushed out the door, and then proceeded to hit my neighbor's car while backing out of my driveway. I knocked on his door, apologized, made him come out and look, and then he wouldn't take my insurance info. He said it was "not bad," "no big deal." I couldn't believe it! I assume he hasn't had his first cup of coffee yet today, because nobody's THAT nice, are they??? I'll definitely talk to him more about it in the next few days. I feel incredibly stupid and guilty. Sigh.

Support Troops Biker Eagle

2008-05-28T13:12:00.002-05:00

SupportTroopsBikerEagle
Originally uploaded by desanders

Things I Want

2008-05-27T22:11:00.006-05:00

Kiss Me Until It Hurts

2008-05-19T10:50:00.003-05:00

I saw this written-word art piece in a book, "Kiss Me Until It Hurts, part 2," 2008, by Birgit Brenner. It was in the book totally out of context, and thus I post it here totally out of context.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear --

It is grey and wet and windy, and I can’t get you off of my mind. I woke up thinking of you. I got dressed, brushed my teeth and ate breakfast thinking of you. I rushed into day thinking of you, I walked down the street thinking of you, I sat in the park thinking of you, I walked down the street thinking of you, I sat in the park thinking of you and I missed my bus thinking of you. With every gust of wind I think of you. I wait with anticipation for each breeze to come blow you out of me, and then I foolishly catch myself ducking to avoid it. You see, you are my most coveted ache. I am stormy and I crave sleep. Maybe it’s just all this yellow and gold. My love is delicate and ferocious and all yours. Do with it as you might. Goodbye. Goodnight.

Ps. Forgive me, I am not myself.

Crazy Rasberry Ants

2008-05-15T00:51:00.004-05:00

In other totally unrelated news, I'm discovering that the way I hold my torso has a strong effect on use of core muscles and back pain. Now on to the main point: psychotic flesh-eating ants are taking over Houston.
------------------------------------------------------------

Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics

By LINDA STEWART BALL, Associated Press Writer Wed May 14, 3:16 PM ET

DALLAS - In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" — crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

The ants — formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" — have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.

"At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed," said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.

The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.

But the ants also like to suck the sweet juices from plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs, and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken.

They also bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.

Worse, they, like some other species of ants, are attracted to electrical equipment, for reasons that are not well understood by scientists.

They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner's gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA's Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven't caused any major problems there yet.

Exterminators say calls from frustrated homeowners and businesses are increasing because the ants — which are starting to emerge by the billions with the onset of the warm, humid season — appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.

"The population built up so high that typical ant controls simply did no good," said Jason Meyers, an A&M doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on the one-eighth-inch-long ant.

It's not enough just to kill the queen. Experts say each colony has multiple queens that have to be taken out.

At the same time, the ants aren't taking the bait usually left out in traps, according to exterminators, who want the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen restrictions on the use of more powerful pesticides.

And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.

"It looked like someone had come along and poured coffee granules all around the perimeter of the rooms," said Lisa Calhoun, who paid exterminators $1,200 to treat an infestation of her parents' home in the Houston suburb of Pearland.

The Texas Department of Agriculture is working with A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants.

"This one seems to be like lava flowing and filling an entire area, getting bigger and bigger," said Ron Harrison, director of training for the big pest-control company Orkin Inc.

Heeeeelarious

2008-05-14T01:52:00.003-05:00

This made me laugh for, like, at least a solid minute.
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Bush: I quit golf over Iraq war

4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year.

"I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said in an interview for Yahoo! News and Politico magazine.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them."

The US president traced his decision to the August 19, 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the world body's top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

"I remember when de Mello, who was at the UN, got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do," said Bush.

Bush's last round of golf as president dates back to October 13, 2003, according to meticulous records kept by CBS news.

On the day of the bombing two months earlier, he had cut short his golf game at the 12th hole and returned to his ranch in tiny Crawford, Texas.

Where Can I Get One?

2008-05-12T14:59:00.002-05:00

1957, Nanna Ditzel for R. Wengler, Denmark. I want this chair, but probably a cheaper version, not the fancey, designer one.

High School Disturbia

2008-05-08T22:53:00.011-05:00

I was down in the basement tonight, digging out high school yearbooks so I could take them to my friend's house this weekend. I'll be getting together with three ladies I was friends with in high school, and thought it would be fun to share the horror that was annual yearbook. Lo and behold, I struck gold! I found numerous creative writing journals from the early 1990's. They were written entirely either by hand or on a typewriter. I now feel the need to transcribe them into computer form and then share them here for all the world to read.

One of my most vivid memories is the story I wrote about Leonard and Carrie, which I have chosen to title "Bugs In the Drain." I seem to remember that at the time, I had a really deep concept about how the bugs in their house were like a metaphor for the secrets and shame that was kept in their marriage. Obviously I didn't explore the metaphor terribly deeply (I'm bolding/emphasizing the bug references for my own future attention). Anyways,here it is. Oh, and I'm editing the names/ err changing the names to protect the innocent.:
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Bugs in the Drain (originally written Dec. 12, 1994)

Back in the early 1990’s, my friends and I used to go every weekend to the Jessups'. Usually we would sit around in the clammy basement all squished in together on the saggy olive green sofa and run Gurps or Paranoia, or Dungeons and Dragons if we were really bored.

Billy Jessup was the father. He was sweaty, and you could always see a hairy band of stomach bulging out from beneath his white undershirt, which functioned less as an “under” shirt and more like a fancy every day dress shirt. He said “fuck” a lot and didn’t have to bend over to display his butt crack. His oily face had dents all over it. Billy was a huge man. He must’ve been seven feet tall.

He always sat upstairs in the living room, in his Lazy Boy chair, watching tv. That’s all he did. One day he accidentally leaned too far back in the Lazy Boy and put his head through the living room window. He didn’t even flinch. He just said, “fuck,” more annoyed at the inconvenience of having to fix the broken the window than at the fact that he might have been injured. I’d only seen him out of that chair a few times.

He loved the chair, because the t.v. was in full view, and he could see right out the front window. Always paranoid of intruders, Billy installed motion-detection lights in the front yard, and kept a tall shot gun leaning on the wall next to him. Also, he could conveniently swivel the chair around to his computer, where he would proudly show us the porno gifs he had downloaded that week.

Billy and Laurel had four kids. The oldest one, Matt, was in high school with me. He was from Billy’s first marriage. The youngest one, Billy and Laurel had together. They named him Bubba. Bubba couldn’t speak very well, so the school wouldn’t let him go to kindergarten, even though he was old enough to go.

Laurel Jessup was the mother. She was in her early twenties. She was so petite that she could fit into children’s sized clothing. Laurel was very pretty. She had a young face and looked like she could be one of us teenaged kids. She always wore skin-tight jeans, the kind with zippers at the bottom of the legs. You’d never know by looking at her that she’d ever given birth.

Sometimes she would bring popcorn down to us in the basement and hang out with us for awhile, always wanting to tell us her personal business. Billy had saved her. Like a superhero. She was previously married to a man who beat her up all the time, and Billy helped her get away from that husband. Billy gave her a home, and she didn’t even have to work.

One night she told us that he had wanted to have anal sex for a long time. He was BUGGING her about it every day, and she finally caved in. It made her bleed for four days. She was mad, because if he had stopped when she said it was hurting, then she wouldn’t have bled for so many days.

Billy and Laurel’s house had a lot of COCKROACHES, especially for some reason, in the bathroom. I think Laurel was bothered by all the ROACHES, but Billy wouldn’t pay for an exterminator. “They’re not that bad,” he would say dismissively. I was afraid to wash my hands in the bathroom sink, because I always saw BUGS crawling down into the drain.

The History Of Pizza and Tacos

2008-05-03T23:51:00.002-05:00

IMG_0026
Originally uploaded by desanders

This is totally my favorite display at the KS Museum of History. It tells about the history of pizza and taco restaurant chains in Topeka. For realz.

In the News

2008-04-29T16:16:00.001-05:00

Headline from today's news: "Bush says no magic wand to lower fuel prices." That's obviously because HE'S A MUGGLE. Duh.

Sunset

2008-04-24T22:39:00.002-05:00

IMG_0023
Originally uploaded by desanders

Sunset view from my back deck, 4/24/08. So pretty!

Southland Tales -

2008-04-18T10:31:00.002-05:00

Compare the two movie clips: One from Southland Tales (Justin Timberlake)vs Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal). And people say Southland Tales is nothing like Donnie Darko. I think you can TOTALLY tell this is Richard Kelly's sensibilities.

Donnie Darko ( Tears for fears - Head over heels )

2008-04-18T10:30:00.002-05:00

See video.

Queen Mab: Like The Rock Star Of Sleep

2008-04-16T10:43:00.003-05:00

I love this so much that I don’t even care if it’s cliché in any regard.
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O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she 'gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.

This is she-

My Retractable Pencil!

2008-04-15T11:27:00.002-05:00

I lost my retractable pencil at work today, and I felt just like this video.

The 23 Ultimate Steps Of Life

2008-04-15T09:34:00.003-05:00

Just finished reading Pain-Free Arthritis.
In combining the steps from the book with things I've learned from CBT, I've come up with "23 ULTIMATE STEPS OF LIFE", which I shall endeavor to incorporate into my life. It seems just a weeeeeeeeee bit on the high-maintenance side, yah! Well hey,now I know why elderly people are slow and bitchy, because being in constant pain sucks total and complete ass. To turn my life around (which I've been working on for some years now already), requires some obvious major alterations to my conventional ways of thinking.

Anyways, the steps are as follows:

1. Exercise 45 min. daily.
2. Keep an exercise journal.
3. Apply moist heat to pain.
4. Sleep at least 7 hrs. a night.
5. Keep a diet and weight journal.
6. Take supplements/vitamins.
7. Set weight loss goals and calculate intake.
8. Avoid animal foods.
9. Avoid nightshade plants (peppers, tomatoes, eggplant).
10. Eat healing foods and a balanced diet (to include broccoli, grapes, green tea, fish w/omega 3 oils, pineapple, soy, whole grains, fruits & vegetables, blueberries, walnuts, pumpkin, squash, and beans).
11. Pace yoruself.
12. Take time to rest.
13. Get massage therapy.
14. Do yoga.
15. Engage in positive, pleasant thinking.
16. Practice relaxation responses and stress reduction techniques.
17. Take medication (NSAIDs) for pain.
18. Learn new things often.
19. Read and discuss what you read.
20. Have social contact, becasue isolation is bad for the brain.
21. Learn to play a musical instrument.
22. Make art.
23. Use cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to decrease anxiety and stress.

A 26-year-old secret could free inmate

2008-04-12T15:37:00.003-05:00

The ethics of law are incredibly interesting - Justice: at the same time very harsh, fair, indifferent, objective, and totally outside the realm of what our hearts might tell us to do. But it's the only way it can be. This is a great story.
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A 26-year-old secret could free inmate

By SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer 2 hours, 27 minutes ago

CHICAGO - For nearly 26 years, the affidavit was sealed in an envelope and stored in a locked box, tucked away with the lawyer's passport and will. Sometimes he stashed the box in his bedroom closet, other times under his bed.

It stayed there — year after year, decade after decade.

Then, about two years ago, Dale Coventry, the box's owner, got a call from his former colleague, W. Jamie Kunz. Both were once public defenders. They hadn't talked in a decade.

"We're both getting on in years," Kunz said. "We ought to do something with that affidavit to make sure it's not wasted in case we both leave this good Earth."

Coventry assured him it was in a safe place. He found it in the fireproof metal box, but didn't read it. He didn't need to. He was reminded of the case every time he heard that a wronged prisoner had been freed.

In January, Kunz called again. This time, he had news: A man both lawyers had represented long ago in the murder of two police officers, Andrew Wilson, had died in prison.

Kunz asked Coventry to get the affidavit.

"It's in a sealed envelope," Coventry said.

"Open it," Kunz said, impatiently.

And so, Coventry began reading aloud the five-line declaration the lawyers had written more than a quarter-century before:

An innocent man was behind bars. His name was Alton Logan. He did not kill a security guard in a McDonald's restaurant in January 1982.

"In fact," the document said, "another person was responsible."

___

They knew, because Andrew Wilson told them: He did it.

But that was the catch.

Lawyer-client privilege is not complete; most states allow attorneys to reveal confidences to prevent a death, serious bodily harm or criminal fraud. But this case didn't offer that kind of exception.

So when Andrew Wilson told his lawyers that he, and not Alton Logan, had killed the guard, they felt powerless — aware of information that could free a man they believed to be innocent, but unable to do anything with that knowledge. And for decades, they said nothing.

As they recall, Wilson — who was facing charges in the February 1982 murders of police officers William Fahey and Richard O'Brien — was even a bit gleeful about the McDonald's shooting. To Kunz, he seemed like a child who had been caught doing something naughty.

"I was surprised at how unabashed he was in telling us," he says. "There was no sense of unease or embarrassment. ... He smiled and kind of giggled. He hugged himself, and said, 'Yeah, it was me.'"

Alton Logan already had been charged with the McDonald's shooting that left one guard dead and another injured. Another man, Edgar Hope, also was arrested, and assigned a public defender, Marc Miller.

Miller says he was stunned when his client announced he didn't know Alton Logan and had never seen him before their arrests. According to Miller, Hope was persistent: "You need to tell his attorney he represents an innocent man."

Hope went a step further, Miller says: He told him Andrew Wilson was his right-hand man — "the guy who guards my back" — and urged the lawyer to confirm that with his street friends. He did.

Miller says he eventually did tell Logan's lawyer his client was innocent, but offered no details.

First, though, he approached Kunz, his fellow public defender and former partner.

"You think your life's difficult now?" Miller recalls telling Kunz. "My understanding is that your client Andrew Wilson is the shooter in the McDonald's murder."

Coventry and Kunz brought Wilson to the jail law library and this, they say, was when they confronted him and he made his unapologetic confession. They didn't press for details. "None of us had any doubt," Coventry says.

And, he adds, it wasn't just Wilson's word. Firearms tests, according to court records, linked a shotgun shell found at McDonald's with a weapon that police found at the beauty parlor where Andrew Wilson lived. The slain police officers' guns also were discovered there.

Now the lawyers had two big worries: Another killing might be tied to their client, and "an innocent man had been charged with his murder and was very likely ... to get the death penalty," Kunz says.

But bound by legal ethics, they kept quiet.

Instead, they wrote down what they'd been told. If the situation ever arose where they could help Logan, there would be a record — no one could say they had just made it up. They say they didn't name Wilson, fearing someone would hear about the document and subpoena it. They didn't even make a copy.

But on March 17, 1982, Kunz, Coventry and Miller signed the notarized affidavit: "I have obtained information through privileged sources that a man named Alton Logan ... who was charged with the fatal shooting of Lloyd Wickliffe ... is in fact not responsible for that shooting ... "

Knowing the affidavit had to be secret, Wilson's lawyers looked for ways to help Logan without hurting their client. They consulted with legal scholars, ethics commissions, the bar association.

Kunz says he mentioned the case dozens of times over the years to lawyers, never divulging names but explaining that he knew a guy serving a life sentence for a crime committed by one of his clients.

There's nothing you can do, he was told.

Coventry had another idea. He figured Wilson probably would be executed for the police killings, so he visited him in prison and posed a question: Can I reveal what you told me, the lawyer asked, after your death?

"I managed to say it without being obnoxious," Coventry says. "He wasn't stupid. He understood exactly what I was asking. He knew he was going to get the death penalty and he agreed."

Coventry says he asked Wilson the same question years later — and got the same answer.

But ultimately, Wilson was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

His death penalty was reversed after he claimed Chicago police had electrically shocked, beaten and burned him with a radiator to secure his confession. (Decades later, a special prosecutor's report concluded police had tortured dozens of suspects over two decades.)

Logan's case was working its way through the courts, too. During the first of two trials in which he was convicted, Coventry walked in to hear part of the death penalty phase. "It's pretty creepy watching people deciding if they're going to kill an innocent man," he says.

The lawyers had a plan if it came to that: They would appeal to the governor to stop the execution. But with a life sentence, they remained silent.

Still, there were whispers. When Logan changed lawyers before his second trial, Miller says the new lawyer approached him. He had heard that Miller knew something more.

Please, he asked, can you help?

Miller says he told him he could do nothing for him. But he says he repeated the words he had uttered to Logan's first lawyer, more than a decade earlier:

"You represent an innocent man."

___

In prison, Alton Logan heard the news: First, Andrew Wilson had died. Second, there was an affidavit in his case.

"I said finally, somebody has come (forward) and told the truth," Logan says. "I've been saying this for the past 26 years: It WASN'T me."

In January, the two lawyers, with a judge's permission, revealed their secret in court.

Two months later, Marc Miller testified about his client's declaration of Logan's innocence.

But an affidavit and sworn testimony do not guarantee freedom — or prove innocence.

And Alton Logan knows that. After spending almost half his 54 years as an inmate, this slight man with a fringe of gray beard, stooped shoulders and weary eyes seems resigned to the reality that his fate is beyond his control.

"I have to accept whatever comes down," he says, sitting in a visitor's room at the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet.

He insists he's not angry with Edgar Hope — the man who first said he was innocent — or even Andrew Wilson. He says he once approached Wilson in prison and asked him to "come clean. Tell the truth." Wilson just smiled and kept walking.

Nor is Logan angry with the lawyers who kept the secret. But he wonders if there wasn't some way they could have done more.

"What I can't understand is you know the truth, you held the truth and you know the consequences of that not coming forward?" he says of the lawyers. "Is (a) job more important than an individual's life?"

The lawyers say it was about their client — Wilson — not about their jobs, and they maintain that the prosecutors and police are at fault.

Kunz says he knows some people might find his actions outrageous. His obligation, though, was to Andrew Wilson.

"If I had ratted him out ... then I could feel guilty, then I could not live with myself," he says. "I'm anguished and always have been over the sad injustice of Alton Logan's conviction. Should I do the right thing by Alton Logan and put my client's neck in the noose or not? It's clear where my responsibility lies and my responsibility lies with my client."

On April 18, Logan will be in court as his lawyer, Harold Winston, pushes for a new trial. Along with the affidavit, Winston has accumulated new evidence, including an eyewitness who says Logan wasn't at McDonald's and a letter from an inmate who claims Wilson signed a statement while in prison implicating himself in the murder — and clearing Logan.

But obstacles remain.

Logan can't depend on Edgar Hope. According to his attorney, Hope probably will exercise his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

And he'll have to deal with eyewitnesses. His lawyer says one person changed her story in the two trials, but a second, the security guard injured in the shooting, did not. (A third, who has since died, had acknowledged that Wilson and Logan looked alike.)

Logan prefers not to look too far ahead or think too far back. He refuses to dwell on missed opportunities — marriage, children, job. "You cannot live with the situation I'm in and say, 'What if?'"

He says if he is released, he'll move to Oregon to be with his brother. "After spending 26 years in this hellhole, I want to get as far away from here as I possibly can," he says.

Last month, the Chicago Sun-Times, in an editorial, urged the attorney general or governor to release Logan, noting his claims of innocence "ring achingly true." (The state has declined comment on the case.)

Logan keeps a copy of the 26-year-old affidavit in his cell. Every now and then, he reads the single paragraph, trying to divine what the lawyers were thinking and if this piece of paper will help unlock the prison doors.

He's not banking on it.

"I'm not sold on it," he says. "The only time I'll be sold is when they tell me I can go."

For now, though, Alton Logan waits. The heavy prison doors clank behind him as he walks down the corridor to his cell. He does not look back.

Moby: 'I would marry Britney Spears'

2008-04-10T20:06:00.005-05:00

Yeah, I Googled "britney spears" in the news in order to find this out. I'm not ashamed to say it.
--------------------------------------------

Moby: 'I would marry Britney Spears'

Thursday, April 10 2008, 14:05 BST
By Beth Hilton, Entertainment Reporter

Moby has joked that he wants to marry Britney Spears.

The dance star - who collaborated with Spears on her 2003 album In The Zone - said he felt more attracted to her with each new development in her life.

He told The Sun: "Britney is like this Tennessee Williams tragic figure. The fatter she gets, the weirder she gets, the more I love her.

"I found her moderately appealing in the late '90s, but now I would marry her in a heartbeat!"

He previously blamed the singer's troubles on her rise to fame at an early age.

Carnival - Bikini Kill

2008-04-09T10:03:00.005-05:00

I wanna go! This is my new favorite song. For today.

Exercise! Diet! Whoo, Good Times!

2008-04-07T16:02:00.004-05:00

I'm reading this book: Pain-Free Arthritis: A 7-Step Plan For Feeling Better Again. I've read it once before, but this time I'm inspired to do the stuff it says, namely exercise and diet. I hope that I'm FINALLY REALLY ACTUALLY TRULY CONVINCED that exercise and diet can dramatically diminish so many different health problems. I have to do it. I can't be in pain all the time like I am - it's too miserable. It's a matter of enacting major life change that's so hard.

Anyways, I'm optimistically turning a new leaf in life. Well, fingers crossed anyways. Spring is here, and the outlook seems sunny.

Also I'm contemplating going back on caffeine, at least unless it seems to be too negatively overwhelming. I've been off it awhile and am okay with that, but I enjoy drinking coffee an awful lot.

Hangin' Out

2008-04-04T22:47:00.002-05:00

Hangin' Out
Originally uploaded by chimphappyhour

Eeeep!

Learning How to Think After Coffee

2008-04-03T15:15:00.001-05:00

Just realized there is an obvious link between me quitting caffeine and me not writing stuff in my blog. I have to re-learn how to think and talk. For realz.

Drag Queens are NOT to be Messed With!

2008-03-30T12:43:00.005-05:00

This is for those times when I need to call upon my inner "Mimi Plastique." This is apparently a response to a man on the bus making homophobic comments to her.

Oh Muffy, They're Playing Our Song!

2008-03-24T21:00:00.004-05:00

Am I the only one who is incredibly DISTURBED when being forced to listen to pop music about sex when shopping at the PETSMART? I was thinking about Pickles and cute and fuzzy she was, as I was picking up another hair brush (shedding season), and the music blaring over the speakers was:

"If it’s true don’t leave me
All alone out here
Wondering if you’re ever
Gonna take me there
Tell me what you’re feeling
‘Cause I need to know
Girl you gotta let me know
Which way to go
‘Cause I need to know
I need to know
Tell me baby girl
‘Cause I need to know"

I suddenly found myself thinking about sex and my cat in the same moment, and was greatly disturbed. There's all these people in there with the DOGS for god's sake. There's no reason for that! Is this a family establishment or Bazooka's??? You know?

I'm not saying that sex doesn't have its place, but I have to draw the line at the pet store.

The Eternal Wisdom of Tina Turner

2008-03-20T23:41:00.002-05:00

"I don't really wanna fight no more. This is time for letting go."

(I'm thinking of it more in general-life "zen" terms. Sometimes, the only way we can not be part of something we don't want to be part of is to simply let it go and not do it. Does that make sense? Anyways, it's easier said than done.)

Woe Is Me

2008-03-17T21:08:00.002-05:00

I am sooooo sick right now, all I can do is lie in bed, hug my laptop, and stare at the ceiling. Every once in a while, I leap up and run to the bathroom. It's the bad kind of sick where you can't even watch tv, because it requires too much effort. :( :( :( :(

I Have Pigeons

2008-03-13T21:30:00.019-05:00

I spend every meal in my dining room, looking out the dining room window which yields a view of the side of my next door neighbor's house. The sole and all-encompassing source of entertainment is watching the pigeons on the neighbor's roof ledge.

Usually they sit there, doing nothing. They are very FAT AND LAZY. Pickles sits on the buffet in front of the window and cackles about them; it's a very specific noise that she only makes when she sees pigeons. I have, over time, learned to translate this speech to mean, "I hate pigeons, they are fat and lazy, and I wish I could eat their heads off!" I feel like pigeon-watching with her is spending quality time, sharing in HER interests instead of always forcing her to share in mine.

A couple of weekends ago, Steven and I were eating pancakes with Chris, and we actually saw the pigeons fucking! I mean, it was almost gross and I almost wanted to stop eating my pancakes. They were GOIN' TO TOWN, let me tell you. They totally do it doggy-style, but she likes it kind of rough.

Today, I saw a gnarly sumo wrestling match. Another male flew in and was fighting the male that normally sits there. They were visciously biting each other's faces, grabbing flesh and pulling on their faces while trying to push each other's fat butts off the ledge, just like in sumo wrestling (well except for the biting part). They did it for about 30 minutes. I grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the window to watch. It finally occurred to me that I should be photographing this momentous occasion. As soon as I turned it on and focused in, they stopped fighting. BASTARDS.

Here's a silhouetted view of them, in a rare moment in which they've left their perch.

Here's the ledge perch where they live. You can see that my neighbor has unsuccessfully attempted to thwart them with chicken wire. The pigeons have completely re-molded the chicken wire to benefit them. Today they finally got back in behind the chicken wire, where I'm sure they'll start to build a nest. Instead of being a barrier, the chicken wire is now a fortress to protect their nest.

You can see the female better in this one. She's identified by the white tail feathers. The male has all dark gray tail feathers. I should name them, shouldn't I??

Here they are again. You can see the female a little better, up front there.

Wolf Parade

2008-03-12T15:20:00.001-05:00

And I could take another hit for you
And I could take away the trips from you
And I could take away the salt from your eyes
Take away skin and salt in you
And I could give you my apologies
By handing over my neologies
And I could take away your shaky knees
And I could give you all the olive trees
And look at the trees and look at my face
And look at a place far away from here

So give me your eyes, I need sunshine
Give me your eyes, I need sunshine
Your blood, your bones, your voice, and your ghost
We’ve both been very brave
Walk around with both legs
Fight the, the scary day
We both pulled the tricks out of our sleeves
But I’ll believe in anything and
You’ll believe in anything

When others ask "Why?", I say "Why not?"

2008-03-12T10:52:00.001-05:00

In today's local news:

Sheriff: Woman spent 2 years sitting on boyfriend’s toilet

The Associated Press

NESS CITY, Kan. Law officers in western Kansas are investigating the bizarre case of a woman they say sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for two years.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said the boyfriend called his office late last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend.

The sheriff said the woman’s muscles had atrophied and that medical personnel had to remove her from the toilet because she was bound to it by “natural means.”

Whipple said the woman at first refused ambulance service and “didn’t want to leave.” She’s hospitalized in Wichita, but is refusing to talk with authorities. The boyfriend claims she stayed in the bathroom of her own free will.

Whipple said his office may charge the boyfriend with mistreatment of a dependent adult.

"impossible to function at this high a level without limiting the amount of introspection you can do"

2008-03-11T09:13:00.003-05:00

This is what I've always thought of politicians, but haven't been able to put it into words quite so succinctly. There's a total inability to a) act in all ways that you know within yourself to be moral, true, & right and b) worry about the consequences of every action you take. And thus I have taken the position that they're all full of crap.

Excerpt from this article:
----------------------------

One psychologist who has studied and worked with politicians and their families thinks there is indeed something different about people who reach positions of such prominence.

"In order to be in such a high-profile position, you have to believe that what you are doing is innately right," said Renana Brooks, of Washington, D.C. "Anything that isn't right, you may blot out. You can't be tortured by guilt or indifference. It's just virtually impossible to function at this high a level without limiting the amount of introspection you can do."

Spitzer, who has not been charged and has not resigned, was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a prostitute, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still going on.

Parks are pretty

2008-03-09T21:38:00.005-05:00

My specific goal for today was to go out and do an activity that didn't cost any money. So, I drove to Blue River park fishing lake to take pictures. Then I locked my purse in the car, had to borrow a stranger's phone to call a locksmith, and spent $50 getting back into my car. This is a good example of "irony." At least I didn't have to hike five miles to the nearest gas station, and at least I didn't get kidnapped. I had plenty of time to take a lot of pictures!

Ahhhh

Reflections and textures

Stripes

Curiosity

Teeth marks

Fuzzy

Happy Easter

Funkytown (pictures at the end)

2008-03-02T13:32:00.012-06:00

I went to Funkytown with Sarah last night. This post is long; I’ve been reading a lot of memoirs lately, and obviously I’m working on mine.

When we arrived, the gigantic parking lot was full. “What!?! Are you kidding me?” We had to park as far away as you would at some place like Worlds of Fun, seriously. Sarah and I sat in the car and pondered the safety factor of two women walking alone in the darkness of night across the vast expanse of a not-very-well-lit parking lot of doom. I had a vision of us exiting Funkytown later on that night and not being able to locate our car, roaming the aisles up-and-down for hours, eventually having to call someone for help, “Stranded at Funkytown, was it the 37^thor the 73^rd row we parked in, I can’t remember!” I tried to find a visual cue of the wooded area surrounding the lot, a tree to remember. That worked.

When we entered the club, “YMCA” was playing, and the large, crowded dance floor was line dancing and making Y.M.C.A. letter-body gestures in unison. The entire dance floor continued to line dance for the next four songs.

First of all, I’ve never been any place in my life where line dancing actually occurred. I thought people only did it on TV. Back when we lived on Gillham years ago, Steven and I would get reallly stoned and watch this particular country music channel line dancing show. I couldn’t possibly imagine anything more bizarre other than a circus freak show, because also the line-dancing couples would wear matching outfits. I’m TOTALLY ANTI- LINE-DANCING and ANTI-MATCHING-OUTFITS! If I were a politician, I’d ban both. Mandatory 20 year sentencing for any minor offense without possibility of parole. Surely, I thought, that doesn’t happen in REAL life. Oh, but it does. At Funkytown. I saw a grotesque, flagrant display of colossal mass conformity. My little inner anarchist rose up and shouted, “This must be stopped! This cannot go on!” I leaned over to Sarah and said, “Oh no, we HAVE to bust this up. I need a drink first.”

We got a drink and started walking around. The music changed. The line dancing seemed to die down on its own right around the time I discovered the “requests mailbox.” People write requests on a little slip of paper and place them in the mailbox for the DJ to take. Tone Loc was playing, I think “Wild Thing” (is that his song?). Earlier in the evening, I had been to a small party at Scott’s where Tone Loc came up in conversation. We also talked about Cyndi Lauper, my personal favorite, so in honor of that party I wrote “Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want to Have Fun” on a little slip of paper and used my long arm to strategically place the note in the back of the box, where the DJ could grab it first. Sure enough, the next song was mine, so Sarah and I hit the dance floor.

I would like to point out that NOBODY line danced to Cyndi Lauder, which was a beautiful thing. I’m singin’, “That's all they really want, Some fun, When the working day is done, Oh,girls they wanna have fu-un, Oh,girls just wanna have fun.” Cyndi’s techno-island-digital-xylophone-sounding instrumental solo is always awesome. I watched a man pretending to play whatever instrument that is, which amused me (air-xylophone?).

The next song I danced to was MJ, “Beat It.” That’s when I noticed an immense video screen on one side of the room showing the 1980’s music video, with a darker, jerry-curled MJ wearing his cute, little tight, white t-shirt that had a keyboard on it. HAWT! Who doesn’t love pre-molester-creepy-pedophile MJ? The next song was Prince “When the Doves Cry.” Who doesn’t love pre-baptised-Jehova’s-Witness Prince?

The type of people there were varied and multi-cultural for what you’d expect in Raytown, with a lot of overweight suburban-looking bleached-blonde women in their 30’-40’s. My favorite person to watch was an old guy (i.e. clearly over retirement age) who was wearing cowboy boots, skinny jeans, and a tucked in shirt that revealed a large belt buckle, dancing up on a platform with a stripper. He reminded me exactly of Jim, this guy my grandmother lived with when I was in high school.

I was living with my grandmother at the time, and Jim was out of work on disability due to chronic emphysema from smoking two packs a day his whole life. So during my summer vacations from school, I had to endure his daily routine of practicing chair dances in the dining room to Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.” He’d begin blaring that damned song around 10 am, which pissed me off, because I couldn’t sleep in. He used a dining room chair to dance around and stand up on, wiggling all around like he was some kind of Elvis. He talked about how he went to a bar every night, got drunk, and performed his special Robert Palmer dance. He thought he was a local celebrity. My teenaged self thought he was beyond repulsive. He’d also sunbathe all summer long by lying on a back patio lawn chair on his stomach with his shorts rolled up in his ass crack so that his butt cheeks would tan. Who did he think was looking at his 65 year-old butt? I was personally traumatized by the vision, and used to argue with my grandmother about him.

Going back to Funkytown, I witnessed numerous three-way-sandwiches, usually consisting of a drunk woman being humped-on by two guys, one in the front and one in back. I told Sarah, “Some swingers are definitely swingin’ tonight!” Speaking of which, I was repeatedly hit on by an aggressive, busty, blonde, wearing a clinging skin-tight, white tank top, which in black light contrasted strongly with her overly tanned skin. I was convinced she was a swinger. I’m always convinced that swingers are hitting on me.

When I first arrived at Funkytown, I was standing to the side drinking a beverage, watching the line dancers, and the blonde came up to me. She was RIGHT UP ON ME rubbing her arm on my arm, and said, “That dance floor is SO crowded. I’m like you; I want to dance over here where it’s less crowded.” That’s SUCH A TOTAL stereotypical pick-up line. But this was from a woman? I nodded at her and said, “Yeah.” I didn’t rub on her back, so she resumed dancing on the crowded dance floor. She was very enthusiastic, and thus I believed she was on cocaine. I’m also always convinced that swingers who hit on me are on cocaine.

A song or two later, she came back and positioned herself so her back was to me, and started rubbing her ass on mine, like we were dancing that way and leaning in opposite directions, so that we could each look over our shoulders at each other while rubbing butts, swaying back-and-forth. I’m certain I’ve never had that much ass-to-ass contact with another human being other than maybe Steven? But then Steven and I don’t stand around rubbing our butts together; apparently that maneuver hasn’t occurred to me. Anyways, she “encountered” me several times through the evening, but would primarily dance with one male partner, which is what cued me that she was a swinger trying to get me in a three-way, like we’d be a woman sandwich for this guy.

I told Sarah that I wonder if this is what Menages is like? She said she was sure that Menages is more sophisticated than Funkytown. She’s probably right.

The pinnacle of the evening was when they played the song “Car Wash.” The dance floor had extra-big, rotating automatic car wash brushes on either side. They were probably a good ten feet tall, five feet diameter; they could easily wash a semi-truck. They started spinning like crazy, the lights were strobing, and soap bubbles suddenly filled the room. There’s no way I could properly describe or photograph the moment. It was classic. That was maybe kind of our cue to leave. I finally got home around 3:30 am.

Funkytown

General view of dance floor

Check out the carpet - its pattern was intergalactic planetary systems

Feet dancing in a glowing cage

THREE-WAY sandwich!!

Three shots of my favorite dancing old dude. Disappointingly didn't get a pic of him break-dancing on the ground.

Sarah's arm tattoo glowed purple on the "Stairway to Heaven"

General view of dance floor, disco balls

Funkytown bathroom

Woman standing in front of the fake, blue trash can was dressed up like a sexy librarian, glasses, hair in a bun.

Funkytown bathroom, the real trash can

Funkytown bathroom, communal toilet paper

Tom Waits

2008-02-29T16:12:00.005-06:00

I'm leavin' my fam'ly
Leavin' all my friends.
My body's at home
But my heart's in the wind
Where the clouds are like headlines
On a new front page sky
My tears are salt water
And the moon's full and high.

And I know Martin Eden's
Gonna be proud of me
And many before me
Who've been called by the sea
To be up in the crow's nest
Singin' my say.
Shiver me timbers
'Cause I'm a-sailin' away.

And the fog's liftin'
And the sand's shiftin'
I'm driftin' on out.
Ol' Captain Ahab
He ain't got nothin' on me, now.
So swallow me, don't follow me
I'm trav'lin' alone.
Blue water's my daughter
'n I'm gonna skip like a stone.

So please call my missus
Gotta tell her not to cry
'Cause my goodbye is written
By the moon in the sky.
Hey and nobody knows me
I can't fathom my stayin'.
Shiver me timbers
'Cause I'm a-sailin' away.

And the fog's liftin'
And the sand's shiftin'
I'm driftin' on out.
Ol' Captain Ahab
He ain't got nothin' on me.
So come and swallow me, follow me
I'm trav'lin' alone.
Blue water's my daughter
'n I'm gonna skip like a stone.

And I'm leavin' my family
Leavin' all my friends.
My body's at home
But my heart's in the wind
Where the clouds are like headlines
Upon a new front page sky
And shiver me timbers
'Cause I'm a-sailin' away.

You'll Never Get Away

2008-02-29T10:56:00.002-06:00

I'll follow you down 'till the sound of my voice will haunt you.
You'll never get away from the sound of the woman who loves you.
I'll follow you down 'till the sound of my voice will haunt you.
You'll never get away from the sound of the woman who loves you.

Best Name For a Band . . . Ever

2008-02-26T09:15:00.002-06:00

Anti Constipation Agent

This Is Always Funny

2008-02-25T16:16:00.002-06:00

Art Opening

2008-02-25T10:44:00.003-06:00

Almost Makes Me Want To Be Vegetarian

2008-02-20T11:46:00.003-06:00

The man behind giant beef recall says the meatpacker’s violations were blatant

By STEVE CHAWKINS and VICTORIA KIM
Los Angeles Times

To protect his identity and to frustrate possible retaliation, the undercover investigator behind the biggest beef recall in U.S. history refuses to disclose his name.

Nor will he reveal his marital status, his hometown, his job background or even his age.

One of the few personal things he will reveal is his that he’s a vegan.

But in a phone interview this week, the investigator for the Humane Society of the United States sketched a bleak account of his six weeks at a Chino, Calif., slaughterhouse that supplied meat to school-lunch programs and supermarkets throughout the nation.

The investigator said that by day he helped drive cattle into a chute that led to the killing floor. But at the same time he used a hidden camera to film the alleged brutalization of animals too weak or sick to walk to slaughter. Under federal regulations, only animals that are able to walk on their own can be used for meat.

At night, the agent returned to an Ontario, Calif., motel to chronicle his findings in a notebook and lock his videotapes in a closet safe.

“It was so blatant, so commonplace,” he said, speaking from a location he wouldn’t reveal. “It was so in your face. … They were pushing animals we felt never should have qualified for human consumption.”

The video produced by the undercover operation led the San Bernardino district attorney to charge two workers at Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. It also prompted the U.S. Agriculture Department to recall 143 million pounds of beef. Department officials said they thought most of the meat had been consumed and said the risk to the public is minimal.

The plant is now shuttered. Company officials could not be reached for comment Monday.

The investigator said he was on an unrelated mission — one he would not disclose — when he first stopped by the Chino plant. He said that until then, he didn’t realize that most of the animals slaughtered at Hallmark/Westland were dairy cattle. He said many were weak and emaciated when they were trucked in.

The investigator said he gave his real name and Social Security number, and had no trouble getting the job. At $8 an hour for 12-hour days of grueling labor, turnover was so high, managers seemed happy to have anyone who would not quit the next day, he said.

He worked from sunup till sundown, driving cattle down a long, narrow chute to the slaughterhouse. At the end of the day, he would spend about an hour shoveling manure and cleaning up.

During short lunch breaks in his car, he ate soy burgers and fake deli meat in an attempt to appear like other employees.

On his first day, he started getting glimpses of illegal actions that he said were routine. When a cow collapsed on its way to the slaughter box, two workers immediately jumped into the chute. One grabbed the cow by its tail and the other began shocking it with electrical prods, he said. When that failed, workers killed the cow on the spot, hooked a chain around the animal’s neck and dragged it into the slaughter box on its knees.

“Downer” cattle that cannot walk have a higher occurrence of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and are supposed to be euthanized on the spot and removed immediately. According to the American Meat Institute, an industry trade group, some “nonambulatory” cattle at packing plants are simply injured and not necessarily ill.

As the investigator toiled in 100-degree heat, he documented the actions through a pinhole camera that he wore under his shirt and controlled with a switch in his pocket. He had only one hour of recording capability each day.

He saw weaker animals being prodded upright or having water shot into their nostrils before shakily walking to slaughter. Some downed cows were hauled with chains.

Government officials charged with inspecting the process were never present to witness such actions, he said.

“There just wasn’t that level of oversight,” he said. “As cows are making their final steps, there’s no USDA personnel objecting to this behavior.”

The American Meat Institute this week warned against making generalizations based on Hallmark/Westland, saying that practices depicted in the investigator’s videotapes “stand in sharp contrast” to those of a typical packer.

365 Day 70

2008-02-13T23:21:00.003-06:00

First thing Tue morn. I didn't go to work that day & this photo describes why.

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 Promo

2008-02-13T19:58:00.002-06:00

I'm embarrassed to admit that I get all tingly-excited when I start to thing about Season 4.

Love Hangover

2008-02-11T20:22:00.002-06:00

I designed this awesome flyer.

A Moment of Zen

2008-02-11T16:44:00.001-06:00

My current state of SAD prevents me from caring enough about anything to formulate thoughts to write them down. I have mental enthusiasms, but they die before I speak them to more than one person. I was going to write about how I achieved a moment of Zen on Friday night. I slid on some ice, my feet shot out from under me, and I went down. I caught myself with my left hand and sprung right back up, like I had just done the most awesome break dance move EVER. I didn’t sustain any injuries whatsoever. My feet slid like a baseball player slides into base, smooth and cool, the best way to fall without really falling. But during that brief moment when my brain realized I was falling and had no control whatsoever over what was to inevitably happen next, time went in slow motion. It’s a realization and intense oh-shit-fear that sets in moments before impact; I’ve experienced similar moments in car accidents. I thought about how some people seek these moments out for fun – roller coasters, parachuting, cliff climbing. They’re all crazy. I seek out safety in knowing that I can pretty much control everything that’s happening to me. However, in that moment of Zen I felt like maybe we THINK that we have control over things that happen to us, when in fact we don’t have much control at all.

Snoop Dogg -Sensual seduction

2008-01-30T09:43:00.002-06:00

[Currently] this is my favorite video of ALL TIME INTO INFINITY AND BEYOND. Have I ever mentioned that I was recently inspired to learn how to play the keytar? That and now there's this tube thing (talk box?) that intrigues me greatly.

Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt

2008-01-29T21:38:00.001-06:00

Poor Haitians resort to eating dirt

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 6 pounds 3 ounces he weighed at birth.

Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.

The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in places.

The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports.

At the market in the La Saline slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.

The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets.

A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

"Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it," said Dr. Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti's health ministry.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.

"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," she said. "I know it's not good for me."

The Weather Is Sweaty Donkey Balls

2008-01-29T12:37:00.001-06:00

I normally blog about events of extreme worldly importance, but today I'm blogging about the weather. The temperature dropped 10 degrees in less than an hour this morning. About a quarter to noon, I walked up two stories to see what the weather was doing, and it was totally fine, just a little bit of flurries, not sticking to the ground, no big deal. At noon, I was planning to do my daily "lunch walk," which hasn't been so "daily" lately, because the weather has SUCKED DONKEY BALLS. I got on my gym socks, white tennis shoes, tote back with iPod, coat, hat, gloves, scarf, etc and went to the lunch room to eat before my walk. In the fifteen minutes since I'd last checked the weather, it turned into a zero-visibility snow blizzard! Seriously! Who wants to walk around in that?? The wind was blowing fierce and everything was gray, blowing sideways. There was no way. It seems I'm destined to blow up into a giant fat cow, because I can never go outside.

In other news, I finally learned how to play "Silent Night." Praise Jesus, I can at long last move forward with my life. I feel like this is a major breakthrough stage in my musical career! It's STRAIGHT TO THE TOP from here.

Love Hangover New York

2008-01-25T17:23:00.003-06:00

I designed this flyer. There's also a Kansas City one (waiting to hear back on the cost of the KC event before I finish that version).

Feist

2008-01-24T09:38:00.002-06:00

Who is awesome.

Which Is More Important?

2008-01-23T21:34:00.002-06:00

Seriously, this story is currently more popular in Yahoo news than the article titled "Study: False statements preceded war." This is a sad state of affairs for our culture and general humanity. This has to be one of the STUPIDEST articles I've ever read.
------------------------------

"Pet" girl kicked off bus for wearing leash

Wed Jan 23, 1:24 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A British bus company has apologized to a girl who is led around on a leash by her boyfriend and describes herself as a human pet after one of its drivers threw her off a bus.

Tasha Maltby, 19, told British newspapers she was the "pet" of her 25-year-old fiance Dani Graves.

Pictures showed her dressed in black Gothic-style clothing with silver buckles on a silver chain -- which the driver of a bus from the firm Arriva took exception to.

She told the Daily Mail newspaper Wednesday she was thrown off and told: "We don't let freaks and dogs like you on."

Arriva would not comment on specifics but said it apologized if the couple felt they had been discriminated against. It added, however, that the driver was worried about safety and the company told Maltby to take the leash off in the future.

"We have spoken to the driver who has talked about health and safety," a spokesman said. "Should she be attached to a chain and something happens on the bus, that could be dangerous. All we are saying is that she is very welcome to use the buses but not when she is on her lead."

Maltby -- who lives on state benefits and got engaged in November -- said her choice of lifestyle might seem unusual but was harmless.

"I am a pet," she told the Daily Mail. "I generally act animal-like and I lead a really easy life. I don't cook or clean and I don't go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It's my culture and my choice. It isn't hurting anyone."

(Editing by Michael Winfrey)

Where Are You Going?

2008-01-22T14:43:00.002-06:00

I started traveling, one place a year, in 2006 when I went with Steven to San Diego. Prior to that, I'd been in "Financial Boot Camp" for three years and prior to that, I'd been living with my HEAD UP MY ASS, spending more money that I was earning on really stupid crap.

So now I'm over that - I still struggle with managing my finances (on a daily basis), but I don't use credit so I can't spend more than I make, and I'm very aware of WHAT it is I spend my money on and thus have the freedom to make conscious decisions. It's kind of liberating. Plus that, and Steven helps! If it weren't for him, I don't know what I'd do.

With that in mind, 2006 was San Diego. 2007 was Memphis. 2008 will be Seattle, first week of August, I'm totally stoked!!! 2009 will be third world country with Craig, hopefully Guatemala but I'm not picky.

I had a strong, vivid dream recently in which I traveled out of the country. I woke up all excited and KNEW that I had to do it. I've never travelled outside of the country before, and while time is passing by oh-so-quickly maybe I should take steps to do that soon.

2008-01-22T13:48:00.000-06:00

Caught the Tattoo Bug

2008-01-19T10:23:00.001-06:00

Few things in life get me as excited at GETTING A NEW TATTOO. Currently I only have three tattoos, so I've only had the tattoo excitement three times in my life, and now I'm having it again. I'm getting a new tattoo, whoooooooooooooooooo. More to come, as I scan in my design and work it up to what I want this weekend.

The Blues Have It

2008-01-17T10:54:00.000-06:00

I’ve purchased a set of Caran d’Ache, Swiss water soluble colour pencils and small sketch pad to keep at my desk at work in order to do art therapy in times of stress. It’s my new thing – I need to move the therapy knowledge from the realm of thinking to the realm of feeling, so am going to try using color.

When I feel stressed/worried/anxious, I bust out a pencil, some water, small brush, and my sketch pad, and I paint a soothing blue scene. So far I’ve painted a soothing blob, but that’s partially because I don’t have a brush. Once I get a brush though, MOVE OVER Van Gogh, ‘cause I’m in the house.

My Grandmother, 1940, Age 22

2008-01-14T20:26:00.001-06:00

Gma Hunsicker Jones 1940 Age 22
Originally uploaded by desanders

From found.com

2008-01-11T16:42:00.001-06:00

rosesaredead
Originally uploaded by desanders

Random Thoughts Friday

2008-01-11T15:32:00.000-06:00

It’s amazing how something as simple as “Friday” can put one in a MUCH BETTER mood. And sun. Yes, there is sun today. I like rain, but I also like sun; there needs to be a way for both to occur in nature at the same time.

I read a news article today about twins who were separated at birth, adopted by different families, and then later in life – GOT MARRIED to each other. They didn’t find out they were twins until after they were married. How fucked up is that? They probably marveled at the deep level of connection they felt for each other, very deep. They probably could finish each other’s sentences and had the same habits. It almost lends credence to the notion of “fate,” doesn’t it?

Speaking of things that are fucked up – I feel compelled to admit that I have actually Googled “Britney Spears” in the news not once, but twice in the last two days. It’s like, now, I want to know exactly what she’s doing every day. This is the power of media over mind! I hope she’s enjoying her vacation in Mexico; I miss her.

I discovered a new kind of gum yesterday, which is exciting. Ice Breakers Ice Cubes, Dragronfruit Freeze flavor. I could eat it like crack.

Speaking of crack . . . ya know, that’s one drug I’ve never tried. Probably won’t either.

Snap, Crackle, and Pop

2008-01-10T13:49:00.000-06:00

I’ve been having these feelings more and more often lately, while I’m sitting at my desk at work in the middle of the day, where if I don’t immediately get up and leave and change something about me/my life/my environment, that I’m going to die. Just explode and die.

I had one just now. So, I left, went to the Café, looked out a window at the gray drizzle sprinkling on the deMaria water sculpture, and bought a cookie and a diet coke. The diet of the coke will save me from the calories of the cookie. Shit, how can I ever lose any weight if this keeps up? I guess a more pertinent question to ask is, how can I make these soul-crushing, anxiety-inducing wanting-to-not-go-on-anymore feelings stop?

Sometimes I feel like I just can’t do it for another second; I can’t sit at my desk and churn through books like some kind of robot. I’m Michael Douglas in the movie “Falling Down,” I could just snap, walk away from my car, and start wandering around the bad part of town.

It’s times like these when I need to work through the cognitive behavioral therapy. Ask myself rational questions like,

“Is it truly feasible that I will spontaneously combust if I continue to sit here?”
“No.”
“Will I die if I continue to sit here?”
“No.”
“Will anything bad happen to me if I continue to sit here?”
“Most likely no.”

I don’t feel better yet.

“What is the root cause or trigger of my feelings?”
“Boredom, malaise, feelings of insignificance, expectations that are obviously too high.”

I guess that recognition only makes me feel more tired. I can continue the rationalizations until I come to the point where I admit that pretty much ANY job will produce the same effect. It’s not my job that I hate! It’s not my life that I hate! It’s just an overwhelming feeling of lack of choices, of the routines, that close me in. Yet, I feel disoriented if I don’t have routines, so pretty much I’m just a lost cause.

Yep, that’s it. I’m going to eat my cookie now.

Little House on the Prairie - Country Girls

2008-01-08T16:20:00.001-06:00

This made me feel better today, when I was sad.

Yoga and Vampire Hunter D

2008-01-08T09:40:00.000-06:00

Took my first yoga class yesterday. I had fun, but had to do a partner move, wrap my arms around a strange lady's ass, to help her do downward facing dog and stretch her hips, for which I was totally unprepared. It kind of freaks me out to have to touch other people like that, but otherwise I LOVED the class. Am really glad I'm taking it. It's mostly slightly chubby middle-aged people, which somehow comforts me. Also it’s a lot like my physical therapy moves that I already do and can tell will really help my back.

I’ve now twice seen a man who looks exactly like Vampire Hunter D, walking southbound on Brookside Blvd while I was driving northbound, on my way to work in the morning. I saw him today, at 8:50 am, across the street from the Russel Stover Headquarters.

He wears a long, full-length black leather trench coat, black leather boots/shoes, black pants, black gloves, a wide-brimmed black leather hat, and a black scarf across the lower part of his face so that all you can see is a black shape and his eyes. He’s walking at a swift pace, and his coat kind of billows mysteriously in the breeze.

Both times I’ve seen him, I became unnaturally excited and wanted to immediately pull my car over and stop to meet him and take a picture. Today I decided that I have to form a plan for this. It’s repeated behavior, so the chances of me seeing him again could potentially be high.

One option is the next time I have a comp day, on a week day, happen to be standing in by the sidewalk at 8:50 am with a camera in hand, and happen to want to take a picture of him. That seems unlikely to pass as plausible.

The second option is to, sort of, “follow” him to see where he’s going (some might say "stalk"). I can happen to be in a car, waiting at 8:50 am, and then trail him. You know, like they do in the movies! If he’s going to a public place of work, I can figure out what it is, and work up a disguise and figure out a way to happen to be there with a camera to get his picture. That might work. Anyone who has that awesome of a sense of style needs to be known, and I can make that happen, some way, somehow.

Shamanic Journeys

2008-01-07T09:19:00.000-06:00

Last night I dreamt that I (as my animus) went on a Shamanic journey into the heartland of an extremely remote, mountainous region of Vietnam. I travelled by foot into the jungle, and when I finally happened upon a person, I asked him where I could find local lodging. He pointed up the mountain, with the basic directions of “Walk until you find it,” although I don’t speak Vietnamese, so the communication was primitive.

I found a small place, and the old man welcomed me in. Before I knew it, I was having a crazy, freak-out, mind-blowing, life-changing, deeply-moving-and-meaningful Shamanic experience, during which time I slaughtered a boar with my bare hands, and we cooked it and ate it that night. It was a marvelous time.

Afterwards, I felt compelled to swim across a wide river, which caused me concern in retrospect, because I had NO IDEA what creatures might have been in it and also didn’t consider the possibility of fatal river currents.

The Universal Goddess Of Plenty

2008-01-04T09:59:00.000-06:00

I am SOOO glad to have my adult-contemporary-soft-rock radio stations back!!!! There are two of them that play the same music and they both "go Christmas" every year for two months in Nov-Dec. Since I hate Christmas music and/or have heard all of it A ZILLION times already, I can't listen during that time. It's like being cut-off from a necessary supply of xanax, a medication that soothes & calms during times of extreme crisis. Yesterday as I was driving home from work, all keyed up and tense from the stressful day, a cheesy Bryan Adams ballad came on the radio, and I just cranked it UP full volume and really felt gratitude to the Universe for all of its gifts of plenty.

New Year's Blah Blah Blah

2008-01-01T12:24:00.000-06:00

It's the new year. Internally, I still feel as though it's more like Y2k - anything's possible, we just came out of the 90's, and what will the new millenium behold? With that mindset, my 1999 Ford Escort is only one year old, and I can drive ANYWHERE I want! Yay for new cars!

I'm always very excited about being able to switch to a new weekly planner. Clean slate, so many open days ahead of me; all the spaces aren't yet filled in.

I've decided that 2008 is the "Year of the Dress." I don't own enough dresses. Steven has started wearing suits all the time, and it's time for me to step up a bit. I'll never be the suit-wearing type, but I can see myself in a dress from time to time.

Also, 2008 is the year that I spend my money in healthier ways, that is, referring only to my extra "fun money" expenditures. Obviously most of what I make goes to bills and crap, but for what I decide to spend on myself, I think I'd like to buy less "cosmetic" things that make me feel better on a superficial level and instead buy more "meaningful" things that could actually lead to something with purpose.

That's all well and good, but I'm sure that come summer time, my ass will be standing in line outside of Sheridan's Frozen Custard along with all the other fat-asses, getting giant Butterfinger Concretes and eating them 'till I'm covered in hives. It's the American way!! However, thankfully, each day is a new day and a new opportunity for advancement in a positive direction. That's the eternal optimist in me. I am a Leo after all.

the crunch

2007-12-29T09:32:00.000-06:00

by Charles Bukowski
---------------------

too much too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
"no."

25 Bums In Rags (the part where he yells at his neighbor and I laugh) - Charles Bukowski

2007-12-27T10:40:00.001-06:00

you know how it is with horseplayers. you hit it hot and you think it's all over. I had this place in back, even had my own garden, planted all kinds of tulips, which grew, beautifully and amazingly. I had the green hand. I had the green money. what system I had devised I can no longer remember, but it was working and I wasn't and that's a pleasant enough way to live. and there was Kathy. Kathy had it. the old guy next door would actually slobber at the mouth when he saw her. he was always knocking at the door. "Kathy! oooh, Kathy! Kathy!"
I'd answer the door, just dressed in my shorts.
"ooooh, I thought . . ."
"what do you want, mother?"
"I thought Kathy . . ."
"Kathy's taking a shit. any message?"
"I . . . bought these bones for your dog."
he had a big bag of dry chicken bones.
"feeding a dog chicken bones is like putting broken razor-blades in a child's cereal. you trying to kill my dog, fucker?"
"oh, no!"
"then jam the bones and split."
"I don't understand."
"stick that bag of chickenbones up your ass and get the hell out of here!"
"I just thought Kathy . . ."
"I told you, Kathy's taking a SHIT!"
I slammed the back door on him.

Ain't Nobody G'an To Entertain Me

2007-12-27T10:28:00.000-06:00

Where is everyone? I need more blogs to read, more things to entertain me.

I'm going to make soup, fancy French soup with a recipe that originated from Arles. Sounds fancy, right? Let's hope I don't have a panic attack while I'm chopping vegetables.

My hives are better today, I think they're going away.

My Bukowski documentary is in the video store. Yay! I keep reading the short story, "25 Bums In Rags," because for some reason that seems to entertain me in the dark, dreary days of winter. I especially like the part where he answers the door in his underwear and yells at his neighbor to fuck off. That always makes me laugh!

I signed up for yoga classes. I AM THAT VERY STEREOTYPE of the person who tries to exercise every January, but then usually realizes she doesn't have money to pay for it, by the end of February. I plan to try to budget for it this year.

Something To Write About!

2007-12-26T09:50:00.000-06:00

I just had a positive interaction with a credit card company. I know, right!!???!! Maybe miracles REALLY DO HAPPEN.

I recently found out that I owe $47 to a credit card compnay, which surprised me, because I haven't used a credit card in YEARS; it's been a really long time. Crud. So, it's been so long that they've long ago reported it as a default to the bank and have closed the account permanently. Whoops. So, I called today to pay off my $47 dollars, and they guy on the phone said, "Oh, I'll just waive that for you. Don't worry about it. I appreciate you calling to try to pay it off." Then he gave me his full name, phone #, and extension in case there's ever any problem, so that I can refer people back to him.

Can you believe it?????? Wow, so now I have to believe that sometimes there ARE humans on the other end of the phone at the credit card company.

They're Back

2007-12-25T13:22:00.001-06:00

Santa gave me hives for Christmas. Thank you, Santa!

This Struck Me As Incredibly Funny For Some Reason

2007-12-23T20:39:00.001-06:00

Hobosexual

2586 up, 294 down

Adjective. The opposite of metrosexual; one who cares little for one's own appearance.

Examples: Michael Moore, Peter Jackson.
First documented hobosexual - John the Baptist.