Memorial Day

This was a comment posted on The News Blog. I thought it worth repeating, and thinking about today:

Out of curiousity I spreadsheet the latest listing of American soldiers killed in Iraq to see their ages.

Ages 18-29: 1,240 (75%)

Ages 30-39: 315 (19%)

Ages 40-49: 85 (5%)

Ages 50-59: 13 (1%)

Age 60 : 1

Total: 1654

DPBandit 05.30.05 - 1:34 am #

So many young people, gone.

Self-Improvement, Part 3

In Self-Improvement, Part 2, I promised a monthly progress report on the diet/exercise program ("8 Minutes In The Morning") I'd begun following.

I began the program at a weight of 180 pounds a bit less than five weeks ago. When I weighed myself two days ago, I was...

...167 pounds.

Thirteen pounds in a month.

Ummm...wow.

I think this program works.

Other effects besides the direct weight loss:

1) The exercises each morning have increased muscle definition and firmness, particularly noticeable in the legs and thighs. A lot of the waist fat has faded away, and while not quite there yet, looking in the mirror holds a hint, an anticipation, a lurking possibility of actually ending up, eventually, with... [he whispers the words]... six-pack abs!

2) Cutting way-y-y back on refined sugar, and a lot of the caffeine, seems to have almost completely eliminated the energy swings during the day that would occasionally have me close to nodding off at the wheel while driving. I use a spoonful of molasses on my morning oatmeal, Splenda for just about every other sweetening need. (With a few exceptions, like baking bread; you need that sugar in the mix to get the yeast working properly.)

I think the keys to a program like "8 Minutes In The Morning" being effective are: 1) that any such program should include both a reasonable diet plan and an exercise plan/schedule, and 2) that the participant needs to be in a mental and emotional place where he/she will follow the plan, and avoid cheating or giving up on the program. That last one is the toughy for a lot of people; even just a year ago, I would have been a lot more likely to have dropped out of the program before much progress. But now, at this point in time, I seem to be willing to make that effort and exercise that amount of self-control.

(Yes, I have had to play catch-up on the morning exercises a few times. And yes, I have cheated, a little bit, on the diet; I still let myself have a can of regular sugared soda about once a week.)

(But you know what the most dangerous menace to following the diet has been? Rotisserie chicken! You know, that "healthy" alternative to fried chicken? Except that the skin on those roasted chickens is so flavorful, so well-seasoned, so dripping with juicy, browned deliciousness that once you start eating it, you don't want to stop until it's all gone.)

If you should want your own copy of the "8 Minutes In The Morning" book, here are links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

(Having read a draft of this post, the spouse comments: "Won't it be hard to do your exercises with your arm in a sling from patting yourself on the back so hard?" Ahem.)

You Devil!

Foodie tip for the day:

I had to make up a large batch of deviled eggs (two dozen eggs) for a potluck yesterday.

One of the odd things about deviled eggs is that even though you take all the yolks from the hardboiled eggs, and then ADD extra ingredients to the mashed yolks, when you spoon the filling back into the whites' half-eggs, you run out of filling before you run out of eggs! Every friggin' time.

So there I was with an empty filling bowl, and eight half-eggs left over.

But... I happened to have a tub of roasted red pepper hummus in the fridge, so I filled the remaining eggs with a spoonful of the hummus, and added a piece of sliced olive on top. Tasty alternative, and they went over well.

Kill The Wa-a-a-b-bit...!

Working for the Postal Service, I get to skim the headlines on quite a few small-town newspapers.

One such I saw today was a front-page article about the local police being suspicious about a woman who'd visited several local businesses and tried to get them to put out donation cans to "Save Toby".

"Toby" is a rabbit. Supposedly, a kind-hearted person found the injured rabbit under their front porch several months ago and nursed it back to health. Wanting to give the cute little bunny The Good Life, the kind-hearted rescuer set up a website to raise $50,000 for the bunny's future needs.

If the kind-hearted rescuer hasn't raised the $50,000 by June 30th, 2005, however, Toby will be butchered and eaten by the kind-hearted rescuer.

Supposedly. There are a number of indications that the savetoby.com website is just a put-on, and it's been bandied about and linked to a lot; doing a Google search on "Save Toby" gets thousands of hits.

But what tickled me about the particular newspaper piece was that it reported Toby's injuries had come about via "being mulled by a cat".

Wow. First, get a big pot. Then some red wine. Then some spices. Then a heat source to get it all simmering and ready to toss the bunny in. Damn resourceful cat.

And for the final touch, the newspaper this was in was the HAGERSTOWN HERALD. If Harry Warner, Jr, were still alive, he'd die of embarassment.

(And I have just managed to write a post that mentions food, felines, and fandom. I think I hit the Trifecta!)

Surprisingly Not-So-Terrifying News

After many years of trying to get the project going, it now appears that, yes Virginia, downtown Phoenix will be getting a new 1,000 room hotel, in conjunction with a major expansion of the Phoenix Civic Plaza's meeting and function space.

What this would mean is that Phoenix will finally have enough hotel rooms and function space close together to be able to host some of the larger conventions and trade shows it's been missing out on.

Like, say... a Worldcon.

Oh-h-h-h, shit.

Phoenix had a Worldcon once before, in 1978. For most of the attendees, it was "a pretty good con." Behind the scenes, though, it was... ummmm... why don't we settle on the word "exciting"? It was very, very, very exciting. It was so exciting that I had, literally, nightmares about it for, literally, years afterward. It was so exciting that it's only in the last few years, after a quarter of a friggin' century, that I've gotten back onto a moderately cordial basis with some of the people who so angered and disappointed me back then. (And there were several people involved who, even now, I cannot think of a single polite word I would say to or about them. But it's only several, which is a great improvement over the immediate aftermath of That Hideous Summer.)

That 1978 Worldcon pretty much maxed out and strained all the then available hotel rooms and function space available in downtown Phoenix. And that, as well as the bad taste left in the mouth of Phoenix fandom, has been one of the major reasons there's never been another Worldcon bid from Phoenix.

But with the new hotel and function space being built, I can see one coming. I don't know when exactly, but probably sometime in the next five to ten years, someone will announce the start of a Phoenix Worldcon bid.

This is not necessarily bad news. (Why, yes, I am surprised to find myself saying that.)

In the years since the 1978 Worldcon, Phoenix has developed a core group of con-running fans who actually seem to enjoy and get satisfaction out of putting on decently run conventions. They've put on dozens of Leprecons and Coppercons (our annual local conventions), as well as a number of Westercons, World Fantasy Cons, World Horror Cons, and I think one NASFIC.

I find a fair number of those con-runners to be... okay, how do I put this politely?... "stodgy". This is not a bad thing, when stodginess is accompanied by dependability and competence.

So I think a Phoenix Worldcon, with the new facilities being built, might actually be a doable thing again. It would still be a stretch, and whoever was on the committee would find themselves strained and pressured by the task, but I think most of the current group of con-running fans in Phoenix could do it without the... "excitement"... that came so close to overwhelming the people involved in 1978.

So if a Phoenix Worldcon bid comes into existence sometime in the future, I'm offering a deal: If the Phoenix bid has the most boring bid parties, the dullest promotional literature, and the stodgiest people at its head, they'll definitely have my vote!

Notice How One Truck Is Sitting A Lot Lower Than The One Next To It?

(see post below)

This Is Why

The National Association of Letter Carriers, NALC, in association with the Pstal Service, has been conducting a national food drive on the 2nd Saturday in May for 13 years.

The Food Drive actually started quite a bit before that, on a local level right here in Phoenix. I believe the first year I started working as a letter carrier, 1978, was the second year for the Drive. It collects millions of pounds of donated canned and dry goods for distribution to food banks and charities across the US.

My current route, which encompasses a large seniors-only trailer park and an upscale neighborhod of large homes on half-acre lots, tends to get a lot of donations.

Most of this comes from the trailer park residents, a lot of whom are on restricted incomes themselves. Well over half the 350 residents of the park left out a bag of food, sometimes multiple bags, by their mailbox Saturday.

By contrast, of the 160 families in the upscale neighborhood, only about 25-30 left out donations.

And that was a better response from the upscalers than I've had in previous years.

And it was a lot better than the response I got from my previous route. That was mostly a very upscale, golf-course-outside-the-back-door gated community, a stone's throw from the million-dollar estates in Paradise Valley. The last time I collected from the over-300 residences there, I drove back to the station with a single plastic tray holding about two dozen cans.

It may be a cliche, but the empirical evidence I've seen on the food drives does seem to suggest that the more money a household has, the less likely they are to donate to charitable causes.

Why is that? And what would it take to change that?

If You Can't Strike At Them In Their Own Country, Go Someplace Where The Security Sucks

Today's elections in Britain rouse strong feelings. And apparently someone felt that the best way to register his vote was to set off explosives in front of a United Kingdom governmental building.

Except that between decades of dealing with the IRA, and joining with the US in the invasion of Iraq, security in Britain itself is tight, tight, tight.

So, obviously, the best course is to go to some other country, some country where the security isn't as tight, and to set off your explosives at a British consulate or mission.

What country would you choose? What city would you go to?

How about the United States? How about mid-town Manhattan?

What's being described as "two small grenades" were set off in concrete planters in front of the offices of the UK mission in New York early this morning. No injuries, and the only major damage outside the planters was a foot-long piece of concrete being propelled through one of the building's plate-glass windows. (But if someone had been standing in the path of that piece of concrete....)

What struck me about the photo in this BBC news article, though, was that the heavy concrete planters were obviously designed and set in place as obstacles to vehicles attempting to leave the street and ram into the building.

You can also see, in the photo, that yellow tape has been put across the street to block access to the planters while police investigate.

So that physical security line stops at the curb.

Which means that if, instead of a couple of grenades, the person(s) responsible had decided to go for the spectacular, and loaded a truck up with ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel, they wouldn't have been able to smash their way into the building before detonating (as in the Beirut Marine barracks bombing). They would have had to settle for parking at the curb. (Okay, it's NYC. Double-parking.)

Just. Like. Timothy. McVeigh.

Hoarders

Our housemate Kay came across this news item:

A Peoria woman who was found with nearly two dozen dogs and cats crammed inside her mobile home has been arrested on multiple felony and misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.

The stench from the home was horrendous and the animals were living in "deplorable conditions," Peoria police spokeswoman Shelly Watkins said Tuesday. "The animals were without water and many were deathly ill."

The suspect, Laura Yvonne Kuhn, 44, was taken into custody on Monday and booked on nine felony and 12 misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty, Watkins said.

It marked the second time in four years that Kuhn has faced such charges, Watkins said.

She was taken into custody in 2001 after 32 animals, including 20 dead ones, were found inside her house, Watkins said. Kuhn pleaded guilty in that case and was fined $1,300.

Nine of the animals had to be euthanized, Watkins said. The others accepted by the Arizona Humane Society for care and treatment, she said.

You hear about these animal hoarders from time to time. But usually it's not someone you know.

Laura Kuhn is someone we know slightly (friend of friends, basically). And in that 2001 incident, after her cats were seized by Animal Control and turned over to the Humane Society, she called around to everyone she knew, even us, crying and begging and asking us to adopt her animals from the Humane Society and then "please give me my kitties back!" on the sly.

Hilde and I looked at each other in the middle of that phone call, and said "Ummmm... I don't think so." If Laura couldn't take care of her animals properly before the 2001 seizure, there was no way we were going to help her get back her pets unless there was clear evidence they wouldn't be mistreated again. (Oh, and those "20 dead ones" found in 2001? Gosh, Laura never mentioned that when she spoke to us.)

With the new felony charges, Laura is looking at a possible three years in prison. And I can't really work up any sympathy for her. I know that animal hoarding like this is the sign of serious mental problems, but if prison time is what it takes to keep her from acquiring new dogs and cats to mistreat, I can't disapprove of it. I hope she gets mental health treatment, but keep her the hell away from any animals until then!

(What is WRONG with these people? Your animals are SICK! Your animals are DYING! You're living in FILTH! How much of a frigging CLUE do you need?)

Simple, Quick, Delicious

Here's something really good, from here, that I made a few days ago:

Tomato Bread Soup

1 tsp.....olive oil
1 Tbsp....small leek (white part only), chopped
4 Tbsp....cloves garlic, minced
2 Cups....chopped peeled tomatoes
1/3 Cups..chopped fresh basil
1&1/2 C...vegetable or chicken stock
1/2 tsp...each salt and pepper
2 Cups....day-old cubed Italian bread
2 tsp.....freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in heavy saucepan over medium heat. Cook leek and garlic 3 minutes or until softened.

Stir in tomatoes and basil and bring to boil. Boil gently 5-10 minutes or until slightly thickened.

Add 1 cup stock, salt and pepper; return to boil, stirring. Remove from heat and stir in bread. If necessary, warm remaining stock and add t reach desired constituency. Serve sprinkled with Parmesan. Serves 2.

I used a red onion instead of the leek, didn't bother to peel the tomatoes, used dried basil instead of fresh, and used some leftover garlic bread. Still came out wonderful. Add a bit of diced cooked chicken, or ham (maybe prosciutto?), and it's a full meal. Definitely a make-again recipe.

George Bush, Girly-Man of Mystery

(un-PC language may be encountered below)

Much has been made lately, and photos posted, and jokes told, regarding President George Bush's public walk, hand-in-hand, with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The gist of which has been that two guys holding hands together is... ummm... faggy.

The official White House line on this has been that holding hands is a sign of trust in Arab culture, so Bush and the Prince holding hands was really a sign of respect for the Prince's culture. Not something faggy, but something actually manly. (Manly, dammit! Manly!)

But still...

Okay, George Bush is a guy. Sowed some wild oats as a young man, drank too much, probably tried drugs (probably a, probably large, number of times). But he grew up, straightened up, married and had children, ran a number of businesses (badly, but hey, shit happens), ran the state of Texas (badly, but hey, shit happens), and is now running the entire US government (badly, but hey...).

So why did George W. Bush decide, in college, to let people think he was gay?

I grew up in the 50's and 60's, and the change in attitudes toward homosexuals since then has been... extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.

Back then, there were no "gays". There were just "queers", "fags", "homos", "sissies", "nancies", "perverts" and "cocksuckers". Back then, if teen-aged tough guys were broke, what they frequently said to their friends was "Let's go down to the bus station and roll some queers." That wasn't just talking tough, either; if you beat and robbed a queer, you got away with it, because the police of those days would look the other way, literally. Homosexuals, or people assumed to be homosexual, were not considered or treated as human beings; civil rights routinely granted to normal citizens were simply ignored if society identified you as queer. There was no public acceptance of homosexuality. None. Homosexuality was something closeted, hidden, denied.

This began to change with the Stonewall Riots, and with a few brave individuals like Merle Miller who openly identified themselves as homosexual. It was a new attitude of "We're here. We've always been here. We're not going away. Deal with it."

And, amazingly, a good deal of the public has learned to deal with it over the last forty years. In spite of incidents like the Matthew Shephard murder, or the anti-gay-marriage movement, the degree to which homosexual men and women are openly recognized and accepted as part of modern society is... flabbergasting... to someone who can remember what it used to be like. It's been an incredible, incredible, sea-change in societal attitudes.

But in the late 60's and early 70's, that change had barely begun. If you were a guy who did something regarded as "sissy" by most of the public, you could still find yourself labeled as a fag, even if that weren't the case. It wasn't fun, and it could even be dangerous. Sometimes just being a heavy book-reader, or not being a sports fan, was enough to get the label applied. And there were some activities that almost invariably would make others certain you were queer.

A male hairdresser? Faggot.

A male interior decorator? Pervert.

A male cheerleader? Oh, you betcha. In that era, you could be a hard-partying, hard-drinking, skirt-chasing frat boy in college, but if you put on that uniform and picked up that megaphone and pranced around on the edge of that football field, I guarantee you that at least half of the people in the stands would think of you as if you were wearing a big signboard with the words I'M A BIG SCREAMING HOMO written on it.

So why did George W. Bush become a cheerleader in college? Why did he choose to do something that he must have known would make many people think he was queer?

(You know, it must have been an interesting phone call home after making the cheerleading team: "Mom! Dad! I'm a cheerleader!" *thud* *thud*)

What was going through his mind back then? I really have a hard time trying to understand it.

Was he a straight guy just so dumb that he didn't realize what people might think? Did he think his party-boy reputation would keep people from thinking he was gay?

Was he, umm, "confused" about his own sexuality? Was cheerleading a "safe" way to act gay without actually going so far as to have sex with other guys?

Or... is George Bush actually bisexual? Is he attracted to both women and men?

I really don't know. But the cheerleading, and the public hand-holding.... these are no-brainers. They look faggy. And while homosexuals in general have made great gains in public acceptance, the American public in general doesn't want "sissies" to be their national leaders.

So why did the President (and why did his staff!) decide that the hand-in-hand walk would be a positive PR moment, a good photo-op?

What the heck is going on inside that skull?

In My Neverending Quest. . .

. . . to reduce complex issues to sound bites, bumper stickers, or posters, I came up with:

Faithful To My God

Loyal To Our Country

Separation of Church

and State:

Not Just A Good Idea,

It's Constitutional!

Self-Improvement, Part 2

Back about the beginning of February, I mentioned I was trying to lose some weight and replace some of the middle-aged fat with greater muscle mass, via doing some exercises every few evenings (as well as watching my diet, something I've tried to do anyway for years).

Hummph. Some progress made, but not much. Started at 183 pounds, got down to 179 once, but mostly bounced around between 180-182.

Most of the lack of progress is probably because I was intending to do about a half-hour of exercises every other evening before going to bed. In actuality, this tended to be about very third or fourth night; on too many nights, going thru the fairly long checklist of TTDBB (Things To Do Before Bed) kept me up late enough to hit The Wall. ("The Wall" is the point at which your body overrules your good intentions and starts to shut your brain down regardless of whether you're still standing up.) And once you've reached that point, just finishing the last of the TTDBB is a struggle, and the exercises tended to get pushed back to the next night (or the next, or . . .).

So . . . I'm trying something that 1) is a more formal, structured diet/exercise plan, and 2) time-shifts the physical exercise to mornings. Not that there isn't a TTDBGTW (Things To Do Before Going To Work) list too, but at least in the mornings, you start with a full tank of energy, instead of the last few dregs.

The plan is the "8 Minutes In The Morning" routine developed by Jorge Cruise. I've been interested in it for a while, and picked up a copy of the book from Quality Paperback Book Club a few weeks ago.

(It's been available from QPB for a couple of years now. And when I checked Cruise's website, I found he's currently pushing the latest iteration of his fitness program, The Three-Hour Diet, which basically adds smaller, more frequent meals to the 8-Minute program. With my schedule, I'll stick to the original version, thanks.)

The exercise portions of the program are two strength-training exercises, performed with light dumbbells, done each morning. The exercises vary to work different parts of the body each day, rotating on a 28-day cycle. You do a set of 12 of the first exercise. Then, rather than a rest, you move directly to the second exercise and do 12 of that. Repeat three more times, for a total of four sets of each exercise, all within about an eight-minute time period.

(It actually takes a bit longer, since he recommends some running in place beforehand to warm up, and also some cooling-down stretches afterward. But altogether, it shouldn't take more than fifteen or twenty minutes each morning.)

He also has a fairly rigid diet program to follow. It's pretty much based on the Diabetic Food Exchange diet, and the first week ("Quick Start") only allows about 1000 calories per day. After that, you go to a calories/exchange-allotment based on your current weight. (For me, about 1600 calories per day.)

The diet calls for eliminating almost all refined sugars (AIIIEEEEE!!!), most caffeine as well (DOUBLE-AIIIEEEEE!!), and almost all fats except "healthy" ones. Ummm, okay; I've known for a long time that I drink too many sodas, and tend not to watch fats as closely as I should. But, jeezus, my caffeine too?

Cruise also recommends soy milk and soy cheeses in place of regular dairy products. His rationale lies in the possible allergenic reactions to regular dairy. Since I've never had that problem, I think I'll stick to the skim milk I've used for years. (Some of the soy milks aren't bad, but unless soy cheeses have improved a LOT in the fifteen or twenty years since I last tried them, I'll stick to small amounts of regular cheese, thanks.)

He also recommends, as the healthiest oil to use, flax oil, reputedly highest in Omega-3. I picked up a bottle at Sprouts, my local farmers' market/health-food store, to give it a try. Interesting; it had a faint grassy aftertaste, sort of like alfalfa sprouts. Didn't bother me, but some people would probably find it offputting. (Flax oil also apparently breaks down under high heat; Cruise mentions several times that it should be added to hot foods only after they've finished cooking.) Since I take several fish-oil capsules a day, I'm probably getting enough Omega-3 already.

The book also contains a number of motivational messages, and suggests keeping a journal. I think, though, that unless you come to such a program already motivated enough to follow its guidelines, those messages, or a journal won't really help.

(So, umm, why am I writing this post? Because posting my intention, in public, to try the program will help keep me following it more closely than I might otherwise.)

Did the first exercises, and started following the diet, yesterday morning. Starting weight: 180. I'm planning on posting progress reports about once a month. (Consumer-Reports-R-Us!)

My Letter To TIME

Dear Time magazine:

I am writing in regard to your decision to feature Ann Coulter on the cover of your April 19th, 2005 issue.
April 19th is the 10th anniversary of the mass murder of men, women and children in Oklahoma City by domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh. Ann Coulter's reaction to that day of horror was to regret that McVeigh had not gone to the New York Times building instead. Later questioned if she regretted that statement, her reply was that she would have had no regrets about such an attack on the New York Times as long as only editors and reporters were in the building.

Ann Coulter advocates the murders of anyone she declares to be "liberals". And you not only put her on your cover, you gave this enabler of terrorism, this advocate of death and murder a fawning, gushing article that attempts to make her seem sane and reasonable.

I am a letter carrier. Yesterday, I had to deliver dozens of copies of your magazine to my customers. For the first time in over twenty-five years of working for the Postal Service, I felt sick and ashamed of what I was doing.

Sincerely,

Bruce Arthurs
Glendale, AZ

Support The Patriot Cat!

In a moment of mass dyslexia, Congress today passed the Patriot Cat.

Hate The Sin, Love The City

Hilde and I went to see SIN CITY earlier this week.

I didn't expect Hilde to like it; she generally likes blow-em-up-real-good action movies, but she doesn't like characters (even "good guy" characters) that are brutal, callous and cruel (even towards "bad guys" that deserve it).

And the "good guys" in Sin City are brutal, callous and cruel. They're "good" because their actions are directed towards "bad guys" whose own brutality and cruelty are directed against innocents. (The "innocents" are, invariably, women.)

But I was surprised to find that even I was uncomfortable with the unrelenting level of violence and bloodshed in the movie. Particularly since I've read most of the original SIN CITY comics and loved them. (As widely noted, the movie is "the most faithful adaptation of a comic ever done.")

I think there are two main reasons for this differing reaction between comics and movie:

First, the comics are, essentially, short stories. They're stripped-down, pure-essence, high-speed morality plays. Reading one, even the multi-issue stories, can be done in half an hour or less. The reader can live in Sin City for that length of time, the reader can tolerate the continuous violence and bloodshed and desperate struggles.

But Robert Rodriguez collated four of the original SIN CITY stories into the movie. For over two hours, the viewer watches beatings and shootings and killings, and more beatings and shootings and killings, and still MORE beatings and shooting and killings. And in the end, it's just...

...too fucking long.

(The couple sitting next to Hilde and me in the theater got up and left partway through the movie. I think it was at the point where the dog was tearing a hunk of meat off of Elijah Wood.) (Fair Warning: If you see this movie, you'll never trust Frodo again.)

(I should probably also note that this movie probably sets a new record for the number of times, and number of characters, that are kicked, punched, stabbed and shot in the groin. And, in the movie's most notorious scene, a bad guy has his genitalia torn off . Ouch.) (After this movie, no one will ever shake Bruce Willis' hand again. Ever.)

And second, Frank Miller's high-contrast, highly stylized, black-&-white illustrations for the comics aren't real people. There's an extra layer of distancing in the comics; the reader can see the beatings and shootings and killings going on, but you never (quite) forget that these are drawings you're looking at.

Even though the movie tries (mostly successfully) to replicate the look and feel of the comics, even though most of the sets and backgrounds are computer-generated, these are still real people up on the screen. Even if the viewer knows that these are only actors pretending to be beaten or shot or killed (or to beat or shoot or kill other characters), when real people are going thru (pretending to go thru) the relentless, continuous, unstopping parade of beatings and shooting and killings, it's just...

...too damn close to the real thing. It's just too damn much to take for a solid two hours, when you have real human beings acting out these stories.

I don't regret going to see the movie. I think it was worth watching. Once. But if I want to enjoy the Sin City stories, I think I'll go back to the original comics.

- - - - -

While I'm on the subject of violent movies: The most violent movie scene I've ever watched was the final shootout in a gangster movie where both rival gangs, armed with machine guns, let fly at close quarters in a crowded room. Blood and gore go flying, and splashing, and dripping. People are hit in their limbs, their torsos, their heads. They drop like flies, covered and drenched in blood and gore, lying in pools of blood. When the firing finally stops, everyone, everyone, gangsters and innocents alike, is lying in heaps and mounds of blood-soaked corpses.

Then they all get up and do a final song-&-dance number.

The movie was BUGSY MALONE, and it was a children's movie. All the gangsters and other characters were played by children (including a young Jodie Foster). And the machine guns were called "splooge guns" and shot streams of whipped cream. So in that final shootout, all that blood and gore I mentioned was actually copious white splatters of whipped cream.

But... all the young actors, umm, acted as if the shootout was real, as if real bullets were flying, as if they were really being shot and maimed and killed. So, even all these years later, I can't help thinking that the "splooge" in that scene was only a stand-in for the "real" (in movie terms) blood and gore that would have been used in a gangster movie for adults.

And that's why BUGSY MALONE is one of the most violent movies ever filmed.

Guy Cooking

When you're a Guy, you're expected to cook things like roasts and steaks and chops, with a side of something starchy and deep-fried.

So, when a semi-regular foodblogging event announces that its next theme for entries will be "My Little Cupcake", what's a Guy to do?

Here, from Spiceblog, are the instructions for making your own Manly Cupcakes, an intriguing adaptation of Yorkshire Pudding, blood sausage, and a cranberry sauce "icing".

These'll put hair on your chest, deepen your voice, and add inches to your, ummm... your waistline! Yeh, that's what I meant to say, waistline.

- - - - - - - - - -

(As it turns out, a new European deli that opened up near us about a month ago actually makes it's own blutwurst!. So I'm actually planning on making some Manly Cupcakes of my own.)

Wow!

Here is an extraordinarily good piece from a worth1000.com Photoshop contest, combining classical art with robots.

I want to see this on a book cover.

Proof of Evolution: FWMOS&H Develops Spine

The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History has reversed its earlier decision to not show the IMAX film "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea", following numerous complaints and letters. Newspaper articles had reported the film had been turned down for showing after several members of a test showing's audience complained about mentions of evolution in the film.

Full article here. (Registration required, darn it, tho' you can do a search (the top entry, for the Star-Telegram paper) on Yahoo News and get an active link through there.)

The Children's Crusade, 2005

I've tried to keep this blog a Schiavo-free zone, but some things just have to be said.

Child Protesters Show Support for Schiavo

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Scott Heldreth has been arrested numerous times for picketing abortion clinics and blocking sidewalks while praying. Now his 10-year-old son, Josh, has followed in his footsteps.

Josh is one of six children - ages 10 to 14 - arrested in the past week for crossing a police line at the Woodside Hospice to take water to Terri Schiavo.

. . .

[Joshua Heldreth] walked up to sheriff's deputies, carrying a plastic cup, and ignored two requests to turn around. Deputies cuffed his hands behind his back and loaded him into a van with 14-year-old twin girls. At the courthouse, the three youngsters were photographed, fingerprinted and released.

. . .

Demonstrators have allowed their children - some too young to truly understand why they are there - to pass out religious fliers and hold signs accusing Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband, of murdering her. The children beat five-gallon buckets like funerary drums and wear shirts declaring them "Youth for Life."

Let's assume that in some alternate-Earth, young Joshua Heldreth somehow manages to get past the police, the barricades, the metal detectors, the hospice staff and everyone else with his plastic cup filled with water, and makes it to Terri Schiavo's room and bars the door against anyone stopping him from his next step.

Whereupon he, no doubt with a smile on his face, pours the water into Terri Schiavo's mouth...

...and kills her.

Terri Schiavo has such massive degeneration in her brain tissue that breathing (alas for her) is one of the few functions left.

Swallowing is not one of the functions still working. She cannot swallow. This is why that famous feeding tube had to be inserted in the first place.

Had that water been put into her mouth, some of it would undoubtedly have dribbled out the sides and onto the bed. And some part of it might have trickled down her esophagus and into her stomach.

The rest would have gone into her lungs.

And ten-year-old Joshua Heldreth would have murdered the woman he expected to save, by literally drowning her in her bed.

This is not a real hard thing to figure out: Someone unable to swallow. Put stuff in their mouth, they choke. Choke their airway badly enough, they die.

Did Scott Heldreth, Joshua's father, not figure this out?

What kind of parent would allow their ten-year old son to try and do something with a possible end result of killing another person? Is this criminally stupid? Criminally irresponsible? Or criminally insane?

When Mr. Heldreth pickets abortion clinics and blocks sidewalks, it's his own freedom he puts at risk by breaking the law.

When he allows (and encourages, even if indirectly; Joshua didn't drive himself to Florida) his ten-year old son to break the law in ways that, if fully carried out, could have deadly results, then he's crossed a line.

The North Carolina (the Heldreth family's home) department of Child Protective Services should investigate whether Mr. Heldreth's actions (and lack of actions) in Florida constitute parental abuse or neglect, and whether Joshua should be taken from his custody.


Update, 3/27/05: I asked the question, "What kind of parent...?" up above regarding Scott Heldreth.

The answer, it appears is a registered sex offender, listed as "absconded from registration" in the state of Florida.

(Thanks to this post from Daily Kos.)