it's all much worse than they're saying

This is from a co-monkey's on thesoapbox:

It is with heavy heart I write this...

I have finally reconnected with my best friend who is a paramedic who was sent from Georgia 2 days ago to Gulf Port, Mississippi before the hurricane hit.

He just reached me within the last 10 mins via emergency cell phone to tell me he was alive.

Thousands of bodies have been discovered throughout Mississippi in Gulf Port, Waveland,Hancock County,Bay of St.Louis.

They are hanging in trees and they are pulling them out 30 at a time. Entire families found drowned in their homes and washing up on shore.

The stories he could tell me were brief. National Guard is on the scene and arresting anyone seen on the streets.

The numbers are staggering and what I have been told tonight will shake people to their foundation as the numbers will be coming out in the next 24-hours of just how many people have actually perished in these and 3 other beach communities.

pray for them

After what first appeared to be a miraculous non-destruction of the Gulf Coast in the first reports of damage yesterday, things are bad. Really bad. Two levees have broken, leaving at least 80% of the city under (rising) water. This is sending more people to the Superdome (where one person has killed themselves), but leaving the need to get everyone out somehow. Martial Law is in effect in nola...and everything is "deteriorating". And that's just New Orleans.

In Biloxi, MS, hundreds are feared dead and things are such a mess that the mayor has claime dthat "this is our tsunami". Gulfport seems to have been hit hard, but I'm not finding any recent stories about them specifically.

In short...there's a lot of suffering going on down there, and my thoughts and prayers are with everyone that's suffering. Everyone's thoughts and prayers should e with them. If you have money, some of that should be going to places like the Red Cross or the Salvation Army, or even Feed the Children (these are all links to the US pages).

for your consideration:

a close call

Well it looks like New Orleans is still in one piece. It was really bothering me that this city, and a lot of the people in it, might be wiped from the face of the Earth. Though a great many people look to have died (being, in large part, the result of their idiotic decision to stay in town and "brave" it out), it could have been much, much worse. There are stories all over the place, but this one seems to have the most comprehensive information to my liking.

bad times in the big easy

So Katrina is bearing down on New Orleans and it does not look good. Looking around the internet and finding sites like this and NWS weather reports like this and this is going to be a huge catastrophe. (in case the report doesn't work, it starts like this: "MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.")

I wish all who are facing this storm all the best. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Hopefully, no one is hurt...but at the very least it looks as though New Orleans will never be the same. I wish I could have known you. (and yes, for those who knew of my thoughts of visting, my train would've left yesterday afternoon -- just as the evacuation was getting underway)

go rover go

So I'm sitting at the coffee shop waiting for the batteries to die on my laptop (might as well suck up all the WiFi I can, eh) and came across the webpage for the Mars Rovers (that have lasted waaaaaay beyond their intended lifespans and are still moving about taking awesome pictures (this image of a Martian sunset being my new desktop). They have both traveled many miles now and one (I never keep them straight) has actually climbed through some of the hills that NASA folk had thought were waaaay beyond reach when the first images of them were sent shortly after landing. This is some cool stuff (and proves to justify the continuation of the space program -- especially since it costs much less than, say, empirilistic storm trooping the globe in the name of "freedom") and you should all take a little time to check it out.

the light at the end of the tunnel

I've been pretty pissed off lately -- pissed off at the world and people in general. I reached my breaking point when it came to people bitching about the problems that they caused for themselves and didn't have the balls to admit they did so -- rather blaming anyone and anything else. Every day for a week there was something on every news broadcast about gas prices and how it was hurting those who wanted to drive gas guzzlers or avoid riding public transit when they could; there were lawsuits filed by idiots (my fav being an 85-year-old grandmother suing Rock Star games because she bought her grandson a raunchy game) trying to avoid all semblance of personal responsibility; and of course the whole Bush being an asshole on vacation while the military is being sniped to death in the Middle East. Oh, and let's not forget Herr Robertson -- the fuck.

Anyway, I'm chilling out. I'm avoiding the bar (I've been drinking heavily four to six nights a week over the last month or so) and reeling myself back into reality. My rage overload coming to an end as I give up caring once again...it is the plight of the empathetic soul in our days -- I become so sick in a world so full of self-hate and idiocy that could all be overcome if people just didn't take everything for granted.

In any case, I've been avoiding too many posts in part because I'm sick of bitching myself (and in part that I can't seem to connect to Blogger from the WiFi I get at home -- weak signal). Maybe I'll post more again...actually, I'm sure I will. Next week I start taking another two classes on my way to getting my masters degree...I'll have a good, strong signal at least two nights a week. Until then, I just everyone to know that I'm becoming okay again.

Peace out.

pat robertson part duh

So earlier today, Pat Robertson went on air and claimed that he was "misinterpreted"...that the liberal media took his "take him out" as meaning assassination when in fact he meant kidnapping. Never mind he used the word assassinate and suggested that we do it ("If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it"), that doesn't matter...

But now, this afternoon, he has released another statement apologizing for his jackassity:

"Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement," he said in a written statement.

Besides this being more flipflopping than Kerry did in any of the right's wet dreams during the last campaign (and all in one day), it seems that Robertson would do well to having the Ten Commandments put up in his office...

Specifically:

NUMBER SIX -- "You shall not murder"
NUMBER EIGHT -- "You shall not steal" (kidnapping being stealing)
NUMBER NINE -- "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Pat's claims of Venezuela, a 98% Christian nation, serving as a forward position for Muslim terrorists -- thereby hitting the American paranoid 9/11 funnybone)
NUMBER TEN -- "You shall not covet your neighbor's house..." (This is all starting as a reliance on Venezuela's status as number four supplier af American oil)

On the other hand, perhaps the world would be better off if someone took Pat Robertson out (no matter how you want to interpret that)..

pat robertson: super "christian"

It's been all over news already, but Pat Robertson yesterday suggested that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela should be assassinated. This, of course, coming from the man who suggested that the State Department be nuked, has done plenty of business with African dictator Chuck Taylor, and has claimed American Judges of being "worse than Al Qaeda".

Pat Robertson, who has regular discussions with God (such as the one in which God told him Bush would win by a landslide in 2004), is clearly a man of God...but as a man of God, I just cannot have any sort of faith in that god. His god is a god of hate and killing, and assholishness. His god, the god of many in the "christian" Right, is such a horrible, horrible, wretched being to want so much blood spilled -- the blood of Iraqis, Afghanis, or just about anyone not an Anglo-American. He's not the God that I believe in, not the God of whom Jesus spoke and represented, not the God that is Love.

I wish that people like Pat Robertson and Falwell and all their millions of followers realized what giant duchebags they all are...how fucking misguided they are in their hearts. I don't even know how they can believe this shit...and I wish they knew that it is exactly things like this that have pushed me, and millions of others, away from their fellowships. We have seen the blackness of their hearts, the hypocrisy of their faith, and the very un-Christ-like "god" that they worship.

goddag!

So, I'm looking at my stats and seeing that fully a quarter (98 out of 391 -- with several different IPs) of my visitors over the past week (and a sixth of my visitors in August) are from Norway...which makes me curious to ask how you found me and say "hey, stop and leave me a comment, eh!"

I promise I won't bite.

i don't get it

The other week, while on the way to my class an hour away, I was talking with the woman that I rode with about stereotypes or something (and specifically how I've seen police officers hone in on innocent black guys just because they're blac -- it happening once to a neighbor of mine) and it came up that she is subjected to it all the time. Specifically, she is the director of parks and recreation in a good-size suburb of Grand Rapids and, as such, in charge of the building of new playgrounds, parks, recreational buildings, etc.. Almost without fail, she told me, when a question was had by the contractors, they always turned to her second in command -- a man. It was almost always assumed that her employee was in charge and she his assistant, only because he had a penis, facial hair, and a deeper voice. "Well that's probably worse among older guys, I mean, guys my age are a little more..." She cuts me off to say that it's generally only the older, more secure, guys that are willing to accept that a woman's in charge...the younger guys are just too damn macho.

I've been thinking about this on and off for the last couple of weeks and I cannot fathom thinking that way. Whenever I've been in a position of report, I've never assumed the gender of the person I'm to report to -- male or female (aside from slightly unambiguous names) -- never. I thought people were over that. I really did.

But it's opened my eyes a little bit more to the stereotyping that goes on all over the place -- stuff I've never really thought of before. A cousin of mine sent me an article about U2's Bono that started with a statement of "some people's" (namely, the "christian" audience that the article was addressed to) questioning of Bono's "faith"...primarily because he's liberal, swears, and is a rock star. I have never judged anyone's belief in other worldly things because they say or don't say "fuck" or do or don't support drilling in ANWR...where do people get off? Certainly I may question one's faith in a peaceful religion when they support the random tossing of bombs or the imprisonment or usury of large swaths of the human race for their own personal gain...but talking shit? Wanting to protect unprotected classes? Huh?

I'm getting to a point again where I feel so un-human...so disconnected from the rest of humanity. I just don't understad the wiring that causes people to think like this. It's just so foriegn to me...like the way that sports fans can get all worked up about such an arbitrary thing as a football game or buying cheap computers to actually cause harm to another human being, physically or mentally...to judge and think them somehow less human than they are...or to think that their own kind is so superior to others' kind...

This statement might seem trite, but can't we all just realize that we're all one kind? Fucking-A...

dog days

I slept in until 2 o'clock today, after having closed down the bar and ingesting two pitchers of Strongbow Cider (damn that stuff is good!). I am not currently working or in class so I may as well...this sucks, you know? That may sound sarcastic, but it's really hard to fill up the days when there's absolutely nothing to do. I should go look for a job -- any job, just to fill the time -- but I'm too damn lethargic for that.

Anyway, one thing I have done (and regular readers might notice), is that I am removing the ads from this main page (except that one to the right, right there -->). I'm sick of whoring it up so badly. Instead, I am moving the majority of ads to the individual item pages that search engines seem to send folks to. This way I can hopefully still get enough money coming in to pay for this site without forcing my regulars to put up with those gaudy ads. If you wanna sign up for Netflix, Blockbuster, or Intelliflix however, PLEASE do so through one of my links (just click the time on a post and it will take you to an item page) -- it can be worth as much as $20 to me for doing what you were going to do anyways.

All that said, I'm sort of intrigued by Google's new search thing (that bar that should now be under the comments). I'm going to leave that up a couple days and see if it's in anyway helpful (the links should change as topics of posts change, and maybe be interesting). I'll take it away if they're more annoying than helpful.

Oh well, back to the nose-picking and masturbation marathon that is my life... ehehe

yet another shout out for juliana

It turns out my visitation rates of the last week is the result of a special about Juliana Wetmore on the Discovery Channel and viewers going to the net looking for more info. Well, as I have mentioned before, there are definitely ways to help. Financially, you can donate (sorry for the copy of the information a few posts down):

Donations can be made at ANY Vystar Credit Union to Juliana Wetmore at member number 2102465.

Donations can be accepted by mail or by wire transfer.

The mailing address is:
Vystar Credit Union
PO Box 45085
Jacksonville, FL 32232

The wire routing number is:
263079276

I was also contacted by a member of Juliana's family, thanking me for spreading the word. It turns out that she does have a website that offers the chance to read updates on her progress as well as donate. That website can be found at CaringBridge.org.

As much as this story has touched me (and I hope some of my regular readers too), I can't really keep up on these updates. If you are interested, make sure you bookmark the site, I know I will (and I'l also link when I get some better WiFi access).

no more mr. nice guy?

The other day I was crossing the street (at a light, a light with a glowing white picture of a guy walking guiding my way) when I was almost hit by a car turning left, coming from the other direction (presumably with a red blinking light in front of him). I had to jump back a foot or two. I continued on my way when yet another car began turning left into me (now I was smack dab in the middle of his way). I look at him, wishing I had a golf club to bash in his windshield, but continued on my way...

It occurred to me then that these people didn't give a damn about me. In fact, they probably had scorn for me for stalling them ten seconds on their fucking way to fucking wherever. They didn't care that I had places to go, they only cared that I was in their way, they probably wished I wasn't there.

As I continued on my way, having been almost hit twice, I wondered why the hell I care about other people...I wondered what the point was to treating other people with respect, to looking out for their interests even at the expense of mine (if that's what it means). What's the point? They don't return the favor...rarely...ever.

I almost swore off the nice guy thing right then and there, convincing myself that being nice and caring is a waste that will never get me anywhere. But then I realized that that assessment was only half right...that it will never get me anywhere, but it is the furthest thing from being a waste. Waste is living a life as a slave to money, sex, time, and ego -- to be such that being delayed ten-seconds from reaching your destination induces loathing. It was a reminder that sometimes the best things in life -- or at least the right things -- are the hardest, and that makes getting no where all worth it.

I wish other people would see this, but I guess the best I can do is teach by example...by not being like these self-absorbed losers...by being what I want the world to be like.

just a little pissed

I'm sorry, but this makes Bush look like a soulless bastard...which is probably appropriate given he probably has no soul:

Bush motorcade passes anti-war mom's protest.

Talk to the woman you fucking ass wipe! For someone that is so adamant about the righteousness of the mission in Iraq, the fucking president seems to want to avoid explaining it to anyone that wouldn't suck his dick at his request.

damn this heat

So, I don't have a damn thing going on for the next two weeks -- no work, no school -- and so I thought that maybe I would go somehwere I could get to on the cheap. So, I was checking out Amtrak's site and theit weekly specials and found a ticket from Chicago to New Orleans for $36 plus one back (the day before class starts back up) for another $36. Granted, it would cost me $60 to get to Chicago and back home, but still...$130 for a train trip down the Mississippi River down to the Big Easy...

Until I remembered the heat that's been trying to kill me all Summer. The fucking heat. New Orleans, I remided myself, is on the Gulf Coast...where it's even hotter...and more humid. The fucking heat. And of course here could be a hurricane hitting while there (hot deal tickets being unrefundable).

So I go over to Lonely Planet and see what they have to say, especially on their bulletin board. It didn't sound pretty -- locals, I guess, get their August kicks by watching drunken tourists collapse from heat exhaustion; Bourbon Street reeks of hot, putrid alcohol; and no one's showing their boobies.

Okay, that last one was just to round out a trifecta of bad things, but still -- the heat and the stench...I don't know how much I'd be able to enjoy it. I don't know. I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should just wait to see if there's some time open in my syllabus or if I should just put off vacationing (YET AGAIN) until December (when tickets to Europe sometimes drop below $300) when the coldness factor will kick into gear... Ugh.

there goes my bandwidth

So yesterday this site had 119 hits. That's a full 10 more than my previous busiest day -- when some rag ran a made up story about a virgin selling her virginity on ebay to pay for school. This time, however, it was my pleasure to have so many visitors as they were almost all seaching for info on Juliana Wetmore, the girl born without a face that I blogged a couple times back in Decemeber.

Anyway, I figure it's a good time to bring her up again as obviously some news outlet (not the hometown tv station that told her story originally) ran a story about her and people are interested (by the way -- if any of you searchers could tell me where you're coming from, that'd be awesome). Frankly, I don't know much other than what is said at the link above and the other stories linked from it (I guess she ran into some health problems a month or so ago, but she's fine now) so you're better off looking there, but I will repost the donation information again, just so it's out there:

Donations can be made at ANY Vystar Credit Union to Juliana Wetmore at member number 2102465.

Donations can be accepted by mail or by wire transfer.

The mailing address is:
Vystar Credit Union
PO Box 45085
Jacksonville, FL 32232

The wire routing number is:
263079276

Thanks all!

egads

So if anyone's tried to view this page in the last I don't know how long, sorry. The coding got whacked out somehow...only the first hundred lines of style sheets was there (with no closing tag so they were all just listed there). It's a bitch to recopy from archives, trying to swap out specifics with blogger code -- so y'all better appreciate the effort. :)

It all reminds me that I haven't made a hard copy of this behemoth in awhile. I should get on that.

something

Even though I am very drunk right now, this makes me very happy. It's probably a sing of my dorkitude that I care, but I do.

PEACE OUT!

briliant, bloody brilliant

J. Grant Swank, Jr. says that embryonic stem cell research is the same as murder. In fact, he says that "to tinker with that embryo for whatever purpose is to do damage to a real live human being."

I wonder where he stands on in vitro fertilisation which is, in fact, the tinkering with embryos (inseminiating ova with sperm outside the body, creating embryos, then implanting them into the mother's uterus), including the creation of multitudes that aren't implanted -- to end up either detroyed or kept in the deep freeze indefinitely (one alternative to these options being, ahem, stem cell research).

I would be willing to wager large odds that the suggestion that IVF be made illegal would be ridiculous to Mr. Swank. I'd wager to guess that he thinks IVF is a good thing since he and his ilk don't rally against that much anymore. I really don't get the hypocrisy of the right, I really don't.

it's true that bush is compassionate

Some random links to the news stories of TODAY:

Bush signs Latin free trade pact -- proof that he cares for the American working men and women.

Bolton gets to work; says he's glad to be at UN -- proof he believes in the democratic process and the ideas of representative democracy.

Seven Marines killed in Iraq, toll passes 1,800 -- and, for what?

God Bless America, and God Bless King George!

rebooting the habit

I've begun writing again...I mean, REALLY writing. I've restarted my travelogue that's been in the works for four years but has been put off for the last two as I've suffered some horrible writer's block. I've also written a couple poems, stuff I'm not really ready to share with anyone, but that's something too.

Anyway...