SpannerKit

Walker's gone now.

2011-12-21T00:00:00.003-06:00

Oh my Walker’s gone, my Walker’s gone and how it hurts me through and through. The love that he has given me for so many years is at an end now, and I’ll have to be content with my memories for the future. The feel of his silky fur, the shape of his body as I rub his back, the big hips, his curved spine; I’ll forget them all in time. The look of his eyes, his connection to me, is already a little hard to remember. For the past few weeks his gaze has been clouded by illness.

This is what it means to love – not endless joy, but joy with an end. To love is to love for a time only. I have loved other people and pets before, but right now I am in the middle of losing this one, this love. It seems like the worst loss and I know it will be hard for the near future.

There is some thankfulness in me though. I am thankful that his suffering isn’t going on as ill as he was. I’m thankful that our connection was a good, deep connection. We bonded so tightly and he looked to me as I looked to him for companionship and love. I’m thankful that we spent much of the last two weeks of his life at home with him. I’m thankful that the saline solution re-hydrated him enough to make him more alert for one final day. I’m so glad that his last hour and a half was spent on the couch with me where he wasn’t supposed to be, but where he so loved to be. I'm thankful that when death came it took him swiftly. And I’m grateful that I was touching him and calming him during his final brief struggle. I hope it helped to lessen his confusion and fear.

I’d give anything to think that his spirit is prancing free somewhere right now, sniffing and trotting, the way he did with his toenails clicking on the pavement, ears flopping and a little sideways in the rear end. It seems unbelievably foolish to think of his silky, furry ghost in the room with me, nuzzling my arm or maybe just standing patiently beside me as he would do for a moment before checking out some nearby attraction. God it’s crazy what the mind in mourning will come up with in an attempt to provide comfort. Maybe these fantasies are the way I’ll make the memories that I carry with me into the future. Maybe I need to make a few more Walker memories to wean me off of his companionship.

I’m going to bury him under the locust tree tomorrow. Even though we don’t really plan to stay in this house for too many more years, this house was his home for most of his life. Our back yard was his territory. It’s right that he should go into the ground here. This spring when the trees leaf out and bloom, we’ll have some of him back in those beautiful pink blossoms. I’m going to sit out there under that tree and think about him. And who knows where our future lies anyway? Maybe we will be here for a while.

In the meantime, there’ll, be no more pills in the mornings, no more infected ears to clean, no more monitoring of diet and stools, no more worry about costly foods and treatments. From this moment forward my time with Walker will be only about love. And god how I love that boy of mine.

Youtube ate my bluetooth!

2011-11-10T23:59:00.000-06:00

Reflecting on life during a rainy pre-dawn moment

2011-04-24T03:51:00.002-05:00

Well, opportunities come and go, don't they? One closes up and just as you begin moving forward again another falls into your lap. Maybe that's what keeps life fresh as we age - that constant movement forward through time and circumstance.

I just finished a huge project that took me away from much of my life for four months. I don't want to do that again. After finishing up last Sunday I took another entire week to just catch my breath and begin to relax. Now that we have had rain all weekend and I have been forced to spend most of that time in doors at home, I am feeling more like myself. I feel a peace that should come with this time of the day. A bird is singing beautifully in the dark outside my window. The potatoes and the lettuce and the locust tree and the lavender in my garden are all growing and waiting quietly for daybreak and a slim chance of some sunshine.

The things that have happened to me over the past decade should have broken me. I should have been pulled into many small pieces, or at least have been lost to eternal aimless drifting. Instead I feel a firm grounding that runs through me from my head to my feet. For the first time in my life I know what that grounding is and what it has always been. It is the people who love me. It is the people in my life who no matter what have my back and do not shrink from my experience of life.

The knowledge that a corps of family and friends supports my existance is deeply satisfying. This knowledge sits in my belly, in my soul, and it is a warm lump of love that keeps my humanity thawed out, prevents me from freezing over and cracking apart. The older I get the more I need that love and the more I can sense it. I can feel it right now even though every person who makes up that love is probably asleep and only one of those sleepers is here with me now.

No one should ever have to live a life without this kind of connection to the rest of humanity. No one who has it should die before they can identify it and put a name to it. It means something. No, it means totally everything.

When you're faced with occassions to lie, cheat, use the people near you, you must decide whether you should risk it. The immediate gain is visible and perhaps there does not seem to be any real reason to be honest, good, truthful. Well, this is the reason. Preserve your grounding. Cultivate a network of love that will keep you alive through your life.

Pow Wow 2011 St. Louis, MO

2011-04-10T11:23:00.000-05:00

It feels like spring has sprung

2011-04-10T08:37:00.018-05:00

As the trees and shrubs begin to leaf out and flower, the back yard has become a bird haven once again. This morning as I sit out with my coffee I can hear the drumming of a woodpecker across the alley. Doves are cooing as they hunt for seeds under the hanging bird feeders. The house finches are perching and flitting in the purple robe locust tree. The females are drab brown but the males have a bright red cap and when they fly off you get a flash of red from under the wings. I didn't notice these finches in the back yard uuntil this past summer, but now we have four pairs visiting our feeders. We also have purple finches coming around ocassionally.

A family of starlings has returned to their perennial home in the neighbor's attic. They go in and out of the attic between the bricks that make up the attic vent screen. One of the bricks has a chip in it and they can just squeeze through there. The male is perched at his front door right now and is going through his song repertoire. I always think of the movie Serial Mom when I see starlings. I know it is silly, but it is memerable. Beverley has a favorite starling she calls Dee Dee.

The English weavers are checking the feeders - they are nearly empty - and a robin just lit in the arborvitae. I haven't seen the cardinals yet today. A pair lives in a large honeysuckle bush behind the nearby apartment building and they will no doubt be here soon.

Just two days ago I came home from work and stretched out in the hammock to read. I was engrossed in My Life as an Indian until a frantic flapping sound caught my attention. At the same time I noticed the general bird population of the back yard scattering and heard Dudley (the rooster) screech his warning cry to the hens. I looked up in time to see a pigeon flying across the yard as fast as he could go. I barely had time to register what was going on when a peregrine falcon, wings locked, streaked across my field of vision in pursuit of the pigeon.

I have read about the peregrine's great speed and diving attacks but have never had the privilege of seeing it before. It was awesome. She came in at the bottom of her dive looking looking like a jet fighter - wings held stationary with one wing up and the other down at about 30 degrees to horizontal. It was all over in the blink of an eye.

Peregrines were revered by the ancient Native Americans who lived around St. Louis. Their art includes images of warriors with the eye markings of a peregrine. The markings, or "eye surround" in these pictures is stylized but the reference is unmistakable. Perhaps Mississippian warriors wore this symbol as a reference to the peregrine's great speed and power in attack. By the way, the pigeon got away this time.

Time and changes

2011-02-03T00:34:00.003-06:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I am here; why my life is going in this particular direction. I started out so excited and full of drive. I was going to conquer the world. Somewhere I just got off track. I've come to the conclusion that I may have paid too high a price for my education.

Working in that factory really killed my soul. I took the job to save money for college. I knew I could make the life I wanted if I could just get the degree. Well, I hunkered down there and went to work everyday. The bastards did exactly what I knew they would. As soon as they found out I was gay they proceeded to eat me alive. I was boxed in. I couldn't defend myself or I would lose my job. Losing the job meant giving up the dream and starting over somewhere else - different place, same story. So I just sucked it up and kept my mouth shut and went through three years of total hell. Some days I wanted to blow the whole fucking factory up. Some days I didn't want to be alive. I ended up being numb.

I got through it. I got the degree. I got into grad school. Then it all fell apart. I couldn't sleep; I couldn't focus. I couldn't study, I couldn't get any happiness. I tried everything I could to get through. Now I know. Post traumatic stress or something like it is still gripping my life. I still can't sleep. I haven't done so many of the things I should have done over the past few years. I can't take care of my finances properly. I can't go to bed at night. I can't get up in the morning. my best laid plans molder unfinished in a pile in the corner of the room. I am so fucking miserable of being miserable. I really need to get some relief.

Now that the crushing depression of being cast out of the graduate program has lifted I am beginning to catch my breath. During the past several months I began to feel alive again. However, at the same time I have started acting out in other unacceptable ways; in ways that are not matching my vision of my own life. It is all coming back to those years in that factory. Within a month of being hired I knew that it was a bad place for me. I went ahead and rolled the dice. I believed it was the best option I had at the time and maybe it really was. Who knows; but I'm still paying for it.

I must get control of this situation and take my life back to the path I know I must walk. I want peace. I want fulfillment. I want rest and happiness. I think I need to find a therapist.

Jon's point

2010-05-16T01:35:00.001-05:00

Ceramics and the psyche

2010-05-13T00:39:00.019-05:00

I have been admiring and collecting ceramic vessels for a long time now. If I open the definition of 'ceramic vessel' up enough to include cheap ceramic statues from discount stores I would say that I have been admiring and collecting them since childhood. I was visiting with an old friend this afternoon and discovered that she is now, in her retirement, a potter. One thing lead to another and I was inspired to photograph most of my collection and put it online for her to view. Since she is so enthusiastic on the subject I was hoping that she would enjoy looking at my pictures as I enjoy looking at the pots.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abbottsvcs/sets/72157623925266635/

I have always considered my aquisitions carefully but the process has often been agonizing because I have been unable to decide EXACTLY which features of the vessels I am most drawn to. I have long been aware that I like simple forms, more earthy colors (especially browns), and things that look somewhat rustic. When I studied Asian art history the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi really resonated with me because of the twin objectives of simplicity and rusticity. In addition, I am drawn to these qualities because they represent to me the opposite of trendy, mass-produced consumer goods. They convey feelings of permanence and connection with the earth. Brightly colored artifacts, plastics, faddish designs all remind me that our time here is short and I am not inspired to collect such things.

In the course of arranging these pictures on the web page I experienced an unexpected realization: most of my pottery is either brown or blue, but the ones that provoke a strong emotional response in me have both brown and blue colors in the glaze. I went back through the pictures and, sure enough, my favorites all have the two colors. For some pieces, one color was dominant and the other was only barely visible on a small portion of the pot. On closer inspection, it turns out that a full 60% of the ceramics I photographed have some combination of blue and brown!

Several of the items in my collection do not at first glance fit with the more serious art studio-produced pieces. These include some inexpensive "decorator" ceramics that I purchased from department stores and junk shops, a pair of small free-form dishes with very fancy glaze treatments that I purchased from a gallery while I was in my 20's, and a small dime store reproduction of a Tang Dynasty horse sculpture that belonged to my grandmother. As I was photographing these items I was wondering how I could incorporate them into the web page with the more artistic works.

As I reviewed the slides I came to the conclusion that the blue/ brown combination must be the main organizing principle of my collecting impulse. Perhaps these colors are even more important for me than the actual artifacts. Why else would I place such different ceramics into one collection?

I know that serious collectors do not include department store merchandise in their collections but I have consciously made an exception for these few items. They have the blue and brown combination and their simple but sophisticated forms make them beautiful to me.

The small free-form dishes differ from the rest of the collection because their crystalline glaze is anything but rustic. The glittery starburst patterns of the glaze were what drew me to them when I was a young man but now I find them garish. Even so, I have kept them around. Apparently the color combination does something for me that outweights the glaze.

The Tang horse belonged to my grandmother and I remember being in love with it as a child. I would stare at it whenever we would visit. After she died the little statue made its way to me and I have treasured it ever since as a keepsake to remind me of her. I photographed it and put it on the web page, but I felt a bit sheepish about including it until I saw it through new eyes: beautiful, nonsensical blue splotches on a brown horse!

I remember as a 7 year old that it was those blue spots on the brown that seemed so marvelous. Thirty-five years later I am still being provoked and soothed by those same colors. As much as my tastes have changed over the years, there is still this thread of continuity.

I just Googled "blue and brown psychology" and came to a page that discusses the meanings and symbolisms of colors: http://www.squidoo.com/colorexpert.
According to this source, blue is calming, cooling, trustworthy and dependable. Brown is stable, reliable, wholesome and connected with the earth. Maybe its a bunch of hooey, but when I look at these pots I relax, I exhale, and I often smile - even when I'm alone. In my turbulent life is it really so farfetched that ceramics incorporating both colors have a beneficial effect on me?

Since a few of my ceramics also have splashes of green or orange I thought it would be fun to see what the web page has to say about those colors. Green is relaxing, refreshing and harmonious. Orange stimulates activity and radiates energy and warmth. Perhaps this gives my collection some variety. I also have several white pieces. White brings purity and mental clarity.

So what about the colors that do not figure significantly in my collection? Yellow stimulates the nervous system; red encourages action and stimulates energy; purple uplifts and offers a sense of spirituality; black is authoritative and powerful.

When I have chosen pots in the past I have done so carefully, feeling around for how the pot matches my feelings, for lack of a clearer explanation. I think this means that I have been using my pottery collection as a psychological aid, a form of therapy. Since I have so consistently chosen the blue and the brown, apparently the goal of that therapy is to relax and ground me. I have not chosen colors that would excite or motivate me to go forth and conquer the world.

Interesting thread...

2010-05-10T13:07:00.003-05:00

John Shore recently posted to his blog titled;
Christians; when it comes to homosexuality, man up
http://johnshore.com/2010/03/13/christians-when-it-comes-to-homosexuality-man-up/
The article has called up some old memories and I have organized some of my thoughts on the topic in my response to this post. I copied and pasted my comments below, complete with typos!

I read this post with great interest and have followed the comments for the past few days. I was originally impressed with the dispassionate tone of the post and with the level, calm comments that came in during the first couple of days. Some of the later ones are a bit charged, but I guess that is to be expected.

I grew up Pentecostal, dad was a preacher, I played the piano for several years. I struggled with same sex attraction from the time of my earliest memories. As an adolescent and teenager I would fast for days at a time, spend hours prostrate in prayer, basically droving myself into a neurotic state over my inability to be attracted to women and to avoid looking at men. Two things saved me from total self destruction.

1. My mother caught me masturbating one day and since I knew it was a sin, I thought I was in big trouble. She just smiled, said, "Well, it won't kill you", and left the room. That told me that some actions can be considered sins but are still a normal part of growing up.

2. When I was 15 years old I confided my problem with a man in the church who was in his 60's. I trusted this man and during a prayer service I approached him and asked for a confidential discussion. I revealed my problem to him through my tears and his response blew me away. He said that he too had struggled with the same thing for his entire life. He said he didn't have any answers about how to deal with it. He said he could only tell me one thing - never forget that Jesus loves you; no matter what you are going through Jesus' love for you is more powerful than that. We prayed together for a while and I thanked him and we never spoke about it again.

I learned several things from this encounter. The first thing was that, quite apart from what I had been told about gay people previous to this event, they were not all predators out for a bit of anonymous sex. This man never touched me except with a brotherly hug (very common in our church), never acted inappropriate in any way, and never made me feel uncomfortable before or after our discussion. I learned that someone I trusted as a prayer warrior was actually gay AND on fire for God (as we called it in our congregation).

The final lesson really troubled me though. I got my first hint that reconcilling the teachings of my religion with my soul might take longer than I was expecting. Indeed, God never did deliver me from homosexuality. I ended up flat on my back in bed a few years later, crying for three days, praying for God to save me or take my life. It seems so ridiculous now, but it became impossible to live an honest life in that state of conflict, and I was not willing to live a dishonest life. During the evening of that last day I realized that I was hyperventilating and I came to my senses. I thought this is just too stupid. I have to get up and get on with my life. No God worth his salt would mandate this kind of BS for someone like me who has never touched a cigarette, drink, or drugs, reads the bible daily, tries really hard to be a good person, etc.

I prayed my last prayer of the day then. I prayed something like this: 'God I have done all I know to do. You have not answered so maybe I'm not praying for the right thing. Maybe I need to take control of my life and see if you can meet me there. I'm going to find a gay bar and one way or another I'm going to have sex with a man. If that satisfies my desires and curiosity then I'll come back and pray, and hope that you forgive me then. If I really am a homosexual I'll just see you when I see you.'

I did have sex with a man that night and it connected me to a part of my soul that I had been trying to kill for so many years, It wasn't the sex; it was the intimacy. I didn't think of my actions that night as a leaf of faith, I felt like I was abandoning God, albeit a god with whom I was no longer able to connect. I have since come to see my decision differently. I was totally stepping out in faith. I made that decision hoping, but not knowing, that it was the right one. I had faith that I could live through it and come out better on the other side.

I am so happy that I did not take the route that so many young people in that situation take - suicide. My will to live was too strong I suppose.

That was about 1988. I have since found God in my life. I don't find much meaning in the Biblical proscriptions to not do this or to do that. Life is not so simple that any code or book can ever be the final answer for all people at all times. That's such a childish and unlived approach. The Brother's advice from my church has carried me for many years beyond his own death. I don't believe in angels as real supernatural beings but his words to me have lingered in my ears for almost 30 years like my own guiding angel. I can still feel his arm around me and his whispered words "Never forget that Jesus loves you." I can't help but cry now as I write this because his tenderness and understanding (that should have come from my father but didn't) still sustains my spirit in hard times.

I don't know what it all means. I don't even know if there is a real god. I do pray to him from time to time but I trust in my own self now and give God thanks when I feel its necessary.

As I have read some of these long winded comments that appear to have been written by divinity students I have thought back to a scripture I remember from church as a child. I can't recite it word for word anymore, but it says trust no in thine own understanding.

You might have it all worked out on paper, but human experience trumps logic every time. When you have lived a while you'll see. If you have difficulty reconciling homosexuality with God's word I suggest you read the word then put it aside. Talk to a few homosexuals. Give us the benefit of a doubt. You may get all worked up when you hear about the gay agenda, etc., etc., but we are the ones living with these issues day in and day out. We are the ones working this out in our hearts and through our blood and tears. You might pray for us and think about us, but we are praying through our gay souls and trying to reach god. Stop talking and listen for a while. You might learn something new.

Is homosexuality a sin? When you live it, the actual question becomes a triviality, a single dimensional proposition that stands in for millions of real humans, real lives, real humanity.

Pow wow today

2010-04-10T16:46:00.002-05:00

Success!

2010-02-14T20:30:00.001-06:00

Well, the poem won 2nd place and the pie took the first prize - a bouquet of roses for Morgan! Thankfully the pie got completely demolished so I didn't have to bring any home. Boy, was it good though. Two ladies tussled over the last slice.

Will this snow never stop?

2010-02-14T00:49:00.008-06:00

What a winter. Usually by valentine's day we're getting seeds started for the garden and wearing t-shirts on the odd warm day. Now I hear that the cold could be here to stay for another month. We are staying inside and keeping ourselves occupied by baking pies. Heaven only knows how much we'll weight once we emerge from the den in the spring!

Morgan and I are going to an "anti-valentine's day" party tomorrow afternoon. I'm not sure how that's supposed to work because everyone must bring a pie and a love poem. The only thing getting deconstructed is going to be the pies so maybe it should be called a pie-devouring party. I have made a strawberry cream pie with a homemade crust and a cream cheese-whipped cream topping. I think I have a good shot at winning the pie prize. Here's the poem (another Rumi translation of course):

"There is some kiss we want

with our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lilly, how passionately

it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into

me. Close the language-door and

open the love window. The moon

won't use the door, only the window."

I love Rumi but doubt I'll even get a good applause on that one. I wanted to read Rumi's "Like This". That one is quite romantic, but I don't have the guts to go through with it.

2009-09-23T19:36:00.001-05:00

http://www.redstateupdate.com/video/ted-kennedy-the-health-care

2009-09-15T17:31:00.003-05:00

So my late class just started today and I'm already swamped with work. I'm teaching three classes this semester - Cultural Anthropology, Physical Anthropology and Evolution, and Intro to Archaeology. Of course I'm also taking a couple of night classes in plant ID and Design as well as trying to get my two houses painted and repaired before winter. Then there are the landscaping accounts that must be dealt with each and every week and the three roof jobs that are looming on the horizon. The first roof job starts on Friday. Oh yes, I've also just discovered Terry Pratchet, so I must spend some time reading for pleasure as well. I wish I weren't so bored.

I came across this cartoon a week or so ago and shared it with the Phys Anth class. Cute, eh?

2009-07-29T22:20:00.004-05:00

An ant hurries along a threshing floor
with its wheat grain, moving between huge sacks
of wheat, not knowing the abundance
all around. It thinks its one grain
is all there is to love.

So we choose a tiny seed to be devoted to.
This body, one path or one teacher.
Look wider and farther.

The essence of every human being can see,
and what the essence-eye takes in,
the being becomes. Saturn. Solomon!

The ocean pours through a jar,
and you might say it swims inside
the fish. This mystery gives peace to
your longing and makes the road home home.

---This poem is by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks in Rumi: the Book of Love.

Dear St. Louis gardeners...

2009-07-26T11:41:00.007-05:00

...this is what a rhododenron looks like in its native environment, so please stop whining to me about why your little rhody is sick. These shrubs demand the acid soil, temperatures, humidity, moisture and soil conditions that are endimic to the Blue Ridge Mountains and other similar areas of the country. If we would stop trying to force our landscapes to conform with our ideas and instead explore ways to work with mother nature I think we could be much happier with the outcomes.The diversity of plant life here is astonishing. We found this little spot just a few feet from an overlook parking area. Morgan is sitting amongst rhododendrons, laurels, blueberries, lichens, mosses, club mosses, and numerous herbaceous wildflowers. There were many plants I do not know or could only identify to the family level.

Morgan was fascinated with the lillies. I'm not sure if they are endimic, but they certainly were happy here, growing over entire ridges under and around the edges of a thin tree canopy.

I love to explore road cuts and in the Blue Ridge Parkway the opportunities for this activity are practically endless. I found tiny bonsaied rhododendrons and laurels growing in the cracks of vertical rock walls. Other plants I (tentatively) identified in rock crevasses include tiarella, asarum, and a red-leafed member of Crassulaceae. Very cool.

We happened on Graveyard Fields by chance. If I had not been looking out over a valley at the right moment I would have missed seeing an impressive water fall. We decided to explore further. After a short walk down through a thicket of large rhodedendrons we came to this huge area of exposed granite with water falls. It was the highlight of my trip, no doubt. The place was very beautiful, the water was clear and cold and it was just the best. We spent about an hour there.

This place left all my senses bursting. I would love to camp there sometime.

Asheville Bele Cher festival

2009-07-24T21:56:00.004-05:00

Saw Nikki Talley this afternoon at the Bele Cher festival - local bluegrassy-rock singer, guitar player. Incredible!
Her cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene blew me away. It was even more intense and guitar-saturated than the youtube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRVahEYoSYY
On the other hand, the online take of Maggie May http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg8UBVw_7ng is really great. She closed the show with it today, but it was a bit more of an instrumental version with less vocal work.

Here is proof that Morgan has visited a drinking establishment: caught dead to rights in the Green Man Brewery, downtown Asheville.

We had a blast on the beach Friday - Outer Banks fun! Actual photos from the beach are not allowed by royal command but I don't mind showing my skin obviously.

The coffee shop at Manteo, NC is an important pre-beach ritual that must be observed each year!

Finally, this is what crepe myrtles look like when they are on their home turf. They do get so much bigger than the crepe twigs in St. Louis.

l.p.'s the bomb

2009-07-05T19:40:00.006-05:00

I just got over my obsession with lady gaga.
Now my new obsession is L.P. You can hear a killer song by her called "Kill the Pain" on my myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/182978123
or at youtube (poor audio) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLkTxPooIus
If you're on myspace she has a page at http://www.myspace.com/lprock

My lazy day lends itself to a bit of blogging

2009-07-05T17:41:00.006-05:00

Ok here's what's been up around here lately - lots of work, some really good food, critter patrol at all hours. Some of this is documented in the photos posted here. Enjoy.

Critters: the chickens are keeping me quite busy what with their constant needs for food & water, pooping out the eggs, needing free-range time, putting them back in at dark, etc. I love it though.
Dudley - master of the barn yard and only about 7" tall! Isn't he beautiful? If he had a brain to match that attitude we'd all be his servants.

And then there's the duck and that goofy Polish hen! Don't get me started on them.

The aquarium has accumulted a diverse collection of greenery this summer - both plant life and glass decorations. I also added some neon tetras - my favorite fish. It is really hard to photograph an aquarium full of fish.

My garden is going gang-busters. I turned my back for two weeks and the heirloom zucchini sprouted several leg sized fruits. I'm waiting for the tomatoes with great anticipation - Black Cherry and Cherokee Black. I've gotten fascinated with carniverous plants over the past year or so and my most recent aquisitions are a pair of Venus fly traps that surprised me last month with beautiful delicate white blossoms. A recent realization - fly traps love to eat earthworm segments but the worm parts keep wriggling long after the trap closes so they end up half digested in the trap and half dried outside of the trap. That's a little gross come to think of it.
That ornery dog of mine brought a tick into the house last night. I found it climbing the wall beside the bed! Today he got a dose of Advantage and I got a hair cut. I think his next hair cut is coming up soon too.

Is it really that cold, or are you just a weenie?

2009-02-22T23:54:00.004-06:00

...uhh, yes on both counts.

2009-01-31T19:44:00.006-06:00

So here is my fantastic Saturday (after working):
collecting eggs,

checking and photographing chickens and pigeons,

and going to the orchid show at MoBot. This is a new Dendrobium for me - D. epidendropsis.

This one I have seen in books, but I can't remember seeing it at this show before - D. amethystaglossum.

A beautiful tiny yellow orchid.

Rhy... can't remember this one, but it's beautiful!

Who loves ya baby?

2009-01-20T22:26:00.005-06:00

God its cold

2009-01-06T23:22:00.003-06:00

Its been a while since my last post. The past year has been a blur of roofs, drywall, masonry, painting, and landscape installs. I was afraid that the economy and housing sector sluggishness would kill my wallet, but so far I am doing no worse than before. If anything, work seems to have picked up a little this winter.

It is incredibly cold this winter, but it probably seems worse than it is because I am just back from two weeks of vacation, one of them spent in warm Texas.

Anyway, what's new? Well...I have been nursing this dream for a long time now. It's actually several dreams or maybe just one complicated dream. I have been working this over for about 8 or 9 years or so. Now I can see it forming into one thing in my mind. It is almost to the stage where I decide to do it, so now I can give voice to it.

Here it is-- live in the country, on a farm, with animals, raise crops, have babies, have a warm place for just us.

Some of the animals will be chickens and milk goats. Some of the crops will be good hay for the goats so I can make some great cheese. This will be in a place that is slightly warmer than St. Louis. There will also be a tree lot for raising shitakes and there will be a stream. Walker will finally get a play mate or two. That is as far as I have got. As it is, the back yard is over run with Morgan's chickens and he may finally be coming around to the idea of kids. He initiated a brief discussion about it while we lay in bed a couple of weeks ago - a good sign.

There are a few loose ends to tie up here in St. Louis first. Pay some bills, save some money, fix up the rental house and sell it, get our house in tip top shape, wait for the housing market to rebound. Let's give it three to five ... if I can wait that long.

Winter has tormented us long enough with its silky white beauty!

2008-03-06T21:59:00.000-06:00

We went to the woods today

2008-01-27T23:26:00.000-06:00

Latest rantings

2007-12-23T11:56:00.000-06:00

Thank God Ron Paul has said that yes, he will keep the $500 donation made to his campaign by a racist white power group.

I know that might sound shocking, but this whole issue of returning campaign contributions has gotten out of hand. I don't remember hearing of this kind of thing before the Clinton years. Now it seems to be a given that in most federal and even many state races, political operatives will ferret out the misdeeds of some campaign donor in an effort to discredit the opposition. As if receiving money in a political campaign is a de facto endorsement of that individual's views or deeds. Well, I guess that works on one level because of the nature of our crappy news coverage. It's easy to make someone look bad when you only have 10 to 15 seconds to sum up the days news about that person.

Back to Ron Paul. Once again Paul is cutting through the bs and political spin games. This action says to the operatives - shut up bitch! I like it.

I just smiled at something Tucker Carlson wrote

2007-12-23T11:47:00.000-06:00

Oh My God!

Ron Paul really does bring different kinds of people together. I have always sneared at Tucker Carlson's idiotic knee-jerk neocon ramblings. I have never found anything remotely useful in the crap he used to spout about the Clintons, or actually, anything I have ever heard him say about politics at all. That may be a bit hyperbolic, but I usually do taste a bit of gorge at the back of my throat when I hear him talking.

Surprise, surprise - after reading this article http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=83665295-1de6-4571-af9c-0a90f6d1fde0 and I was really shocked to see his name on the byline. There are also some youtube clips that seem to indicate his support of Ron Paul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vawd1PlTuAs

Old pictures from Hong Kong

2007-12-21T23:42:00.000-06:00

The following link will take you to a web page of photos from my trip to Hong Kong a few years ago. I took a couple of thousand photos but these are the only ones I have managed to get online. A really nice guy I met in a Starbucks posted these on his site. He said he would leave them up for a couple of months until I could get home and get my own site up and running. He has apparently not taken them down yet. I don't know how to get ahold of him. Perhaps its not a big deal for him. Thank you again guy.

http://www.krmdb.com/web/

The new me

2007-12-20T00:48:00.001-06:00

Time for the winter beard - I put it off for quite a long time this year, but now its on.

The weather this time of year

2007-12-20T00:12:00.001-06:00

However... this is also the right time of year for some orchids to bloom. My favorite Oncidium alliance big bloomer:

Also, this baby Brassavola nodosum 'Little Stars' is just getting started:

And that is not even mentioning this beautiful scarlett double Amaryllis:

Politics, politicos, and pundits - Oh My!

2007-12-18T18:16:00.000-06:00

So our latest pretend Jesus freak (wolf in sheep's clothing so to speak) is running ads in Iowa with a not-so-subliminal glowing cross in the background. He shows his true colors though - that color is stealth grey. His cover men claim that it was just a coincidence that the bookshelves look like a cross. Yeah right. He just happened to be in a cozy decorated den of an All-American home and the Christmas greenery and the tree just happened to cover all of the book shelves except the tiny cross-like portion. Notice that the only thing actually on those shelves is an unobtrusive tiny cluster of three ornaments (the trinity?)

There is a short discussion at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/18/huckabees-christmas-ad-_n_77315.html where I found this comment. The spelling lacks much but the content sums up the manipulation at the heart of all advertising - especially political posturing where the product on sale is "truth" or "genuiness".

<<<<<
" BPCentrisAmerican Just heard the Huckster on CNN comment the that the cross metaphore in the background was unintentional, merely a bookcase, he was just offering a sincere Christmas greeting and we are all being to politically correct. One more time in advertising nothing, I mean nothing is left up to change [sic]. If you look hard a any automobile ad you will see a big square light reflecting on the paint, that"s called a soft box and that means the car was shoot in a studio, than placed in the environment in which you see it. Product is hero. The Huchabee spot is no different, he"s a product and the presentation of that product involved an account executive, as well as an assistant, creative director, art director, writer, producer, set designer, makeup artist, prop person, cinematographer as well as an assistant, editor and finally a media buyer. That"s at lest 10 people, this is my business and nothing in that spot was left up to chance. The production quality was very good and I can"t believe shoot with a digital home camera. So Mike please don"t BS us, the spot went down the way Ed Roland"s wanted it to. So your BS comment deserves the Jersey 2 stoke and a big Yea Right. Slick as snot.

posted 06:05 pm on 12/18/2007 "
<<<<<

Take this to heart -- its the kind of BS we have been dealing with for lo these many long years. Vote Ron Paul? I'm starting to lean that way. He says the things that I never thought I'd hear from a politician. I never thought I'd ever vote for a Republican, but I just might.

Where do you get your truth?

2007-12-18T00:10:00.000-06:00

"They got it off a piece of paper in a jar in a cave in a desert. That's where these people get their information."

Big Snow Tonight

2007-12-16T00:45:00.003-06:00

The holidays are here!

2007-12-02T21:24:00.000-06:00

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1144013107

This is what life is like in our house every day... from sun up to sun down!

More scaffolding than roof

2007-10-04T00:27:00.001-05:00

This job is a bear. We are spending more time erecting scaffolding that roofing. The home owner has also requested that we repair the chimneys, patch the gutters, and paint the beneath gutter sill while we're up there.

There is actually very little roof to replace. The small steep band of shingles runs around a larger flat roof. The flat roof is in good shape and we will not replace it. We are removing three layers of asphalt shingles, a layer of wooden shingles, and laying a five-tab shingle that looks a lot like slate.

This job is a bit higher off the ground than most and it has it's own challenges. The roof was originally finished with a beautiful wooden molding wrapped in thin galvanized tin. The wood is still in great shape in places, but we will cover it with a fancy heavy gauge metal trim.

Ingrates!

2007-09-28T03:34:00.001-05:00

This is what happens when I leave my workers alone with a camera. Little do they know, the Now and Later suitcase is a very important part of my tool kit.

This tree might be bigger than me but it can't outrun me

2007-09-18T23:00:00.000-05:00

Before: Ailanthus altissima ("tree of heaven"); about 45-50 feet tall; located between two garages and a fence; two large houses located less than 50 feet away. Location made it impossible to fell this tree or to drop large sections of the lower limbs and trunk.

During: Ailathus trees are known for their soft, weak wood and their thin branches break easily. I opted to limit the weight of equipment going into the tree so instead of full gear and a chain saw, I removed all branches under 4 inches in diameter by free-climbing and using a double-bit hand saw. I started at the top and dropped limbs to the garage roof below. Limbs smaller than 6 inches in diameter were hand sawn and dropped to the ground between the garages or roped down. This all took about 4 hours. Although the climbing and perching were extremely pleasurable for me, it was also very tiring. I called it a day.
.
Next I put up 25 feet of scaffolding, added safety rails and walk boards, put the chain saw to work, and used ropes to lower short sections of trunk to the ground.

We dissasembled the scaffolding as we went. As the trunk sections increased in girth I cut smaller sections to limit the weight we were lowering in such close quarters. Two hours after erecting the scaffolding we were down to the final set without a hitch.

The ground was littered with sawdust and the truck was filling up with 30+ feet of tree trunk.

Next, we jack hammered up three sections of sidewalk that were displaced by the tree's roots, excavated the soil and roots, built a form and poured concrete.

Now this is fun!

So the tree is down to ground level and the sidewalk has been replaced. Now they need to have the rest of the concrete replaced!

3441/ 3443 Iowa Street

2007-09-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

Porch before and after painting:

Ceiling:

North end:

Middle:

South end:

Roof before:
Roof after:
Decking replacement and underlayment:

New shingles:

My coffeemaker, my friend

2007-03-18T11:35:00.000-05:00

I dropped and broke the carafe to my coffee maker on Monday. I have been searching for a replacement carafe ever since, with little luck. I finally found one online but shipping takes four weeks - arrgh!

I broke down and bough a new coffeemaker yesterday. It is a sleek aluminum and black plastic Cuisinart with the minimum of lights and buttons, so it isn't too bad.

Why am I wasting online space with such banalities? I had my old coffeemaker for about 17 years. That little white plastic wonder has given me so much joy that it now seems to have become like a friend or relative to me. Grinding, filling and touching its buttons is second nature for me. I can do it all in the dim light of early morning while groggy and with my contacts out. In fact, it is sometimes the coffee that gives me the push I need to turn on the lights and put my contacts in. Living without it has left a hole in my life that a new pretty coffeemaker doesn't fill.

It took two days to find a replacement that is somewhat similar in function to my old coffeemaker pal. I looked at perhaps 20 models - all unacceptable to me because of their cheap designs, pseudo-techno light displays and keypads, and unnecessarily large frames.

I'll learn to live with this new one. In fact, it is probably about time anyway. The white surface of my old coffeemaker is stained and is beginning to peel. The heat plate has lost much of its original coating. The Mr. Coffee logo is wearing off. One morning a few weeks ago it let me down and refused to make coffee at all. I had to bang it on the counter the next day to get it to work. .

Morgan threw Mr. Coffee out this morning but I made him retrieve it from the dumpster. I just can't let it go yet. You never know - the new Cuisinart may be a piece of junk. Maybe it will malfunction and I'll be forced to order that replacement carafe.

Chinese cake?

2007-02-22T16:00:00.000-06:00

I found a recipe for this in one of my Chinese cookbooks. It is called "Celebration Cake". The dish looks beautiful and tastes great - but it is not a cake. It is actually a rice pudding that is covered with whipped creme and fresh fruit.

We ate about half of it right away, but the rest went bad after a couple of weeks in the fridge. Interesting, but I will probably never make it again. Those Chinese really know about veggies and meat stir fries, but the desserts..maybe not so much.

Cake ingredients:
1 c. jasmine rice
4 c. milk
1/2 c. fine sugar
2 bay leaves
6 cardamom pods
1 1/4 c. heavy cream
6 eggs, separated

The rice is boiled in water and drained. The rice is added to the milk, sugar, bay and cardamom and simmered for 20 minutes. This is then cooled, leaves and pods removed, and the egg yolks and cream are beaten in. Egg whites are beaten (soft peaks) and folded into the rice. This is baked in a greased and lined 10-inch pan at 350 F for 40-50 minutes. The cake is chilled overnight before adding the topping.

Topping:
1 1/4 c. heavy cream
1 c. quark (I used ricotta instead)
1/2 c. fine sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
grated rind of 1 lemon
soft berries

The cream is whipped and all other ingredients (except the fruit) are incorporated. The cream is then applied to the sides and top of the cake and fruit is arranged on top. The picture in the cookbook included sliced kiwi and star fruit with berries, but as you can see I used currants, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.

Mardi Gras!

2007-02-17T13:46:00.000-06:00

I have never been to a Mardi Gras in the snow before! It wasn't too cold, but it snowed and blew all morning. Anything this fun...

... will require some cleanup!

Confidential and Private

2006-12-31T12:34:00.000-06:00

Going through some old emails and cleaning up my inboxes - came across this gem from Morgan. This is one of the reasons I love him - he's so funny!

"well... the last two dinners i've cooked have flopped. would you be so kind as to cook tonight and for the rest of my life?"

Buzzy's gone

2006-12-28T09:18:00.000-06:00

Buzzy died yesterday morning. I think he was diabetic. He had started drinking lots of water before I went on vacation. He also had started peeing a lot and became incontinent in the house. I looked on line and found some info about doggie diabetes. It looked manageable.

When I got home day before yesterday I could see that he had lost some weight and didn't seem to have any appetite. He was moving around pretty slow too, but I attributed that to his bad hips and the cold weather. I looked out the window once after going to bed and he was lying in the yard instead of the doghouse. When I got up he was just barely warm and his eyes were fixed. I don't know if he was completely dead or just in a deep coma.

By noon he was cold and stiff and I took him over to a wooded place in Illinois to bury him. What a sweet dog he was. I sat on the leaves and cried until my nose ran hideous long snot streamers. I wish I had a good job. I wish it wasn't so cold. I wish life wasn't so hard. I wish my dog could have had all the benefits of modern expensive veterinary care.

Fort Sill

2006-12-25T11:01:00.000-06:00

Some info found online (caveat emptor):
Fort Sill history and museum information; contact information for the museum
The nearby city of Lawton was founded as a result of the massive influx of settlers in 1901.
The Mattie Beal home is a local historical site.
The Lawton Library has a geneology collection.

Some of the land rush records are discussd at this site, as well as some info and links regarding the Cherokee Outlet.
A link there lists names of land claims on the Cherokee Strip of 1893. The first name is a John Abbot of Wichita.
The Cherokee Outlet was 226 miles long and was the site of the biggest of the land rushes. It is often called the Cherokee Strip. The Wikipedia page says that the Cherokee Strip is actually something different. It was a two-mile wide strip of land along the northern border of the Cherokee Outlet that existed as the result of surveyor error.

Museum of the Great Plains has not updated their exhibits page recently, but does have a research page.
The Southwest Oklahoma Genealogical Society also has some info and several links.
A site devoted to Chickasaw history also has some information.

This is a place to start anyway.

Oklahoma City Memorial

2006-12-25T02:52:00.000-06:00

I found this site just before midnight. It is always open and it is very moving. I think the night setting probably makes it even more so. I kept thinking, "This is the shit!" By that, I mean that this is how a very important event should be memorialized. This is no mere historical marker or bronze plaque. It combines so many elements of the experience: present, past, and future.

Past: A corner of the Murrow building is still intact, shattered, at the southeast edge of the memorial. An elm tree that survived the blast is enshrined in a newly planted memorial orchard. Marble slabs salvaged from the building are reused as memorial plaques and paving stones.

Present: The memorial includes a portion of the neighboring Journal Record Building. The building's outer wall was damaged in the blast and a portion of roof was ripped away. The wall was repaired but the repairs have not been disguised. In fact, the repairs have been preserved for posterity. The missing roof section left a jagged scar on the edge of the wall and this has been preserved as well. The new construction on the site dominates the present - two huge entrance gates and a long reflecting pool that connects the two gates, and 168 empty chairs facing the pool. The former contours of 5th street are lost in the memorial landscape. In order to create the flat surface for the reflecting pool, several feet of sediment was removed in places. In other places, several feet of fill was added.

Future: Numerous small trees planted in two areas of the memorial will transform the site in the coming decades as they reach larger size. For now, almost all of the memorial can be seen from any vantage point. When these trees have matured, they will divide the memorial into a series of rooms. The experience of the memorial will be quite different in twenty years.

The memorial has that monumental aspect that is so important - very tall entrances, the mysterious reflecting pool, manicured lawn and rows of trees. All of these convey that we are in a monumental space of the type we associate with our civic religion.

An additional level of emotion is evoked here too because this is not just a huge marble construction surrounded by formal landscaping. The human element is here in numerous ways. A portion of the chain link fence placed around the blasted building is present. Family members and friends brought pictures, jewelry, drivers licenses, prayers, toys, and hooked them to the chain link fence. Those artifacts are still hanging there, faded, moving in the cold wind, evoking those gone people, rather like Tibetan prayer flags offering up their prayers night and day, even in the absence of those they represent.

I saw a real cross-section of the nation on that fence: a married couple, children, adults, whites, blacks, hispanics, men and women, a variety of occupations, and even a couple of rainbow beaded items indicating that some of my spiritual brothers and sisters were lost. ID's indicate that the dead lived in Texas, California, Michigan, Arkansas and other places.

The chairs come in two sizes - large for adults and small for children. Touches like this confront us onlookers with the humanity of the dead. They cease to be nameless, faceless victims. We who were no where near OK city, and who have no loved ones there, are prompted to begin caring deeply for those who did.

The living are represented there as well. The rescuers and recovery teams left their mark on the wall of the Journal Record Building.

The residents of Oklahoma City are there in toto. Their thanks and gratitude to the many thousands of people who assisted them in their time of need is beautifully and poignantly expressed in stone.

Finally, the memorial does not glorify the event. The interpretive museum was closed when I was there, but nowhere outside could I find the names of Timothy McVeigh or his collaborators. I had some difficulty figuring out exactly where the Ryder moving van had been parked. The location of the blast crater is not noted. With the exception of the recycled marble and the crumbling corner of the Murrow building, nothing of the original architecture or streetscape is preserved. The focus is clearly on healing and moving on.

From Dallas to Anadarko

2006-12-25T02:00:00.000-06:00

I am now in a hotel just east of Oklahoma City. I will be spending Christmas morning here, but at least there will be a hot breakfast in the morning and I can make my own coffee before I hit the road again.

It has been a long and very interesting day. I drove through east Texas in the rain. After spending too much time in Dallas I finally found my way towards Wichita Falls with a bag lunch, a front seat full of fruit, and one very large flower pot. This sucker is about four feet tall and is vase shaped. It is one of those big Mexican imports that can run about $100-150 in St. Louis. I got it for $40 from a vendor near the farmers market. This area just south of downtown has a number of nurseries, pottery vendors, wrought iron vendors, and imported furniture sales. I could have filled a trailer with stuff, but the pot is enough for now.

I stopped at the farmers market and bought a bag of tangerines, a bag of Texas Ruby Red grapefruits, a bag of bananas, two avocados, and a pound of salted, roasted peanuts in the shell - munchies for the road! The rain stopped about 40 miles outside of Dallas.

Witchita Falls was a real non-starter. I got panhandled by a couple of dreadful looking lounge lizzards at the truck stop while fueling, but otherwise, nothing of note happened.

From there, I went on to Anadarko, Oklahoma. My Aunt Ann is actually named Anadarko, and according to our family lore, my father's side of the family is the product of an Irish immigrant and a woman from a Cherokee reservation there. According to the maps I have seen, the reservations near Anadarko are not Cherokee, but I was curious to see what the place is like. Although it was dark when I went through, I did pick up a few things. Fort Sill is only a few miles away. I don't know a lot about it, but seem to remember from classes that Fort Sill was crucial in the resettlment of Native Americans and also very important in the colonization of the lower Plains.

The area has a definite Native American flavor - a couple of reservations (Wichita and Caddo I think), some Native American schools, a Native American health center, a Native American mascot for the high school (Warriors). I even saw a Native American creche. Plywood cut-outs of warriors in full ceremonial regalia were positioned around a manger in front of someone's house. How interesting! I also saw a lot of dark skinned people with round faces.

The old downtown part of Anadarko is fairly extensive and is comprised of small one-story brick commercial buildings. Based on exterior details I would guess that most were probably built before 1950, but not before 1900. Now many buildings are vacant and some house bars and junk stores, so apparently the town experienced its heyday some time ago. It would be interesting to know whether Fort Sill was an important installation during WWII. Perhaps the town's heyday was during WWII.

Just a few miles from Anadarko I saw the strangest thing of all - the Prayer Teepee.

I don't know who Johnny Sapcut is, but I hope his birthday doesn't get forgotten in all the Christmas excitement.

Becky and I talked as I was leaving the town, and we have decided to return there together this coming summer to look at graveyards and do some geneological research. I just Googled Anadarko and came up with this web page. Apparently, in 1878, the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache,and Wichita agencies were combined at Anadarko. The area was opened to white settlement in 1901 after the discovery of oil. This would work with my family's oral history. Dad was born in 1940. His father was about 40 years old then (?), so he would have been born to the Irish and Native couple just after the turn of the centry. Perhaps great-grandpa was one of the earliest to jump on the oil rush. Too bad he didn't get rich!

Clearing Brush

2006-12-23T23:26:00.000-06:00

After clearing some brush and cutting a few small sweetgum trees, this is what we had facing us on Saturday - numerous tall sweet gums, too many pine and oak trees jammed up together, and thousands of briar and vine plants ripping at our arms, legs, faces, tools, etc.

I spent most of the day clearing out all of this. Before the day was half over, it looked like this....

By the end of the day my arms were useless strings of spaghetti, my feet were bruised, and my legs were cramping up every few minutes. I finally put down the chain saw and ended the day clipping limbs of off felled logs with a lopper. Except for four small logs, I managed to get all of the logs sawed up into fence posts and stacked.

The results:

and...

and...

and...

Nothing says "Historic Town Center" like a sign!

2006-12-22T22:02:00.000-06:00

I went back to Nacogdoches and didn't find much. The town does have a college (Stephen F. Austin State University) but I never did find the "college strip" where you usually see bookstores, coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. There were a couple of thrift stores in the town but their inventory featured overpriced rags.

I finally did find a place called Java Jacks - good coffee and a very decent ham and egg croissant. The online service was free and high speed as well. All is not lost.

Before heading back to Becky's house I drove around a bit and found what once must have been a charming and abandoned old town center built around a square. Now the place has been polished to the n-th degree. The streets are either new or refurbished brick, the store fronts are full of antiques and trinkets, and a big sign on the building right in the middle of the square says.... Well, you can read it for yourself.

I went back to Becky's and we started clearing some of the brush right behind Becky's house. We got a good start before dark, then went in and had a nice diner of beef brisket, sweet potatoes with apples, etc., etc. Very nice. After dinner, we played a few games with Anna and watched several episodes of Vicar of Dibley.

Cowboy Kitchen

2006-12-21T22:04:00.000-06:00

Today was a slow day – meeting people in Timpson, drinking coffee, and driving to Nacogdoces. Ellie is a friend of Becky’s who runs a small restaurant in Timpson - the Cowboy Kitchen. The inside looked like a barn, with wooden stall-booths and corrugated tin on the walls. Older over-weight patrons sat at several tables drinking coffee, smoking, eating eggs, and talking in that slow Texan way. Grey smoke, grey hair, silvery sunlight reflecting from the parking lot outside. A couple of guys about my age came in wearing boots, hats, jeans, and handlebar moustaches. Each had a little kid with him and they sat down with a small group of elderly men and women – a family get together?

I met Mr. Borders, the man who has taken Becky and Jimmy under his wing and helped to fund their lawyers in the custody case. It was nice to finally meet him and my impression is that he is decisive, stolid, and direct. He was not shy about looking me in the eye while we talked.

We had some unremarkable Tex-Mex food for dinner – like a couple of bricks in the queasy-o estomago. Tomorrow I’ll drive back alone and stop at the Starbucks for breakfast and to check emails and post this. Maybe I’ll find a taqueria for lunch.

Vacation comes once in a while!

2006-12-20T23:59:00.000-06:00

How long has it been since I have had a vacation? I can’t remember but it seems like years. I am traveling southwest from Little Rock towards Texarkana, bound for east Texas. The rain comes sporadically in the dark and the highway stays wet between showers. Not all of the traffic slows to accommodate the bad weather. Some drivers plow ahead at full speed, tempting fate and relying too much on the safety features of their vehicles. When I talked to Becky a few minutes ago she cautioned me to slow down as several people were killed this evening in their little town of Timpson in a two-car accident on the wet highway that passes through town. The reaper has no mercy on the foolish or unlucky.

Sometime after the rain stops I begin to yawn and wipe water from my eyes. I consider getting a hotel for the night, but instead I stop for fresh air and a stretch. I am awake again. I call home to Morgan before pulling out of the parking lot and we talk about our schedules, our hectic lives, our unsatisfied expectations. Even though I am more than 400 miles from home, it feels good to sit there in the warm, moist darkness with Morgan in my ear. We hang up and I pull out onto the road, hit the CD player and accelerate. Frenetic guitar music pours out of the speakers. The road rushes up to meet me and I float on toward Texarkana.

Winter Disaster!

2006-12-02T15:39:00.000-06:00

Oh crap! The power's off again. This time the temperature is hovering around 10F and lower at night. The trees that survived the wind storms in July are breaking under the weight of ice.

Thank goodness for the generator. We have TV (most important of all!), lamps, a space heater, and phone chargers. We are set. Now, to get that flue repaired and install some heavy duty andirons and a screen in the fire place!

The picture was taken about midnight, early Friday morning, at the height of the ice storm. Limbs were breaking and transformers were exploding all around us. It was really scary to have the interior of the house light up with a bright blue flash every time the downed power lines in the alley arced.

The coating of ice is very pretty however. The asparagus and spider plants on the front porch look magical. I'm not sure the spider plants will survive though.

Morgan has a very large Euphorbia (pencil plant) in the back yard that did not get brought in in time. I'm sure it is a goner. Too bad - it was pretty impressive. The chickens spent last night in the basement and the dogs kept each other warm in the foyer. We snuggled under the electric blanket and 5 other blankets - toasty!

The whole town is transformed into a frigid and sparkling wonderland. The coffee shops are bursting with Ameren UE refugees and who knows when we'll be able to shower?

2006-09-17T22:25:00.000-05:00

The past couple of days have been very nice and relaxing. I have done a bit of homework and some research, but overall have got in some good relaxation and have spent some badly needed quality time with Morgan. Yesterday afternoon we went to Target and bought some games – a pack of Skip-bo cards and a box of board games – checkers, chess, Chinese checkers, etc. Last night after dinner we sat on the couch and played Skip-bo and checkers for a couple of hours before we went to bed. That was so nice, just sitting in the quiet and relaxing together.

We started this morning off by breaking the lawn mower down and doing a long-overdue maintenance. I cleaned the entire engine area with carb cleaner and a spray-on gel solvent that worked like magic. I changed the spark plug and air filter. With Morgan’s help I also changed the oil and gas. It started right up (to my relief) but the uneven running was still there. With the housing off I could see that the spring regulating the throttle was too loose so I stretched it out and made the spring shorter. Now it runs beautifully. I need to find a new spring because this is only a temporary fix, but I’m happy with it for now.

After mowing the lawn I made Spanish eggs with migas for breakfast – yum! We rested a while and then went to see my favorite Almodovar movie Mujeres al Vergio de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). The Tivoli is having a film festival of Almodovar movies this month. I will be going to see another on Tuesday night – Flower of My Secret.
Tonight after dinner we played a few more games of cards. I should be working on homework but, technically, it is still the weekend.

anchor of the soul...

2006-09-12T05:49:00.000-05:00

My dogs are driving me bananas...

2006-08-06T14:51:00.000-05:00

...but I do love them so much! Walker has developed a problem with his ears. He has been flopping his ears back and forth a lot, scratching them some, and there is a lot of stinky, reddish brown stuff in there. Yuk!

At first I was afraid he had the mange but some web research disabused me of that hypothesis. Then I thought perhaps he had ear mites. I swabbed his ear canals and looked at the gunk under the microscope - no mites! I took him to the vet and the vet said he has ear infections. I am now washing the ears every other day and putting in medicine twice a day.

I think I know how this happened. I have noticed that Buzzy licks Walker’s ears a lot. He is even trying to lick the medicine out. The vet said that there were high levels of yeast in Walker’s ear swabs, so maybe this is a result of Buzzy’s incessant licking.

I went to PetSmart today and bought some bitter apple spray. I am now spraying that around Walker’s ears, being careful to avoid spraying into the ear canal or around his eyes and nose. Poor Buzzy! He really wants to lick but can’t. I hope this stops that disgusting habit for once and all.

What a JERK!

2006-07-30T01:47:00.001-05:00

So I'm headed home from the Home Depot with a rented chain saw to get rid of a few broken limbs. I get on Hwy 40 and some creep flies up behind me in a two-tone purple van. I can see him coming up quick and he is weaving back and forth across the lines. I am up to about 70 mph and he passes me sitting flat! He must have been doing 90. After passing me he weaves around several other cars and then snatches it to the right and just about hits another car. He seemed to be having trouble staying between the lines.

I sped up to get his tag number and call 911. I strongly suspected he was under the influence of something, based on his driving behavior. Just as we went under the Oakland Avenue overpass he almost wiped out in the curve in the left lane. He came within inches of hitting the concrete median. I decided to back off.

Of course he overcorrected and went into the middle lane. Then he swerved back to the left and plowed into the median. I was about six car lengths back and there was a single car between me and the van. I started braking immediately.

The glancing blow sent the rear of the van into a skid and the van was sideways, then rolling, then airborne, then rolling again. The last thing you want to see on the interstate is the underside of a van, in the air, above the car in front of you!

Miraculously, he did not hit any other car. The road was crowded but I guess everyone had time to see this coming. I stopped and ran over to the van. One or two people got there before me. The JERK was lying half out of a rear window and there was blood on his arm. A yellow moving dolly, some golf clubs, a white hard hat, a tool box, a 1-gallon red gas can, and several - no - many beer cans were scattered all around the upside down van.

A man knelt beside him and asked if he was OK and what his name was and where he was from. The prone ex-driver was very surly and replied, "None of your business, shut up!" He sounded drunk and angry - perhaps conditions that contributed to the wreck?

I was calling 911 as I was running towards the overturned van and gave a full description of the situation and location, with my name and number. Almost immediately sirens began to approach from several directions. The wreck was practically in front of the hospital across from the zoo. As traffic was stacking up behind us I decided the best thing to do would be to get out of the way.

Of course after I left I got really angry and turned around. I parked on Oakland and walked down to the highway, intent on giving the police a statement about the way he had been driving prior to the wreck. I never got the chance, but I did talk to some women who were in the gathering crowd of onlookers.

One of the women turned to me and asked if I would mind making a statement for the news. She turned out to be with WB 11. I didn't mind so I just told them what I saw. The whole time I was talking for the camera I was thinking about the Neil Young song from the Greendale album that goes "It ain't an honour to be on tv, and it ain't a duty either." I agree with that, but I wasn't the guy in the van so, of course, I didn't feel exploited.

I didn't get my moment of TV fame though. Apparently a small plane crashed this afternoon in western Missouri and my segment never aired - not important enough I guess.

On the way home I remembered what Morgan says - things always come in threes. I don't really believe that, but this makes two dramatic events that I have witnessed this summer. Now that I am working in a small triangle of land formed by three railroads I can't help but wonder if the next spectacular disaster won't include trains. Just to be safe though, I refuse to get on any airplanes until at least the autumn.

I'm Melting! I'm Melting!

2006-07-28T19:03:00.000-05:00

First the heat wave came. Then on Wednesday, the 19th, a terrible wind storm hit. I watched the huge tree in my neighbor’s back yard shred in the wind and then the power went out. We were without power for almost a week, along with about 700,000 other homes and businesses here in the St. Louis metro area. All of the food in our freezer and fridge spoiled. We got power back for a few hours and then it went out again just as we got the place half way cleaned up. Power was out for another day.

The main problems were heat (no AC) and boredom. The morning after the storm I nailed up sheets of plywood over our southern windows. This kept our house from turning into a blast furnace. The hottest inside was 96 degrees one day. Most days the temperature was around 92 degrees on the second floor and 88 to 89 degrees on the first floor. We spend Thursday night sleeping in the basement. That was more comfortable temperature-wise, but the basement smells like gasoline from the lawn mower so it wasn’t all that pleasant.
We had another rainstorm on Friday so things cooled off and we were able to sleep upstairs with the windows open.

We finally purchased a generator. Lowe’s and Home Despot were both shipping them in from far and wide and they were apparently selling like hotcakes. I called and drove to stores in search of a generator on Thursday and Friday. I even called stores in Columbia and Cape Girardeau, but no luck. We finally had good news on Saturday afternoon – one store said they just got a shipment in so away we went. After a 45 minute drive we arrived at the store just in time to see the last generator being wheeled out by some lucky shopper. Believe it or not, that same thing happened again later the same day – very frustrating.

We finally got one about 7pm. What a relief! We hooked up the fans and lamps and watched some TV. Oh, the luxury! We were able to sleep upstairs with the fans pulling the hot air out and the cooler night air in.

On Sunday morning the generator seemed to be working out fine, so I invited my neighbors on each side to run their power cords over to our spare outlets. I was quite proud that our generator was able to keep us and our neighbors a little cooler and perhaps a little saner. The generator made lots of noise, but it was worth it until the power returned on Wednesday.

Throughout the whole ordeal Morgan and I went to a little coffee shop near the house often. Somehow, Hartford Coffee Company kept power through it all and we went several times a day to drink icy drinks, check emails, and escape the dark hot boredom of home. All in all, it has been an interesting time, coming so close on the heels of our wonderful vacation.

I have to say though, having Morgan with me has definitely made this experience easier. Morgan had scheduled another brief trip to visit out-of-town relatives for early this week, but he refused to leave me here alone until the power was restored. I am really thankful for that. We laughed about being unable to go into a room without flipping the useless light switch. We took MANY showers every day. We got really sick of eating out.

I guess we are spoiled. A few days of high temperatures and severe TV deprivation and we feel like the world is ending. All I can say is thank god we are not living in this or in this!

Hello Chi-town!

2006-07-14T20:00:00.000-05:00

Heading up to Chicago on the Amtrak "American Eagle." It was a nice ride and we had a great time. We have already taken dozens of pics and had lots of good food.

Morgan under the Marshall Fields clock - a picturesque old building among hundreds of others. Boy, did we ever shop! I mean, boy, did I ever shop! We went through the entire building in search of the Tiffany ceiling and finally found it. Some of the photo and artifact dispays throughout the store were pretty interesting as well.

The bag Morgan is holding is a plastic Dierbergs bag with our sunblock, wet wipes, Advil, etc., inside. After hauling that thing around for a while I decided that coming to Chicago without a back pack was a bad idea. We ended up buying a back pack at Old Navy. I found a killer brown linen shirt for $12.50 there and got that too.

We spent the rest of the morning hiking through Millenium Park, past the Buckingham fountain, on our way to the Shedd Aquarium. The aquarium was really nice but I didn't get many good pictures.

We did go up to the 103rd floor of Sears Tower even though the admission was more than I remembered from the web site and I got grouchy and snappy. It was hot and I was tired, but we saw lots of tall buildings from the less usual angle - the top side. We were both grouchy by the time we got out of there but it was dinner time.

We stopped at a pub called Elephant and Castle. Morgan had a seafood pie. I had a good dinner of Yorkshire Pudding and a fat black and tan at the Great eats!

Just after leaving we happened by this great sculpture. I thought it might be the Picasso I had heard about. I have since learned that it is in fact "The Flamingo" and was created by the American sculptor Alexander Calder. I never did see the Picasso.

Bad Times - Drowning on the Meramec River

2006-07-11T12:08:00.000-05:00

Morgan and I were swimming at Castlewood State Park Sunday evening when it happened. We were feet away from where those boys went under. There were no other adults close by. Several Hispanic adults had been in this area collecting clams, but the last man and woman had begun to move upstream. This group of boys came floating down in shallow water and were about 25 feet from us. They were yelling 'help, help' and laughing, wrestling, playing on the edge of the sand bar in ankle deep water. We went on down stream.

Perhaps ten minutes later I swam back up stream. This time the shouts for help were real but no one around would have payed attention by then. Crying wolf is a bad idea. The boys had apparently moved to the back side of the sand and gravel bar and had walked off a very steep sand lip. The drop off was immediate and very deep.

Last summer this area was very shallow and still; a backwater just behind the main current of the river. Apparently this has now changed. This part of the river is still out of the main current, but it appears that the river bottom was gouged out, probably in a flood event.

I was swimming back upstream and was maybe a hundred yards from a boy who began calling for help, in earnest. A woman from the shore called out to him and asked if he needed help. He said yes and was bobbing up and down. I continued swimming upstream toward them, wondering what was happening, not really believing what was happening. She started out towards him and instructed him to not struggle or pull her under. I was getting closer and she was getting him out of the water. He was OK.

Then a child on the bank started yelling that someone else was missing. Two other adults arrived on the shore then and started into the water. I think they were wading near the beach, feeling around in the water. As I moved towards the shore I was feeling below me with my arms and legs. I dived under a few times, but the water was black and I could not find the bottom. That backwater area was really wide and I knew that there were not enough of us to find him. Then, amazingly, someone found him. I got to shore just seconds after two other people pulled him out. His body was limp and his eyes were half opened - they looked like white jelly and they were still. I've never seen a dead person but I knew he was. A little boy said his name was Damon.

About three or four teens and children were there on the bank crying and praying. One man and one woman did cpr over and over. The woman was counting loudly and doing compressions. The man did the breathing. Another man came out of the trail in the woods and watched. I watched too. I didn't know what else to do. I wanted to hold the children but I didn't know them. Between compressions the breath man yelled "pray ya'll". Then the kids started praying louder and speaking in tounges. It was a terrible mix of the past and present and so futile.

Morgan and I got the dogs and left. Later we learned that there were four other dead boys. I think they must have been beneath me in that hole.

What a waste. I hope the people who organized that trip go to jail or get the crap sued out of them. You do not let children who can't swim get into a river unsupervised; and believe me - when those boys were laughing, yelling, playing, alive - on that sand bar - they were not being supervised. The only adults there were me and Morgan - strangers, not connected, not paying attention to them, not responsible for them.

Those boys were on a church trip. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch article, the preacher said they were supervised. Those boys were left to drift in a dangerous river without swimming skills and without supervision. I don't care what the preacher says - I was there and he wasn't.

Good Times

2006-07-07T11:45:00.000-05:00

Becky and Jimmy came to visit last week and brought the girls along. We went to the City Museum and a great time was had by all. I think that place is even more fun for adults than for children - but I only speak for myself. The museum is full of really cool architectural element, machine parts, etc., that have been recycled from other buildings into useful design elements here. It is a visual feast and I wish I had taken more pictures. I got too caught up in the fun to take many pictures, but these marbles and cogs decorating some of the support columns near the museum's entrance are representative of the imaginative and beautiful use found objects throughout.

Jamie and Anna both got to 'fly' the airplane but getting to it was as much fun as being in it. The trip back to the ground was an adventure too. Anna got frightened in the rebar and wire tubes and had to ride monkey style, clinging to my stomach and chest as I crawled and scuttled along forty or so feet above the ground.

Anna was determined to get back to the ground though because she wanted to get into the ball pit. I think she liked that best of all. I ended up dropping my camera case into the pit and of course it was impossible to find.

Oh yeah, that's good stuff!

2006-06-25T19:17:00.000-05:00

Walker and Broccoli

2006-05-20T07:32:00.000-05:00

I cut these two heads of broccoli from my garden about 6:30 this morning. There are four smaller heads just waiting. I have some flat whole-wheat noodles from the Asian market, so I am going to boil them, cut the broccoli into florets and blanch, and then pan fry them both with some garlic, turmeric and sesame oil. Last I'll throw in a couple of eggs and scramble well. That should make a great breakfast with five-grain toast.

Well, there goes all of that nice new grass I planted in the back yard!

2006-04-28T12:10:00.000-05:00

Morgan is hatching these ducks in an incubator in his class room. He claims he's doing it for the students, but I know better! Destroyed lawn aside, it will be a real pleasure to watch them grow after Morgan brings them home.

2006-04-24T10:24:00.000-05:00

What in the world is wrong with Jeremy Pitts?

2006-04-21T11:58:00.000-05:00

Jeremy Pitts, Child Protective Services investigator in Center, seems to be falling down on the job. According to local sources, the following conversation was overheard during a shared lunch between Pitts, a local law enforcement official, and an unidentified children's counselor with some knowledge of the case.

A portion of that conversation is reported to have been:

Pitts: I'm not gonna fool with this case, I'm ready to send those girls back to their dad.

Counselor: You need to wait on that until we know all that's going on.

Pitts: I don't have time to fool with it.

Law Enforcement: You don't have the right to do that. The investigation is not complete and there is evidence of abuse and neglect. We need to complete this investigation before you uproot those girls.

Pitts: I don't care; I don't want to bother with it.

If this conversation makes you as angry as it did me you can call Pitts' boss and ask about his job performance. Pitts' supervisor at the CPS office in Center, Texas is Andy Wells (936-591-0525). Eugene Frizzel, at the regional office in Nacogdoches, Texas can be reached at 936-569-7931.

The ombudsman for CPS in Austin is at 877-787-8999 or contact@hhsc.state.tx.us. I never got an answer at this number, but the recording gave a fax number: 512-491-1970.

The Ombudsman Office, Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services can be reached at 1-800-720-7777. I had better luck here; I got through to these folks fairly quickly.

Why in the world would a person in charge of the safety of children act like that? I don't know, but according to another anonymous local source, my nieces may be falling victim to a petty power struggle between CPS and local children's counselors.

The counselors present information to courts concerning the health and welfare of children in these situations, much like CPS. In more and more cases, representatives of the counseling group are opposing the findings of CPS. As courts increasingly side with the local counselors, CPS officials are taking it personally.

I don't know to what extent this situation may be affecting my nieces. They have been served by local counselors for several months and perhaps Pitts just doesn't want this slam-dunk case to come up in Texas. It might represent a loss of face for him. It sounds crazy, but so does the blatant disregard for the welfare of children made clear in this conversation.

That kind of disregard is also evident in Pitts' interactions with Jamie on this past Monday at her school. Pitts took Jamie out of class and into a private room. With out any other adults present, Pitts locked the door and interrogated Jamie about where she had been during the past week. Some of his questions: whether she knows the difference between right and wrong, and whether she knows the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie. To Jamie's credit, she refused to rise to the bait.

Thanks a lot Pitts for being unprofessional and antagonistic towards a 13-year old victim of sexual abuse. Would you treat your own children that way? Maybe you are a bit too focused on some of the institutional requirements of your job instead of on the actual welfare of children.

Of course CPS is a classic bureaucracy. A sociological understanding of bureaucracies make clear several relevant facts: these structures are rigid and hierarchical; they are not always so good at solving the problems of individuals; rules and bureaucratic structure can become more important than outcomes.

Social scientists have long recognized that bureaucratic models are ideal types but in real life, organizations often pursue goals in ways that are harmful. For example, an agency that follows the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law may end up harming the population it was designed to serve.

"Group think" is another problem long associated with bureaucratic organizations. Employees who focus on following rules may lack the ability to think about problems critically. As a result, mistakes of the agency go unrecognized, and the organization is not able to make changes. A related problem of bureaucracies is the protection of incompetent officials.

The impersonal nature of interactions demanded by bureaucratic structure is potentially damaging to clients. People become tasks or objectives. Children become 'case files' rather than vulnerable humans. When bureaucrats work in this way, they can lose sight of the consequences their actions have on the children they should be serving.

I hope the bureaucrats in this case can be shaken out of their institutional stupors before too much more damage is done to my family.

Becky is out of jail and the weekend is almost here...

2006-04-20T14:55:00.000-05:00

Boy, am I glad. The past two weeks have been pure hell. I am breathing a sigh of relief right now because Becky and Jimmy were released on bond yesterday and are reunited with the girls.

All is not rosy though. The Child Protective Services agency in Center, Texas persuaded Becky to have her girls brought back to Texas so they could be back in school this past Monday. They promised they would not take the girls and return them to Tennessee - the main thing was to keep the girls in school. Becky took a big chance and agreed to that.

Wouldn't you know it, at 8am on Monday morning the Big Loser ex husband was waiting at the school to take the girls back to Tennessee, paper work in hand. It seems that the man from CPS may have been a bit duplicitous. How did James know that the girls would be back on Monday? Who informed him? Very few people knew about that and the only one's I suspect are the CPS officials.

To their credit, the local administrators of the school, the local DA, the sherrif's department and several other individuals frustrated James' efforts to reclaim his abused daughters. He was not allowed to see the girls and the adults caring for them in Becky's place stood up to him as well. I don't believe in angels, but there are some angelic people walking around in small-town Texas.

The DA suggested that James hire a local attorney. After visiting a few attorneys he complained to the DA that they all wanted $1000 or more upfront to take the case. The DA reortedly asked him if his girls were worth $1000. Apparently, she reminded the Big Loser that Becky was willing to sit in jail for the safety of her girls, to which he is said to have replied, "I don't HAVE to spend $1000!"

Yes, he is used to getting his way in Dyersburg, but his relatives are a long way from Center, Texas. James' sister is not a close personal friend of and hairdresser to the DA in Center, Texas. She can't call that DA and ask for special treatment. Yes, you guessed it. I am referring to a previous incident in Dyersburg. James acted the fool at a custody hand off and was arrested for screaming and getting violent. Apparently, he became violently jealous of Becky's new husband, all in front of the girls, of course.

At the court hearing the Dyersburg DA (Phil Bivens) apparently told James that he was going to go easy on James at his sister's request. Yes, James' sister cuts the DA's wife's hair and they are close pals.

Thanks a lot Bivens. You and the other Dyersburg cronies are up to your hips in responsibility for what has happened to my nieces. Their mother would not shut up about it. She called you and called you. She cried and eventually she began to yell. She became a big problem until you all began to despise her. We would all be better off if you jerks had just done your job professionally and listened to my sister when she told you that her children needed protection.

Maybe you remember the police report that Becky filed against Crystal, the reported prostitute who was convicted of Schedule 6 drug possession in James' home while the girls were there. Since having adults carrying on a sexual affair in front of the girls wasn't a problem for you, and since having drugs in front of the girls wasn't a red flag for you, my sister started asking questions around town about this girl. Here is a mother who is having to do investigative work to protect her children because the bozos in charge of the system are asleep at the wheel.

Remember that the police report my sister filed included witnesses who said Crystal was driving a four wheeler on Main Street with the girls riding behind her? Did you not even interview the witnesses? Maybe you thought that the police report was just an act of revenge because Crystal was shacking up with James. What would you do if you knew a doper of questionable repute was not only living with your children, but was also carrying them around busy streets on an off-road vehicle, and having sex and doing drugs in front of your children in their home?

I bet you would all get very upset. You would make sure that your children were not exposed to those harmful things. But other people's children, well I guess that's a different story. You are responsible, but do you care?

Folks, that is just one of many similar situations that my sister has lived through over the past couple of years. After endless bouts of head lice, a four year old losing nearly half of her body weight due to not being fed, having crack whores living in the house, children unsupervised for days at a time, etc., etc., any same mother would take her kids away regardless of what the courts decree.

To wrap this all up, when Becky took her girls back home last night they found their house broken into and ransacked. Several items were missing, but not the court papers, abuse documentations, and other relevant documents. Those are in a safe place and have all been copied and distributed among a number of family and friends for additional safe-keeping.

I wonder who it was who broke into their house, left guns and money in plain sight, but went through the lingerie drawer, the bed linens, filing cabinets and stacks of paper work. Why was the 12-year old's bedroom completely torn apart?

Perhaps someone is interested in covering their tracks and destroying evidence of other crimes - perhaps crimes perpetrated against a 12-year old girl who is known to keep a very personal diary. I don't know who broke in, but it is not likely that James left Center with any of the things he went there seeking. And for his preacher friend, I'll tell you more about him later. What kind of man of God would accompany a bullying, child-abusing drunk on a cross-country attempt to endanger innocent young girls. Is this man a fool or just plain evil?

What is justice?

2006-04-16T08:10:00.000-05:00

My sister is not the first mother to experience cruel abuse at the hands of the legal system in West Tennessee. Read about the deeds of Judge David Lanier in this 1997 story from the Memphis Flyer. Lanier sexually assaulted a number of women who worked for him or came before his court. Lanier's brother was the DA and nothing was done for years.

Even after his conviction, Lanier's buddies on the Sixth Circuit reversed the conviction on the grounds that freedom from sexual assault isn't a federally protected right. According to the Sixth Circuit, this is not a right because no court has hever recognized it as such. And we think we have a problem with terrorists! This kind of BS from the courts is a clear and present danger to women and their children.

Thankfully, the US Supreme Court vacated this judgement and sent the case back to the Sixth Circuit.

The Lanier case received national attention and was featured in a book by Darcy O'Brien called Power to Hurt: Inside a Judge's Chambers : Sexual Assault, Corruption, and the Ultimate Reversal of Justice for Women.

What does my sister and her children have to do with the Lanier case? We are dealing with the same community, the same people. Lanier was not alone in his attitudes toward women. The people who have directed the outcomes of my sister's case know Lanier, went to church with him, belonged to the same clubs, are related to him. Dyersburg is a very small town. West Tennessee is a very small and insular place. Relationships matter more than people.

Mama's hands

2006-04-16T07:19:00.000-05:00

Let's all punish the innocent

2006-04-15T12:31:00.000-05:00

I have been getting recorded messages on my answering machine for the past two days from some 1-800 number. The message refers to a blocked account and billing issues. I have been assuming that they were some kind of telemarketer and have been deleting them. However, after two days of no calls from my sister in jail I realized that it must have something to do with her.

I called the number and was greeted by a recording referring me to some company that handles all calls from corrections institutions. I called them. After maybe 15 minutes on hold, I was informed that my "account" was indeed blocked. I didn't know I had an account I said. Your local phone company has blocked the account he said. Why? I asked. Because more than $50 has been charged to your phone number from a corrections institution during the previous two days he said.

I was flabbergasted. My sister had said that each call would cost me $6 flat and could last no more than 20 minutes. I though that $6 was rather expensive, and since we have talked only three times, I was expecting to spend about $20 for those three calls. As it turns our, each call begins with a flat charge of $3.95 and each minute costs 89 cents! Obviously, she was misinformed somewhere along the line. This is worse than expensive - it's exorbitant.

That was the last straw in the moldering hay bale that was this week. I have already dealt with the fact that I can't call my sister. She can only call out. She has two calling options - call people collect or use a jail phone card. She can't purchase a phone card because she doesn't have any cash in her account. I can't send her a phone card but I can send money to purchase one from the jail (50 cents per minute).

In order to buy her a phone card I can't call the jail and purchase one with a credit or debit card - that would be too easy. I can only pay by MAILING the jail a money order for the exact amount, including taxes. If I want to send some money for her commissary account, I must send a separate money order. Maybe there are good reasons for all of these rules, but I am accustomed to a little more choice in my life, and it make me feel dehumanized to have every aspect of my communication so closely controlled by some faceless system.

Of course I broke down and paid to have my phone "account" unfrozen. This means I charged $50 on my credit card to have the line open so my sister can call me again. The "transaction fee" was $8! I was told that the line would be open in "2 to 24" hours. Unbelievable.

To his credit, the man on the line was very nice without sounding chipper. No doubt he is only an operator, not the originator of these devilish rules. He probably hears lots of angry callers, perhaps he hears people crying often. He probably heard me crying out of frustration. An hour later I received another automated call informing me that my phone bill would include a billing fee. I don't know what this is for or how much it will be. No further information or number was given. I'm not even surprised. I hope they send me a tube of vaseline with the bill, but I'm not expecting that courtesy.

I imagine the sharks at Evercom have lobbyists who talk to our legislators and regulatory commission representatives. They probably say things like 'we shouldn't make it too easy in jail'. Or maybe they say 'the public doesn't care if we rip off the families of criminals.' Or maybe they say 'who is going to argue in favor of more phone calls from jail?'

In the end, who are the people who sit in jails and prisons, regardless of what they did or did not do to be there? They are the poor, those of us without resources. The wealthy and connected don't go to jail. They are the people who complain about the system but don't get heard. The criminals have families who love them, but they are poor too. It is these people who are getting soaked.

I don't have the money to spend on all of this. I don't know what is ahead. I can only love my sister and work on her behalf. Evercom and the system are making that harder to do. Thanks a lot you pricks! I hope some of you crash and burn in your luxury automobiles - especially you Bernie Evers.

My sister still has not called. I don't know what message she gets when she tries to call. I hope it isn't something like 'Your call was refused.'

What is it like to have a loved one locked away in jail?

2006-04-14T01:13:00.000-05:00

I’ve never thought about it very much - until now. It is a heart-rending experience. My sister and her husband are both sitting in separate cells in Center, Texas. They cannot see one another or speak to one another, but they can hear one another moving around in their cells.

My sister can call me, but not on a cell phone. I can’t call her. The phone call costs me $6 and lasts only 20 minutes. Our conversation is interrupted by a recorded message every minute or so that says something to the effect that ‘this call is from a corrections center’. She can’t reach her children. They can’t reach her.

She is in a cell with three women. She can talk with a total of seven women in her cell and in nearby cells. All of the other women have been locked up on drug charges or child abuse charges. My sister feels very alone and out of place.

My sister spends the day thinking about the kids and how to get through this and back to them. I spend the day thinking about who to call next; what I could be doing right now to help. I am the only family member who can is able to organize a defense strategy. I don't know how to even begin. During the day at work I stop in bathrooms and dark corners of hallways to cry. Sometimes I just sit in the truck and cry for a while before I leave one place heading to another. My mom and dad are going crazy.

My nieces can’t understand why their mom and papa are in jail. They don’t know how long things will be this way and I can’t tell them because I don’t know either. They didn’t even know until I talked to them yesterday. I told the twelve year old. Do you know what its like to tell your little niece that her mom and papa are in jail? I thought she would have an idea, at least, but she didn’t. What was worse was how quickly the crying passed. She let out one very painful sob. Then her voice was firm and calm, almost immediately. For a second I wondered if I had imagined the cry. Then I realized that self control like that must come from practice. What has she been through to learn to respond to pain that way?

All of this because my sister refuses to allow her daughters to be violated in the most heartbreaking ways while in the custudy of her ex-husband. My sister is a hero in my book. She is sitiing in jail for her children's safety.

Child prostitution

2006-04-11T02:34:00.000-05:00

I recently found out that my niece has been subjected to sexual abuse while in the care of her father. She is twelve years old. This has come to light after several months of counseling and a number of doctor's exams. The doctor says the abuse has been ongoing and frequent, and is similar to what he sees in cases of prostituted children.

My niece's mother (my sister) divorced the father about two years ago. After he made several death threats against her she left her home state of Tennessee, on the advice of her attorney, and moved to Texas .

They had shared custody of the two children. During the childrens' stays with their father they were left home alone, sometimes for days. When he was home they witnessed habitual drug use and other illegal activities. The twelve year old began to roam the neighborhood late at night with a few other pre-teens. The four year old stayed at home, locked in a bedroom. The father was often out drinking and drugging, coming in at the wee hours with female companions.

Based on this situation, my sister attempted to have his custody restricted. After receiving no help from the courts or Child Protective Services of Dyersburg, Tennessee, she took the children to Texas and has refused to return them to that hell hole. After the sexual abuse allegations came to light, my sister filed a police report naming several men including her ex-husband and a number of his compatriots.

Nothing has come of this police report. Today I learned that my sister's ex-husband has pursued a warrant against her for felony kidnapping. The warrant was signed by the Tennessee governor and the Texas governor and was to be served today. Rather than have her children returned to Tennessee, my sister fled the state.

Now she is running for the safety of her children. She is running without clothing, without food, without money. I am so upset; I don't know what to do.

My sister has met with no help from the legal system of Dyersburg, Tennessee. Her ex-husband is related to important local people, including law enforcement officials. The small town politics in operation there have resulted in irreversible physical and moral damage to my nieces. My sister has spent thousands of dollars on three local lawyers only to have them give her advice that, when followed, resulted in the judge sanctioning her. After giving poor advice these lawyers continued to take her money and then finally, one by one, drop the case.
The legal system should have protected my nieces. The legal system should be protecting my nieces now but it isn't. During the months they lived in Texas the four year old has stopped screaming herself awake every night. She is now able to sleep in her own room most nights. The twelve year old has stopped cutting herself and pulling out her hair. She has gone from making F's in school to making A's. She has even taken on an after-school internship working with horses at a local stable (she LOVES horses). Both the girls have made tremendous progress. They attend church two or three times every week. My sister's new husband is a preacher and he provides the girls with lots of love and support.

The legal system and my sister's ex-husband are going to destroy my nieces unless something happens somewhere. I feel helpless. I don't know what to do.

What a man wants

2006-04-07T15:44:00.000-05:00

OK, I admit it - reading this bit of tripe from msn did make me feel like a self-centered twit, but as the sweet potato said to the turnip, "I yam what I yam."

The highlights:
Sweety and syrupy = yuck
Reading my mind = wonderful!

I couldn't have said it better myself.

2006-04-04T14:14:00.000-05:00

An F3 tornado struck the small community where I grew up this past Sunday evening, April 2nd, 2006. The tornado came out of the west from northeastern Arkansas. The storm destroyed several small towns in Arkansas and the Missouri bootheel. These crumpled grain bins are located just south of Caruthersville, MO.

After devastating Caruthersville the storm slammed into the Nauvoo bluff just south of the Hwy 78 bridge to Bogota. The homes in the photo overlook the Obion River at Hwy 78, Nauvoo, TN.

On top of the bluff, several people died as the tornado moved east along Harness Road, including two of my parents’ friends.

Early Monday morning I received a phone call from my sister, Becky, telling me about the tornado, but she knew no details. I went online and got a few details from the NOAA web site, including an estimate of 11 fatalities between Nauvoo and Newbern. My parents do not have a telephone so I began to call local officials to find any information available. Details were sparse. The local sheriff and Red Cross had no information about my family. A man who answered the phone at the Dyersburg Fire Department told me that the Millsfield Volunteer Fire Department had been “wiped out”. That building is probably less than a quarter mile from my parents’ home, so I was quite concerned.

While online I found an interesting bit of unrelated information. On April 3rd, 1974, a series of tornados had devastated portions of Tennessee and surrounding states, killing about 50 people. Those tornadoes were part of a larger "super outbreak" of 148 tornadoes that killed 330 people over two days.

I cancelled my classes for the day and drove to Tennessee to find my family.

2006-04-04T13:55:00.000-05:00

I found my mom at work at the Dyersburg Wal-Mart and together we went home to see dad. Mom seems to be fairly stolid overall, but when I arrived she had just left an employee meeting where she learned that a fellow employee and friend, Mary Rose McQuarters, had lost everything she owned when the storm leveled her home. I could see that mom had been crying – an unusual thing on her part. Dad seems to be quite distressed about the storm as well. I feel little connection to the place, having been gone for so long and not having had warm relations with most of the locals when I was growing up there, but mom and dad are still there and it is probably always going to be their home.

Harness Road dead-ends into Millsfield Road about 2/10th’ s of a mile from mom and dad’s place. This is where Mary Rose lived, and is also where the 100-year old Christ United Methodist Church and the volunteer fire station were hit.

All that is left of the Methodist Church is a rear section of Sunday School rooms and the church bus partially buried by bricks.

2006-04-04T13:21:00.000-05:00

Some of the people I knew were in their homes as they were being reduced to piles of rubble. Luckily, the damage to my parents’ place (about 5 or 6 houses away from the worst destruction) was limited to a single overturned lawn chair.

The hill top in the picture was previously occupied by at least four homes. Mary Rose McQuarters and other members of the McQuarters family lived in these houses. This area was almost unrecognizable to me. Coming around the bend in Millsfield Hwy, the sight of those homes and surrounding large oak trees crowning this hill is something I have known for almost 40 years. Yesterday’s experience was very strange – I found myself looking at a scene I knew should be familiar, but I couldn’t recognize it until mom pointed out which clumps of rubble had been homes.

2006-04-04T12:53:00.000-05:00

Search and rescue operations are being handled by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) and access to the worst hit areas is severely restricted. Since mom and dad live in Millsfield they were issued a pass so I was able to snap these pictures as we passed through on our way to the house. I was able to drive around the Newbern area a while later and take a few additional pictures as well.

Many of the fatalities from Sunday's storm were in this area between Meacham Road and the Sara Lee Plant at Hwy 412. A number of homes were completely missing - represented by a couple of cars parked near bare concrete slabs. I couldn't get many pictures here. People were milling about searching for possessions and comforting one another. I didn't want to intrude. The Jackson Sun has posted some photo galleries. The Newbern photos are especially sobering and show the destruction about two miles east of my parents' home.

The storm continued on to the east and killed a number of people in the Dyer and Bradford areas as well. As of this morning, the West Tennessee fatality tally is at 24.

Cultural Care

2006-03-21T17:27:00.000-06:00

I am currently teaching a class at Maryville University titled "Diversity in Health and Illnes." The class is essentially an introduction to culture and the problems that minority groups and immigrants face in our health care system. The goal of the course is to provide nursing and physical therapy students with some cultural tools that will assist them in providing culturally competent care to the clients they encounter. The course is an interesting one and I have learned a lot. I taught the course once before in Spring 2005.

My main problem with this course last year was the book I was required to use. It was terrible! The book, Cultural Diversity in Health and Illness (Spector) presents a bewildering array of cultural observations and references numerous social science studies. Unfortunately, the author does not seem to be able to distinguish between scholarly sources and mass consumption sources or evaluate the worth of the social science publications she cites.

I found myself in a constant temper over this book and finally wrote a semi-comprehensive review of it for Amazon.com at the end of the semester. I am proud so proud of this review - you should look at it. Writing the review gave me the opportunity to organize my thoughts about the entire semester, the book itself, and the emerging practice of Cultural Care.

In the summer and fall after using this book I reviewed several other books for this spring's course. I was disappointed in most of them and began to despair of finding an adequate text book. I was beginning to assemble a reader to use in conjuction with or instead of a text book, but then I ran across Culture in Rehabilitation: From Competency to Proficiency.

This book is new (2006), it is an edited volume (by Royeen and Crabtree) and it is published by Pearson/ Prentice Hall. The quality of this book is probably due in part to the last two factors. The numerous (19) contributors are from a variety of health care disciplines and present solid mostly up-to-date work. Pearson/ Prentice Hall publishes quite a lot of social science text books and they have a large editorial and support staff. I don't doubt that Pearson is at least partially responsible for the final make-up of this text book.

Having the opportunity to use different texts in a class room, comparing them, and then writing a review is not something I would have ever anticipated doing a few years ago. It is one of those unexpected joys, and it makes me feel fulfilled.

Looking back over this review is good for me in another way as well. I applied to the anthropology Ph.D program at U Toronto and received my rejection letter just two weeks ago. Looking back at this review reminds me that I do have a decent brain and I can use it. The recruitment committee at a really good university doesn't want me, but maybe I'm not a completely worthless piece of crap after all.

Question Homosexuality?

2006-03-10T11:47:00.001-06:00

An interesting series of billboards has sprouted up around St. Louis over the past few weeks. They all sport a picture of a smiling, happy-and-healthy looking person with the caption "I Questioned Homosexuality". The models are nice looking people, both male and female. The signs also include an email address for information on a local "ex-gay" conference.

I first saw one of these on my way home from work one evening. I was tired and hadn't had a particularly good day. I was stressed out and looking forward to putting my feet up at home. Suddenly, near Kingshighway and I44 there was this sign!

I initially had a very pure, uncomplicated response. I said aloud. "Please! How stupid can some people be?" My next thought was that someone should do something about that sign. Then I thought about the guy in the picture. Was he just a hired model or was he a real gay person? The image appears to be a personal statement from him, but with advertising you can't ever tell for sure.

I have so many thoughts on the subject that it might be wise to limit my discussion to three themes: (1) The signs have produced conflicting feelings in me. How do I resolve the conflict? (2) What is the proper response to these signs? (3) What does the existence of the "ex-gay" argument mean for the civil rights and personal dignity of gay people?

(1) My conflicting feelings: I was immediately offended and hurt when I saw the first sign. Now I drive by three of these signs every day and I am always angered. The signs remind me that society places a strongly negative value on gayness. This is like a thorn in my side. I find my self thinking about incidences of homophobia directed toward me in the past and I experience the hurt of being singled out and belittled all over again. These signs have negatively impacted my life and my mental well-being over the past few weeks.

On the other hand, I realize that there are many other gay people who do not have a big-picture understanding of sexuality and who are struggling to find their own equilibrium in a deeply hostile society. I see those who strive to be "ex-gay" as deeply honest and I don't doubt their sincerity. They turn to these groups out of desperation. Their personal stories are full of anguish and spiritual loss. These are usually people who have behaved in depraved and immoral ways and for whom that kind of life no longer works. Their stories emphasize shame regarding their past behaviors, a desire to change those behavior patterns, and a belief that gayness is the source of their problems.

Although these people all seem to miss the possibility of being gay AND being moral, they are searching for an authentic way to live and I respect that search. Initially, some people do find affirmation in these groups but it does not last. Most "ex-gays" become ex-"ex-gays" because religion-based explanations don't account for the contradictions inherent in our society's expectations about gender. If they did gay people wouldn’t exist in the USA. After all, we are a very Christian nation.

So I find myself moving between my own hurt feelings, compassion for “ex-gays” and concern for them at the same time. Add to that mix a certain suspicion that comes from having followed the “ex-gay” ideology over the past fifteen or so years.

Billboards and conferences are not necessarily the products of individuals struggling to find a meaningful path. The "ex-gay" ideology has not been propelled by real "ex-gays" in any long-term way. Non-gay Christians are the driving force behind these efforts and their foremost goal is the eradication of homosexual "sin" rather than helping people achieve a full understanding and appreciation of their own uniqueness and worth as humans.

“Ex-gay” people and their outreach efforts come and go. A flood of different "ex-gays" has been paraded to the public as evidence that you can and should be happily "ex-gay". Even the few organizations that have been around for several years demonstrate a rapid turn-over of "ex-gay" spokespersons and participants.

I'm not sure that I have reached any real resolution of my conflicting responses. I am still angry and hurt. I am still reminded that most Americans hate gay people and don't want to be contaminated by their presence beyond a few funny gay-themed TV shows. I also have become increasingly aware of how uneducated we are as a nation. A mountain of social research regarding gender roles and socail learning has been carried out over the past two centuries. Clear patterns have been established - gender is learned; it is strongly social; it is not amenable to fundamental change on the individual level.

Americans should be a sophisticated people. With all of the resources at our finger tips we should be a nation of citizens who understand science. Instead of teaching our children to see the world as it really is, we cling to superstition and personal common sense. Our educational system has failed to pass important scientific truths on to society at large. I’m not referring to specific findings of scientific studies like whether homosexuality is biological or genetic. I’m most disappointed that Americans can’t look at the findings of scientific studies and understand them. This has created an environment where Christian pseudo-experts can use legitimate scientific studies to make false claims and Americans don’t realize the old bait-and-switcheroo.

Not only are gay people discriminated against and humiliated in person-to-person interactions, all of us are diminished by the failures of our educational system and the continued persistence of destructive religious ideologies. The truth will set you free, but for most Americans, access to truth is very limited.

(2) So how should a person respond to these nefarious signs? My first impulse was a destructive one. I wanted protect my own heart; remove these reminders of society’s hatred from sight. The impulse to strike back is a human impulse and I know that other people feel the same way. Several of the signs have been vandalized since going up.

The images are not overtly hostile or derogatory and the image choices were probably made to emphasize the organization's supposed 'love the sinner but hate the sin' philosophy. On the other hand, I think many Americans are sophisticated enough to perceive the underlying homophobia. This may actually be something of a silver lining. Like any other social ill, it is beneficial to get these things out in the open. Let the religious right have their signs – they will eventually trip over their own misconceptions.

Finally, upon seeing that the signs had been vandalized I experienced an unexpected reaction. The paint splattered on the billboards was like a hand over someone’s mouth and that made me very uncomfortable. I don’t like what they are saying, but I like restricting their right to say it even less. That paint made me feel ashamed of my gay brothers and sisters. I feel more threatened by speech restrictions that I do by those billboards.

I think we should respond to homophobia by being more thoughtful, not less. We should strive to learn more about our opponents and to teach them more about us. We should also strive for an atmosphere that favors fairness by demanding and working to create a society that is less emotional and more rational (and I don’t mean Weberian economic rationality).

Finally, we should use these incidents of public homophobia as opportunities to examine our own motivations and explanations of reality. "Ex-gay" testimonials are full of shame over past sexual behaviors. We don’t need god’s help to determine whether slutty behavior is helpful or harmful. We can do that on our own and be gay at the same time. Self restraint might look like oppression when it is imposed on us, but it can also be empowering when we make those decisions ourselves. When gay people behaved in a dignified fashion we are happier, we don’t reach that breaking point where we think we need to be saved from ourselves, and the religious right has less leverage.

We are rocks in the big river of life. The question is, do we get tumbled downstream or does the river break around us? I think the best response is to be genuine. Be authentic. Be decent. Be smart. Don't take reality for granted and take responsibility for everything. Not much else matters.

(3) Finally, what threat does the “ex-gay” ideology pose to the well being of individuals and society? I think the largest threat of harm exists for those individuals who buy into it. When all else fails you and then you turn to religion, what else is left? If the promises of religion turn out to be hollow, can you survive? Where do ex-“ex-gay” people turn in their pursuit of the authentic life? Do they learn to be more self-reliant and take responsibility for their entire personhood or do they just kill themselves? I don’t know but I wish I had some statistics regarding “ex-gay” outcomes.

I know this will sound contradictory, but I also think the long term impact of these billboards on larger society could be positive. The models are all good-looking. They appear to be clean, respectable, healthy and happy. The over-arching purpose is homophobic, but the images counter our society’s assumptions about homosexuals. While the images ostensibly represent reformed homosexuals, in our society, homosexuals are still homosexuals. Just see columnist Dan Savage's comment about whether any straight parent would want their child to actually marry an “ex-gay”. In the USA we see homosexuals and heterosexuals as different kinds of people. Anything that challenges that is at least partially beneficial to us.

Could these images be inadvertent Trojan horses? Like I said before – let the religious right have their billboards. In fact, give me more images that feature happy, handsome, dignified homosexuals while exposing the homophobia of the religious right to the entire city.

2006-03-04T14:16:00.000-06:00

Here is the pear tart. It was scrumptious, but the souffles were just as nice. I don't intend to turn this into a food blog, but I guess the truth will out, eh? Food is all I think about sometimes.

2006-03-04T14:09:00.000-06:00

Cooking is the salve

2006-02-11T19:27:00.000-06:00

Something about cooking a really good meal makes up for all of the trouble of a hard, long week. Tonight I'm working on a couple of asparagus souffles. They just went in the oven and will be finished in about 50 minutes. While they are cooling I will do a wild mushroom risotto and heat up some left-over baked winter squash.

If you think that is comfort food, just wait for dessert. I am making a big pear tart - all eggs, creme and sliced fresh pears with a flaky crust. Now, what to drink? The riesling might be better, but we should probably finish that open bottle of chardonnay first.

I'll post pics later, especialy of the tart. I found the recipe on a French cooking website and tried to translate it through Google. The end result was almost unintelligible so I had to do the translation myself. That was easier said than done since French happens to be one of those European languages with which I have no familiarity. I probably got pretty close though because the recipe makes a splendid tart. It's really more of a custard with pears in a crust!

Admit it. Your heart is melting!

2006-02-03T02:13:00.000-06:00

Friday Afternoon Approaches

2006-02-03T00:38:00.001-06:00

It has been one of those really long but insane weeks. I find that with my teaching and studying load I am living for the weekend like I haven't since my factory worker days. I had some really cool things to add to the blog on Wednesday afternoon, but by the time I got home I was so tired that I forgot all about them. I couldn't even cook any dinner. Instead I went down to Wei Hong on South Grand and ate rice congee, pork lo mein, a quarter of a "Bar-B-Q" duck, and tofu with vegetables. Then I came home and fell asleep on the couch. What a life!

The new issue of Southeastern Archaeology came in the mail today. I was noted in two seperate articles for my analysis of paleoethnobotanical materials from Pinson Mounds (near Jackson, TN) and the Trice site in northeastern Mississippi.

Southeastern Archaeology is not available online so I will briefly summarize:
(1) Dr. Charles McNutt discusses the Middle Woodland social context for Pinson Mounds and proposes that astronomical alignments at the site (and other contemporary Mid-South mound sites) reflect the celestial concerns of agriculturists rather than hunter-gatherers. There is plenty of good evidence for the presence of domesticated crops around Pinson during the early centuries AD, but I have found no domesticated crop seed in any of the samples I have analyzed from the Pinson site.

When I began the Pinson research I expected to find plentiful evidence for domesticates. Domesticated plant foods appeared in the Mid-South even before Pinson was constructed. The Pinson site is also quite large. The site includes numerous mounds and the tallest (Saul's Mound) is the second tallest mound north of Mexico (second only to Monk's Mound at Cahokia). Urban areas obviously host larger populations than small villages and larger populations need more food. Domestication is one of the most important technological solutions for increasing the food supply, so I assumed that Pinson's large size increased my chances for finding remains of domesticated crops in the soil samples.

Assumptions, assumptions! Unlike the Mississippian mound sites, many Middle Woodland mound sites may not have been population centers. Bruce Smith explored both large and small Middle Woodland sites in the Duck River drainage (middle southern Tennessee) and decided that sites of different sizes served different functions. Small farmsteads were spread out along river valleys and were the homes of the local farming population. Larger sites tended to be located in the uplands and were ceremonial in nature rather than residential. Instead of being somewhat urban in nature, the larger sites may have been home to very few people on a permanent basis. Most of the people who used the larger ceremonial sites actually lived in the countryside and the population as a whole was dispersed. Corporate activities took place at the large sites and small farmsteads were the locations of domestic activities.

Perhaps the people of Pinson had a similar settlement pattern. In that case, what looks to today's tourist like a prehistoric urban center might have been something more like a very large outdoor church. The people who used this 'church' spent most of their time spread out across the countryside. They actually lived, farmed and ate at very small settlements that were located some distance from the mounds.

In order to find the remains of these people's meals future archaeologists will need to find the places where they lived, prepared and ate their meals - those small settlements spread out across the land.

Dr. McNutt shares my opinions and thanks me for contributing my laboratory data and thoughts on page 162.

(2) Dr. Jeffrey Alvey discusses a number of issues relating to the variability in earlier (Middle Archaic) settlement patterns for northeastern Mississippi's upper Tombigbee River drainage. The Trice site was not home to prehistoric farmers. These people hunted wild animals and gathered wild plant foods. I found some wood, a persimmon seed, and lots of nutshells in the samples I analyzed from the Trice site. Most of the nutshells were from hickory nuts. A few of these were from black walnuts and I also identified a few pieces of acorn shell.

Jeffrey included my data in Table 8 on page 205 and thanked me very nicely for my input on page 207.

OK, I admit it. I feel proud. It is not the first time I have been mentioned in print but it is nice. My way to celebrate: this afternoon I will be doing laps in the pool at the YMCA. I know it's weird, but I do love to swim. I do it every day when I can find the time and it still feels like a treat.

For an online example of something I have written see this book review. I am now using a much better book for my class. The new book is Royeen and Crabtree's Culture in Rehabilitation: From Competency to Proficiency (2006). It is brand new and is available from Pearson Prentice Hall. I recommend it highly - lots of anthropological and sociological input, good organization, and sound reference materials cited throughout.

Still dreaming of summer...

2006-01-27T11:32:00.000-06:00

... this morning while downloading a few recent pics. I ran across this little gem while scrolling though folders. Cute aren't they, peering out of the amaranth and chocolate mint? Does this make me officially old or just potty?

The seed catalogs have been perused briefly. I think I will grow peppers this year (surprise, surprise, surprise). I also want an early crop of mixed salad greens. Last spring I grew mache for the first time - splendid. I think I will do that again as well as arugula. A nice bed of amaranth would be good as well. For the past few years I have restricted the amaranth to just a few individual plants. This year maybe I could go all out and grow enough to make bread.

Wealthy Mountain Ginseng Chicken

2006-01-26T23:47:00.004-06:00

I recently purchased a package of spices and roots at my local ethnic food market - Jay's International on Grand. The writing on the package was nearly all Chinese. Although I am not yet proficient enough to translate the Chinese
(山珍人参鸡) on the spot, I guessed from the picture on the front that this was a spice packet for cooking chicken. Given that many of the ingredients were large slices and chunks of various roots, I deducted that boiling was the intended preparation.

Well, last night I picked up a free-range chicken at Whole Foods and put it all in a pot, covered the bird with water, and turned on the gas. After about an hour of boil and simmer I chopped up some Chinese broccoli, tossed it into the wok with olive oil, sesame oil, pepper oil and a little sea salt. Just before the broccoli was finished I sprinkled some soy sauce over it. I had intended to soak some whole shitake mushrooms and add them in with the broccoli, but forgot. As it turned out everything was so good that we didn't miss the mushrooms.

The bird was so tender it fell apart and I had to extract it piece by peice from the broth with tongs. Man, what a feast.

After dinner I drained the broth and saved many of the roots and seeds. These included one large gnarly ginseng root and several other strange looking items. I suspect that I prepared more than a meal. Americans tend to see food and medicine as very different things, but Eastern societies (and others) do not have this viewpoint. In traditional societies, medicines often include many of the same plant and animal substances that are consumed during meals. Food and medicine do not have the same degree of seperation that we expect in the West and eating is a common method of treatment.

Fortunately, there was an ingredients list (in English) applied to the back of the package. After dinner I went online to track down what I could. Here is what I found:

1) Ginseng - This familiar Asian and North American root is attributed a host of health benefits. Asian ginseng is a seperate species (Panax ginseng) from American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) but both share some important properties and are closely related. Both belong to the family Araliaceae. A number of other members of this family are sold as ginseng and used similarly. Ginseng has been used for millenia and is believed to stimulate many of the body's systems and processes.

It is hard to distinguish the ginseng in my picture. The specimen was about five inches long and very pretty. The tapered root ends all broke off during the cooking process.

2) Chinese yam - This plant, Dioscorea oppositifolia L. (formerly Rhizoma dioscoreae), belongs to the Dioscoreaceae Family. It is known in China as shan yao. A whole host of medicinal uses is attributed to the Chinese yam, all of which sound like old people's problems.

The Chinese yam slices in the spice packet were very white, almost chalky looking - they looked like white Neco wafers.

3) Semen coicis - This seed kernel with the very funny name has a long and important history in southern and eastern Asia. Semen coicis is the dried seed kernel of the Coix lacryma-jobi L. plant from which the hard seed coat has been removed. C. lacryma-jobi is a member of the grass family (Poaceae), so it is distantly related to other cereals such as wheat, rice and corn. Like corn and rice, it has travelled widely during the past several centuries. This annual grass is now a serious weed in many warm parts of the world.

Semen coicis is an old, important food item and may have been domesticated even before rice. The seed kernels have a 17% protein content. Traditional food preparations include grinding the seeds into flour, boiling or frying the whole seeds, cooking them in soups like barley and fermenting them to make beer or wine. Semin coicis is called yiyi ren in China.

Semen coicis has numerous medicinal applications as well, including aiding spleen function, improving elimination processes, removing "dampness" and trating joint pain.

The seeds also have a number of interesting uses not involving internal consumption. When the hard seed coat is left intact the seed is known as Job's Tears, probably because of its tear-drop shape. These hard seeds have been painted, dyed, and strung together for adornment throughout Asia for a very long time. They are also used to make rosaries.

The semen coicis specimens in my spice packet looked a bit like large barley grains both before and after boiling. Before boiling they were whitish and quite hard. Now they are about the same color and a bit chewey, again similar to boiled barley. A few of the seeds split open and flattened out but most have retained their original shapes.

4) Gorgon - Euryale ferox is in the waterlilly family (Nymphaeaceae) so it is related to the lotus and bears beautiful flowers. The spiny seed pod contains many seeds, and each individual seed is enclosed in an unusual fleshy aril (definition) that is probably removed before processiong for consumption.

Gorgon is also known as fox nut or qian shia. It is a commonly consumed food and contains much starch and protein. An appetizing recipe for Duck Soup with spring onions, ginger and fox nut is supposed to benefit various internal organs and processes. I have to try this sometime.

The seed is also used to treat sexual problems and various complaints associated with aging, especially for men. A Korean research project has yielded evidence for "significant atioxidant activity" associated with the plant.

The seeds in my spice pack are dry, hard, and with no evidence of the aril intact. One end is pointed and the other is indented at the hilum. The seeds are large - about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch long.

5) Hyacinth bean - This one, Lablab purpureus, may be familiar to many Americans. It is a legume (in the family Fabaceae with other beans and peas) and is often grown in cottage gardens and back yards for its pretty purple vines, pea flowers and fuzzy pods.

Like me, I suspect most American gardeners are unaware that anyone eats this plant, let alone the rock-hard seeds. Interestingly, the species is listed as poisonous on the Poisonous Plants of North Carolina website. On the other hand, I have found an online recipe for it (Japanese) and some detailed nutritional information is available as well. This final source does not include a Latin name, however, so it is possible that the plant referred to here is something different.

Common names (such as "hyacinth bean") are created by individual gardeners rather than plant scientists. While scientists want to be sure that every plant species in the world has its own unique name, gardeners have other concerns. They are more likely to name plants based on physical appearances and often make up names for new plants that reflect how similar or different the new plant is compared to plants the gardener already knows.

Medicinal uses for the seeds, called bai bian dou in China, include treatment of diarrhea and vomitting.

There were lots of these in the spice pack. The skin is quite tough and the insides are very mealy - not too tasty.

6) Asiabell root - This climbing herbaceous perennial vine is also called ren sheng or dang shen. Codonopsis Pilosulae is a native to northern and northeastern China. The plant is known as "poor man's ginseng" and is used similarly, but is not closely related. Whereas ginseng is placed within the Araliaceae family, asiabell is in the Campanulaceae family. The dried roots are sold whole or chopped and are used to improve circulation and vitality. These roots made up the biggest part of my spice packet.

7) Mystery root - This may be sliced ginseng but the parenchyma (skin) is thicker and darker than the single large ginseng root in the package. It could be a different variety of ginseng or something else entirely that was omitted from the English ingredients list. I do not think it is ginger. Perhaps I should peel the English ingredients sticker off and see if the Chinese list is more complete.

8) Mystery fruit - This fruit is small (about 3/4 inch long), somewhat heart-shaped, and with a deep red peel. Two other specimens partially dissintegrated in the broth and the pulp inside the peel is dark red as well. If there are any seeds inside, they are too small for me to see without going to the microscope. Even though this fruit is very similar in shape and size to the gorgon fruit seeds, I doubt if they are the same thing. The interior of this fruit seems to be intact and there is no room for such a large seed inside the peel.

So what did I eat for dinner? A little time with the Chinese dictionary suggests a translation for the dish: shān zhēn rénshēn jī (mountain+valuable+ginseng+chicken).

It seems that our delicious chicken is also an old man's medicine cabinet. I will have to remember this recipe for the future. When the indignity of old age makes me incontinent, impotent and arthritic I'll know just what to do. In the meantime, perhaps an ounce of prevention will be a worth a pound of cure. I will definitely fix "Valuable Mountain Ginseng Chicken" again.

I'm exhausted

2006-01-24T18:25:00.000-06:00

What a day it's been. What a week it's been and it's just Monday. I am teaching four classes this semester - two sections of Physical Anthropology at St. Louis Community College - Meramec as well as a Health Diversity course and Introduction to Sociology course at Maryville University.

On top of that I'm killing myself with 6 hours of Mandarin Chinese lessons - 5 hours in class and a 1 hour directed study/ translation. So of course I'm tired. At 6:30 pm I have just relaxed with an hour of email checking and am about to head home for an intense evening of lecture writing. Good thing I love my job!

I spent most of today laking about culture and about the development of western science and philosophy. I found a really cool representation of the Great Chain of Being as printed in Rhetorica Christiana (1579). The students found the minute divisions of people into hierarchical classes pretty compelling.

I have also included the following news items in a couple of lectures recently to aid in discussions of ontology and scientific hypothesis testing and theory formulation:

See how a female kidney turns a lumberjack into a big 'ole girl! This interesting tidbit demonstrates a decidedly non-scientific way of knowing the world around us. The hypothesis is a testable, albeit unnecessary one.

Get the skinny on TV in the bedroom and sex life. This article includes a relatively large amount of quantitative data and even a bit of qualitative data (the variable of programming content). The hypothesis is testable, but within a couple of minutes several students were able to think of competing hypotheses that seemed to me to hold more promise for verification. Unfortunately, this article seems to suggest that the presence of a TV in the bedroom causes a diminished sex life. I wonder whether the data is better explained by correlation than causation? Perhaps people who have TVs in the bedroom have already lost interest in sex with one another.

Ah, for the warm warm days of fall!

2006-01-22T14:13:00.000-06:00

I'm really too busy right now to enjoy the warm weather, but I always miss those long lazy fall days during the darkness of January. Some days it seems as thought the sun is gone forever. The potatoes are from my garden plot in the McPherson Community Garden. They are small because I was impatient, but were they good!
I remember the soil was so warm - I couldn't keep my hands out of it.

I love my job!

2006-01-18T16:00:00.000-06:00

I do love teaching. Back in grad school I had no idea it could be so enjoyable, but that was before I had any experience in turning course content into a semester-long narrative.

First I organize the material into an outline. Then I add examples, pictures, and multimedia content to reinforce and demonstrate the key points I want to make. The social sciences are unlike some other disciplines such as math, physics, or law in that students bring a large amount of relevant knowledge (and beliefs) to the classroom. Social life is not a clean slate for my students. As active social participants they are deeply engaged day-to-day in the topics we discuss.

Sometimes it is a challenge is to jolt students out of their firmly established world views. One way I have found to promote this is to anticipate student beliefs and work with them rather than against them. I state my final conclusion regarding a topic up front. I usually phrase this conclusion in simple terms and in a way that is in stark contrast to widely held beliefs. This can create an immediate conflict for the student. The student reviews his or her own beliefs quickly, checks my statement against these beliefs, and comes back in firm disagreement with me.

Then I take what they already know and tweak it - construct arguments that lead the students incrementally to a fresh angle, a slightly different perspective. I introduce empirical data to support each stage of the argument. Once the logical progression of the argument leads to my end statement, students still have their initial objections fresh in memory. When this is most effective I can sometimes see the payoff - an 'ah-ha' moment when suspicious faces open up into expressions of surprised delight and new comprehension. That is when I know I am doing what I was put here for.