tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-212275502024-03-06T23:43:55.721-08:00Obsession du JourThe meanderings of an unfocused mind.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-24909401125337042642011-01-30T12:51:00.000-08:002011-02-01T22:55:17.732-08:00Slightly edited version of Congressional House bill HR#3.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>H.R.3 -- No Taxpayer Funding for Handjob Act (Introduced in House - IH)</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">HR 3 IH</div><br />
112th CONGRESS<br />
<br />
1st Session<br />
<br />
<b>H. R. 3</b></div>To prohibit taxpayer funded handjobs and to provide for conscience protections, and for other purposes.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES</b></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>January 20, 2011</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Mr. SMITH of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. LIPINSKI, Mr. AKIN, Mr. ALEXANDER, Mr. AUSTRIA, Mrs. BACHMANN, Mr. BACHUS, Mr. BARLETTA, Mr. BARTLETT, Mr. BARTON of Texas, Mr. BENISHEK, Mr. BILIRAKIS, Mr. BISHOP of Utah, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. BONNER, Mr. BOUSTANY, Mr. BRADY of Texas, Mr. BROOKS, Mr. BROUN of Georgia, Mr. BUCHANAN, Mr. BURGESS, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. CANSECO, Mr. CARTER, Mr. CASSIDY, Mr. CHABOT, Mr. CHAFFETZ, Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado, Mr. COLE, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. COSTELLO, Mr. CRAVAACK, Mr. CRAWFORD, Mr. CRENSHAW, Mr. CRITZ, Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky, Mr. DESJARLAIS, Mr. DIAZ-BALART, Mr. DONNELLY of Indiana, Mr. DUFFY, Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina, Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee, Mrs. EMERSON, Mr. FITZPATRICK, Mr. FLAKE, Mr. FLEMING, Mr. FORBES, Mr. FORTENBERRY, Ms. FOXX, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. GARDNER, Mr. GARRETT, Mr. GERLACH, Mr. GIBBS, Mr. GINGREY of Georgia, Mr. GOWDY, Ms. GRANGER, Mr. GRAVES of Missouri, Mr. GRIMM, Mr. GUTHRIE, Mr. HALL, Mr. HARPER, Mr. HARRIS, Mrs. HARTZLER, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HERGER, Mr. HUELSKAMP, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. HURT, Ms. JENKINS, Mr. JOHNSON of Illinois, Mr. JONES, Mr. JORDAN, Mr. KELLY, Mr. KING of New York, Mr. KING of Iowa, Mr. KINGSTON, Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois, Mr. KLINE, Mr. LAMBORN, Mr. LANDRY, Mr. LANKFORD, Mr. LATOURETTE, Mr. LATTA, Mr. LEE of New York, Mr. LOBIONDO, Mr. LONG, Mr. LUETKEMEYER, Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California, Mr. MANZULLO, Mr. MARCHANT, Mr. MARINO, Mr. MCCARTHY of California, Mr. MCCAUL, Mr. MCCLINTOCK, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. MCHENRY, Mr. MCINTYRE, Mr. MCKINLEY, Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS, Mrs. MILLER of Michigan, Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mr. MULVANEY, Mr. MURPHY of Pennsylvania, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mrs. NOEM, Mr. NUNNELEE, Mr. OLSON, Mr. PAUL, Mr. PENCE, Mr. PETERSON, Mr. PITTS, Mr. POMPEO, Mr. POSEY, Mr. PRICE of Georgia, Mr. RAHALL, Mr. RIBBLE, Mr. RIGELL, Mr. ROE of Tennessee, Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky, Mr. ROKITA, Mr. ROSKAM, Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN, Mr. ROSS of Arkansas, Mr. ROYCE, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mr. SCALISE, Mr. SCHILLING, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia, Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina, Mr. SENSENBRENNER, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. SHULER, Mr. SHUSTER, Mr. SIMPSON, Mr. SMITH of Texas, Mr. STUTZMAN, Mr. SULLIVAN, Mr. TERRY, Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania, Mr. TURNER, Mr. WESTMORELAND, Mr. WHITFIELD, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. WOLF, Mr. WOODALL, Mr. YOUNG of Florida, Mr. GOHMERT, Mr. WITTMAN, Mr. CANTOR, Mr. BOREN, Mr. GOODLATTE, Mr. MCKEON, Mr. ROGERS of Michigan, Mr. CALVERT, Mrs. ELLMERS, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. TIBERI, and Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>A BILL</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">To prohibit taxpayer funded handjobs and to provide for conscience protections, and for other purposes.<br />
</div></div><div class="indented"><i>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,</i></div><br />
<b>SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">This Act may be cited as the 'No Taxpayer Funding for Handjob Act'.</div><br />
<div class="indented"></div><b>SEC. 2. PROHIBITING TAXPAYER FUNDED HANDJOBS AND PROVIDING FOR CONSCIENCE PROTECTIONS.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">Title 1 of the United States Code is amended by adding at the end the following new chapter:</div><br />
<b>`CHAPTER 4--PROHIBITING TAXPAYER FUNDED HANDJOBS AND PROVIDING FOR CONSCIENCE PROTECTIONS</b><br />
<br />
<b>`SEC. 301. PROHIBITION ON FUNDING FOR HANDJOBS.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`No funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law, shall be expended for any handjob.</div><br />
<b>`SEC. 302. PROHIBITION ON FUNDING FOR HEALTH BENEFITS PLANS THAT COVER HANDJOB.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`None of the funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law, shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of handjob.</div><b>`SEC. 303. PROHIBITION ON TAX BENEFITS RELATING TO HANDJOB.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`For taxable years beginning after the date of the enactment of this section--<br />
<br />
`(1) no credit shall be allowed under the internal revenue laws with respect to amounts paid or incurred for a handjob or with respect to amounts paid or incurred for a health benefits plan (including premium assistance) that includes coverage of handjob,<br />
<br />
`(2) for purposes of determining any deduction for expenses paid for medical care of the taxpayer or the taxpayer's spouse or dependents, amounts paid or incurred for a handjob or for a health benefits plan that includes coverage of handjob shall not be taken into account, and<br />
<br />
`(3) in the case of any tax-preferred trust or account the purpose of which is to pay medical expenses of the account beneficiary, any amount paid or distributed from such an account for a handjob shall be included in the gross income of such beneficiary.</div><br />
<b>`SEC. 304. LIMITATION ON FEDERAL FACILITIES AND EMPLOYEES.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`No health care service furnished--<br />
<br />
`(1) by or in a health care facility owned or operated by the Federal Government; or<br />
<br />
`(2) by any physician or other individual employed by the Federal Government to provide health care services within the scope of the physician's or individual's employment,<br />
<br />
may include handjob.</div><br />
<b>`SEC. 305. CONSTRUCTION RELATING TO SEPARATE COVERAGE.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as prohibiting any individual, entity, or State or locality from purchasing separate handjob coverage or health benefits coverage that includes handjob so long as such coverage is paid for entirely using only funds not authorized or appropriated by Federal law and such coverage shall not be purchased using matching funds required for a federally subsidized program, including a State's or locality's contribution of Medicaid matching funds.</div><br />
<b>`SEC. 306. CONSTRUCTION RELATING TO THE USE OF NON-FEDERAL FUNDS FOR HEALTH COVERAGE.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as restricting the ability of any non-Federal health benefits coverage provider from offering handjob coverage, or the ability of a State or locality to contract separately with such a provider for such coverage, so long as only funds not authorized or appropriated by Federal law are used and such coverage shall not be purchased using matching funds required for a federally subsidized program, including a State's or locality's contribution of Medicaid matching funds.</div><br />
<b>`SEC. 307. NON-PREEMPTION OF OTHER FEDERAL LAWS.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented"><div>`Nothing in this chapter shall repeal, amend, or have any effect on any other Federal law to the extent such law imposes any limitation on the use of funds for handjob or for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of handjob, beyond the limitations set forth in this chapter.</div></div><b>`SEC. 308. CONSTRUCTION RELATED TO STATE OR LOCAL LAWS.</b><br />
<br />
<div><div class="indented">`Nothing in this chapter or any other Federal law shall be construed to require any State or local government to provide or pay for any handjob or any health benefits coverage that includes coverage of any handjob.</div></div><br />
<b>`SEC. 309. TREATMENT OF HANDJOBS RELATED TO RAPE, INCEST, OR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented"><div>`The limitations established in sections 301, 302, 303, and 304 shall not apply to a handjob--<br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`(1) if the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest; or<br />
<br />
`(2) in the case where the pregnant female suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the pregnant female in danger of death unless a handjob is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.</div></div></div><br />
<b>`SEC. 310. APPLICATION TO DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`In this chapter:<br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`(1) Any reference to funds appropriated by Federal law shall be treated as including any amounts within the budget of the District of Columbia that have been approved by Act of Congress pursuant to section 446 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act (or any applicable successor Federal law).<br />
<br />
`(2) The term `Federal Government' includes the government of the District of Columbia.</div></div><br />
<b>`SEC. 311. NO GOVERNMENT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CERTAIN HEALTH CARE ENTITIES.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`(a) Nondiscrimination- A Federal agency or program, and any State or local government that receives Federal financial assistance (either directly or indirectly), may not subject any individual or institutional health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for handjobs.<br />
<br />
`(b) Health Care Entity Defined- For purposes of this section, the term `health care entity' includes an individual physician or other health care professional, a hospital, a provider-sponsored organization, a health maintenance organization, a health insurance plan, or any other kind of health care facility, organization, or plan.<br />
<br />
`(c) Remedies-<br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`(1) IN GENERAL- The courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction to prevent and redress actual or threatened violations of this section by issuing any form of legal or equitable relief, including--<br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`(A) injunctions prohibiting conduct that violates this section; and<br />
<br />
`(B) orders preventing the disbursement of all or a portion of Federal financial assistance to a State or local government, or to a specific offending agency or program of a State or local government, until such time as the conduct prohibited by this section has ceased.</div><br />
`(2) COMMENCEMENT OF ACTION- An action under this subsection may be instituted by--<br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`(A) any health care entity that has standing to complain of an actual or threatened violation of this section; or<br />
<br />
`(B) the Attorney General of the United States.</div></div><br />
`(d) Administration- The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall designate the Director of the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services--<br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`(1) to receive complaints alleging a violation of this section;<br />
<br />
`(2) subject to paragraph (3), to pursue the investigation of such complaints in coordination with the Attorney General; and<br />
<br />
`(3) in the case of a complaint related to a Federal agency (other than with respect to the Department of Health and Human Services) or program administered through such other agency or any State or local government receiving Federal financial assistance through such other agency, to refer the complaint to the appropriate office of such other agency.</div></div><br />
<b>`SEC. 312. HEALTH BENEFITS COVERAGE DEFINED.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="indented">`In this chapter the term `health benefits coverage' means the package of services covered by a managed care provider or organization pursuant to a contract or other arrangement.'.</div>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-57225387424830883262011-01-12T14:13:00.000-08:002011-01-13T10:47:37.109-08:00<b>Where are we headed, where are we now?</b><br />
<br />
Wednesday, January 12, 2011<br />
Following the news these last few days has made me sad and frustrated about my country's political landscape.<br />
<br />
This morning, four days after the tragic <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/arizona_shooting_2011/index.html">assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords</a> in which 6 people died and 14 others were injured (including Rep. Giffords, who was shot through the head and still in critical condition). Immediately following, there was much discussion in the blogosphere, twitter, the news, heck, all over the Internet about the role our vitriolic political discourse, notably the rhetoric associated with ex-Governor of Alaska and former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and the Tea-Party movement may have played in this shooting. I think this is a healthy discussion to have.<br />
<br />
I do not blame Sarah Palin for the shooting. I do not blame the Tea Parties for the shooting. I may have something more to say on this, but this is not what I want to blog about here.<br />
<br />
<br />
This morning, Ms. Palin released a statement about the shooting: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=487510653434">http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=487510653434</a><br />
<br />
It starts off as a good statement, but I started to disagree with the assertion in the fifth paragraph:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.</blockquote>There are a couple of paragraphs on individual responsibility that follow - I don't completely agree, but that's not the point about what I'm blogging about here. When I read the eighth paragraph, I was filled with horror and sadness, frustration and anger. I was speechless - sure, I could make some stupid smartass comment, but all that seemed hollow. The only thing I could mutter, was "oh my god. she didn't. oh my god." But she did. Talking about vitriolic rhetoric (especially discussions about her rhetoric, her target map which put crosshairs over Rep. Giffords's district and talked about reloading):<br />
<blockquote>But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a <b>blood libel</b> that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible. </blockquote>I think she's right to not be blamed for the shootings. But when she describes people attributing blame to her as "blood libel" she's calling forth something very powerful. She's bringing up an evil that has existed for centuries, an ancient evil that has resulted in millions of innocent deaths, millions of ruined lives. And shame, shame on her for doing this.<br />
<br />
<b>Let's talk about Blood Libel.</b><br />
<br />
You can go look up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel">Blood Libel on wikipedia</a> or whatever. I'm going to pull many examples from there.<br />
<br />
I first learned about in an anthropology class in college -t he professor's book about it is a fascinating and horrifying read. <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=7MTa8eoig4kC&lpg=PP1&dq=blood%20libel%20dundes&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Blood libel legend: a casebook in anti-Semitic folklore</i></span></a><br />
<br />
The Blood Libel is the idea that Jewish people kidnap and ritually sacrifice children, often Christian children, so that their blood may be used to make Passover matzohs. If you look at the history of anti-Semitism over the last couple of millenia, you will see this accusation towards Jews made repeatedly, from as early as the first century. This blood libel has led to persecution of Jews. Show trials. Lynchings. Murders. The use of it in mass exterminations took off in the Middle Ages when the boy William of Norwich was found dead with stab wounds, and the Jewish community was blamed for ritually executing William. Dozens of Jews were murdered or executed because of this one incident.<br />
<br />
I think it's incredibly tasteless for Palin to claim she's a victim of "a blood libel," especially when the Congressperson who was the prime target of this Saturday's assassination attempt is a Jewish woman.<br />
<br />
Over the centuries since William of Norwich, the Blood Libel has fed anti-Semitic propaganda in Europe, and most times, some number of Jews died as a result, often horrifically. The Middle Ages saw the formation of what I would call Christian death cults, to memorialize allegedly martyred children, at times even to sanctify these alleged victims of the Jews. It shows up in the Canterbury Tales (the Prioress' Tale).<br />
<br />
There have been many attempts to put an end to the Blood Libel. Pope Innocent IV in 1247 tried to annul all measures adopted and to dissolve all cults formed related to the Blood Libel. Pope Gregory X issued a papal letter rejecting the Blood Libel in the 1270's. The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire tried to denounce the Blood Libel in the 1550's. In 1961 Pope John XXIII had a plaque placed in the church of Judenstein absolving Jew of the murder of the alleged martyr Andrew of Rinn, supposedly murdered on the "Jew Stone" in 1462 (the fresco and statue there still stand, I believe) Even in 2003, an advisor to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak published a denunciation of the Blood Libel, calling it a myth.<br />
<br />
But despite all of this, the Blood Libel lives on and on. It has appeared in Nazi propaganda. It has shown up in the Middle East in books, drama, film (often alongside the infamous anti-Semitic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"). It has shown up in a request to the Russian Duma to enact laws against Jewish groups of being "anti-Christian" and referencing ritual murder, in 2005 (these 2005 legislative calls were rejected). And today, Sarah Palin summoned it forth, comparing the bad press she's been getting about a stupid target map to this persistent persecution of Jewish people.<br />
<br />
<b>Psychological Considerations of Blood Libel</b><br />
<br />
There are some notable practices in the Judaic tradition regarding blood and sacrifice. "Thou shalt not kill" forbids murder, for example. If you look at dietary laws, there are many prohibitions against the use of blood in cooking. There are very specific requirements with regards to animal sacrifice, which, at the time of the Middle ages, were not possible (due to the Temple in Jerusalem not standing). Human sacrifice is specifically forbidden in the Old Testament.<br />
<br />
There is nothing about using human blood to make Passover matzohs.<br />
<br />
So what's going on? Where did this bizarre association with blood and matzohs and Jews come from? Alan Dundes wrote an essay in his book: The Ritual Murder or Blood Libel: A Study of Anti-Semitic Victimization through Projective Inversion that sheds some light on the matter. If anti-Semitic bigotry is to exist, it helps to have a reason, no matter how twisted and distorted.<br />
<br />
It is essential to place the Blood Libel legend in the context of Christianity. A vital element of Christianity is the crucifixion of Jesus. There needs to be an apotheosis from the worldly Jesus Christ to the Divine Jesus (and some will argue that there never was a difference) through the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Christianity would be very different - arguably, it might not exist today - without these legendary events. Parts of some Crucifixion narratives include the role of the Jewish people. Although the Jews did not kill one of their own (i.e. it was the Romans who killed Jesus), there is an undercurrent in Christian belief in which some attribute the death of Jesus to the Jews (this is where the hateful idea of Jews as "Christ Killers" comes from).<br />
<br />
[ Though I'm not convinced the film is representative of mainstream Christianity, one of the criticisms of Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" in 2004, where, in at least an early script, the Jewish religious orthodoxy led by Caiaphas was portrayed as seeking Jesus's death, and even Pontius Pilate had offered clemency to Jesus before an angry mob, but was overruled by the crowd, and thus Pilate had no choice but to reluctantly have Jesus crucified. This is, perhaps, a modern representation of Jews as "Christ Killers." ]<br />
<br />
With this in mind, one of the driving forces of Christian anti-Semitism is the supposed Jewish role in an essential element of the the Christian faith, the Crucifixion of Christ. Thus the Crucifixion can be interpreted symbolically as <i>a ritual sacrifice of Christ by the Jews</i>.<br />
<br />
I'm not a big follower of Freud, but there are concepts of his that are relevant. The first is Freudian projection. Generally, we assume that people act similarly, so if one behaves in a certain way, that person assumes, i.e. projects, that others will behave similarly. There's another idea, "projective inversion" where one's undesireable thoughts, motives, desires towards something or someone are "projected" onto someone or something, as a way of justifying one's own individual thoughts, motives desires. "I hate him" becomes "He hates me, therefore it is OK for me to hate him back." This idea of projective inversion is key, I believe, in interpreting the Blood Libel legend.<br />
<br />
The next clue is the role of the Eucharist in the Christian Church. The consumption of bread and wine as part of this tradition represents symbolic consumption of the flesh and <i>blood of Christ</i>. In the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, this transubstantiation means the literal flesh and blood of Christ are being consumed. But is this cannibalism? Historically, this has been an accusation made of early Christians, that they were cannibalizing their God. From a Christine doctrinal point of view, it is not cannibalism, but arguably, doctrine defines cannibalism away in this case.<br />
<br />
But from a symbolic point of view, the Eucharist may be described as Christian ritual requiring the consumption of wafers/bread as the flesh of Christ along with wine as the blood of Christ. Compare this with the Blood Libel accusation where Jews sacrifice Christians so that blood may be used for Passover matzohs.<br />
<br />
Anti-Semitic Christians dislike or hate Jews. But through projective inversion, in the eyes of the anti-Semitic Christian, this becomes, Jews hate Christians. This is corroborated by the Christ-Killer meme that persists just outside of mainstream Christianity. Furthermore, the Eucharist is transformed through projective inversion to be the ritual consumption of Christian blood and flesh, the ritual cannibalism for which early Christians were persecuted. In this tradition, the Blood Libel becomes, symbolically, a ceremonial re-enactment of the murder of Christ by Jews. Which, for the devout anti-Semitic Christian serves as a call to action against Jews, and act they have, as has been demonstrated throughout history, and from time to time even today.<br />
<br />
<b>About Sarah Palin</b><br />
<br />
Sarah Palin's clumsy use of Blood Libel - something that has been associated with anti-Semitic hatred for centuries, if not millennia - it truly is an ancient evil - her invocation of it is appalling. I know that she's a devout Christian in the Pentecostal tradition. I don't know if her particular branch espouses the evil "Christ-Killer" meme. In her response to the shooting she describes<i> herself</i> as a victim in this tragic shooting as a response to assertions (which, again, I don't believe) that Palin is to blame by virtue of her rhetoric. Palin has evoked the anti-Semitic Blood Libel to frame herself as the victim where the true victims of this tragedy are dead or seriously, if not critically wounded, where the main target of this violence was a Jewish woman. <br />
<br />
I'm glad this is a country where she's free to say things like this, because now I think we know better who Sarah Palin is. I've never been convinced that she was a leader I could get behind, but today she went too far, and I don't see myself ever voting for her. I'm convinced that she doesn't have what it takes to be a responsible leader; by invoking this old, anti-Semitic evil, her bad judgment has convinced me she's bad for America and bad for our cherished American way of life.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-76694271507407877972010-11-17T11:56:00.000-08:002010-11-20T10:52:20.364-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">Basic summary: the radiation exposure from these newish full-body x-ray scanners is small, and really nothing to be worried about. Nekkid pix and/or TSA groping is a different issue.<br />
<br />
Here's a really fabulous discussion from twitter about the TSA's new backscatter x-ray full-body imaging systems, and the radiation risks from the delivered dose, captured 11/17/2010, about noon PST, roughly 2-3hrs after the conversation occurred. I've curated it here to make it a bit more readable, and have maybe cleaned up a typo or two.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/BadAstronomer/status/4924069086494721">Here's the BadAstronomer post that I saw.</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa's "rant" starts here: <a class="twitter-timeline-link" href="http://is.gd/hi8Ic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://is.gd/hi8Ic</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok friends it's rant time though I prefer think of it as educating with numbers. </div><div class="MsoNormal">If you believe that the new TSA policies are necessarily invasive, please don't weaken your case by spouting off about radiation dose</div><div class="MsoNormal">Making easily falsifiable statements will hurt your case, particularly if this goes to court. It is a lie that the doses are "unknown" </div><div class="MsoNormal">Prominent experts in the field of radiation science HAVE done dose calculations of these scanners and estimate them at .005-.009 mrem</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now let's just say... just say for the sake of conservatism (what I do at my job every day) that this is off by an order of magnitude </div><div class="MsoNormal">So we pick the highest estimate and mark it off by 1 order of magnitude, at 0.09 mrem...</div><div class="MsoNormal">By moving from Atlanta to Colorado, I upped my annual dose by 52 mrem per year. because there is more uranium in the soil here and more cosmic radiation dose as I am at a higher elevation. </div><div class="MsoNormal">This means that I would have to stand in that scanner 578 x's to make up the difference in radiation dose between 1 yr in CO vs. [1 yr in] GA</div><div class="MsoNormal">and that's making an assumption of an order of magnitude error by people who are absolute experts in the area of dose calculation</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you think that the privacy concerns should be fought, you are potentially harming the eventual court case by allowing emotionally charged non-science to be considered at all on the agenda. Please consider standing out against this. it will help your case in the long run.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Making any one part of an argument look foolish when faced with facts will make people think about how much they believe the rest of it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">A few people have brought this article to my attention <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5692198/">http://gizmodo.com/5692198/</a> @mik3cap @popsciguy</div><div class="MsoNormal">I stand by the numbers i have stated and also by the statement that the doses calced by *outside groups* DO consider the dose is to the skin </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">normalizing the dose calc to a whole body dose is a common practice for compliance with fed regs, however there are regs for organ dose too</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you read the letter of concern note that there is no actual numbers presented for the extra risks discussed.</div><div class="MsoNormal">as a professional, i do not trust sources that discuss "dangers" with no numbers or calculations associated with them.</div><div class="MsoNormal">and i think that reading his addendums to the article at the bottom really says a lot.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Though imo saying the "cancer risks are not well understood"is a lot like saying "the effects of vaccines on autism are not well understood"</div><div class="MsoNormal">FYI, i hadn't read that article before because i broke up with Gizmodo a while ago for their tendency to not present the fact </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">and honestly... i thought about putting it all in a blog post and i still might, but if i link a blog you're a lot less likely to read it :)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">-----</div><div class="MsoNormal">@bird2brain John McKee</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa How does the scan compare with the subsequent flight? Also, Aren't there two types of scanners? THANKS!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@bird2brain the estimate of 6 hours flight is generally accepted to be 2 mrem, so the dose from the scanner is much less than the flight</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@bird2brain yes, millimeter wave scanners are non-ionizing (like cell phone or MRI) & backscatter rad are ionizing (like an x-ray or CT)</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@bird2brain 2 different kinds of rad with two completely different sets of potential and theoretical health effects</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Physicsguru Curtis Meisenheimer</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa Isn't the issue more of the type of radiation, ie X-ray vice gamma. Therefore, the dose is absorbed locally in the skin...</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa as opposed to whole body radiation exposure?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@Physicsguru x-ray and gamma are both e-mag ionizing radiation, just x are emitted by electrons and gamma is emitted by the nucleus</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@Physicsguru dose calculated to the skin or any other organ is normalized to a whole body equivalent for compliance with regulation</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@Physicsguru the fact that this is a skin dose *has* been considered.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">GeekStuffOG Matt Cipoletti</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa just to be clear we are saying that the radiation portion of the argument is hulaballoo but the privacy issues are legit?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@GeekStuffOG yes. that is what i'm saying. i just hate seeing a legitimate argument being marred by bad science</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">jduvel Jason Duvel</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa ...what about pilots who may be scanned multiple times per day depending on their flights, and for many years? ...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@jduvel well you saw my numbers... compared to their flights the scanners are not really a concern for pilots. It's an increasing trend to badge pilots (give them an external radiation dose monitor) so they know the dose they are getting in a year.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhoinixArt Phoinix</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa Question: Would there be added risk associated with air-crew continually using them? Adding onto their doses from flying etc?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhoinixArt compared to the dose they get from the flight itself, it would take a long time for it to add up to a couple extra flights</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">thefoodgeek Brian J. Geiger</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa So the argument about the radiation being absorbed into a small percentage of the body volume is likewise irrelevant?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">.@thefoodgeek it's not irrelevant, it's accounted for in the dose calculations that have been done, despite what the media has told you</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">GlennF Glenn Fleishman</div><div class="MsoNormal">@stradling @PhysicistLisa It’s not that I dispute the science. I dispute the veracity of the scanner makers. Dose calcs ≠ clinical msrments</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@GlennF i'm not basing my numbers off of the scanner makers my numbers are from outside groups like the Health Physics Society @stradling</div><div class="MsoNormal">@GlennF and the experiments that have been done so far show doses less than calculated.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">bird2brain John McKee</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa But the backscatter is still not much of a concern?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@bird2brain in my professional opinion? no i would not worry about the dose from backscatter radiation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">jduvel Jason Duvel</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa Though even using your order of magnitude # with 4 scans a day and 200 days of flying comes up to 72 mrem/year.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@jduvel which is lower than the dose to the public of 100 mrem/yr enforced by 10CFR20. Radiation workers are allowed a higher dose even</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">popthestack Ryan Martinsen</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa can you post your sources for the studies you've read?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@popthestack <a href="http://www.public.asu.edu/%7Eatppr/RPD-Final-Form.pdf">http://www.public.asu.edu/~atppr/RPD-Final-Form.pdf</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@particle_person i don't think that there's any credible calculations that would say this technology will cause a few extra deaths a year</div><div class="MsoNormal">@particle_person but your point is an interesting philosophical one. i don't know enough about terrorists risk rates to say for sure</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">markbeadles Mark Beadles</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa Agreed about individual radiation risk, but is aggregate radiation risk > aggregate terror risk?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@markbeadles i don't know enough about aggregate terror risk to comment for sure but anyone who's telling you that the scanners are going to kill multiple people a year are not using defensible calculation technique</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Physicsguru Curtis Meisenheimer</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa Understandable. Isn't mm-wave superior since it isn't ionizing? Or do they lose resolution?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@Physicsguru i'm not entirely sure. over all there is no proven risk to low levels of non-ionizing so safer, in essence yes.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">treelobsters Tree Lobsters!</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa How much extra radiation exposure does someone get from flying at 30000 feet? i.e. is it more or less than the scanner</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@treelobsters 2 mrem for a 6 hour flight. much more</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">GeekStuffOG Matt Cipoletti</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa anyopinion on safety for pregnant women?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@GeekStuffOG your dose would be much higher on the plane ride itself. read here <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC153688/">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC153688/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal">@GeekStuffOG that addresses the us and canada's stance on flying during pregnancy.</div><div class="MsoNormal">@GeekStuffOG the fact of the matter is that it is mostly skin dose and the baby isn't actually that close to the surface</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Finguz Paul Finlay</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa So "I don't like the invasion of privacy and the fewer mrems the better, no matter how small the dose" isn't unreasonable? :)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@Finguz i think that worrying about .009 mrem is a little unreasonable honestly. The things you do in a day that alter you by .009 mrem...</div><div class="MsoNormal">@Finguz i completely stand by the right to privacy though. i just worry people will weaken their court case when they are inevitably made to look foolish on the stand if they start to bring up the rad dose...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> ----</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">GlennF Glenn Fleishman</div><div class="MsoNormal">@PhysicistLisa @stradling Experiments by whom? Who provided #s used for calculations? My assumption starts with notion that scanner...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">PhysicistLisa Lisa M</div><div class="MsoNormal">@GlennF the ones i have been able to actually read the full calculations by are by Arizona State University and the Health Physics Society</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> [there's actually a quite a bit of dialogue between @GlennF and @PhysicistLisa - I encourage you to check it out]</div>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-47929417876221693032010-08-18T03:02:00.000-07:002010-08-18T03:05:57.523-07:00<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A friend of mine - well, actually, she's one of the bartenders at the neighborhood watering hole - has just launched a quarterly, <a href="http://www.whoremagazine.net/whore_magazine/Whore%21_Home.html">Whore! Magazine</a>. On their <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27606491632">facebook page</a>, the question was posed: <b>What is feminism?</b></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One basic principle came to mind, something I'd in the past always used as a quick definition of what feminism means to me: <i>Equal pay for equal work.</i></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/We_Can_Do_It%21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/We_Can_Do_It%21.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But this isn't enough, is it? In many ways, this idea of equal pay for equal work follows from the economic shifts during WW2, when women entered the job force to fill the roles that were held by men, now fighting overseas. It was somewhat of a novelty, and compensation was not at the level of men's compensation, but it was essential for the war effort. After the war and after the GIs returned, having tasted financial independence, many women couldn't go back to their previous role as housewives.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But there's more to feminism - where is the suffrage, for example. What about sexuality? What about other aspects of gender dynamics I eventually threw this together - it's what I think feminism is, or what I think it should be, today. It's a little sloppy, but I like it. Maybe I'll clean it up at some point.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>feminism is a clear path to the top rung of the ladder<br />
feminism is </i>walking<i> down the street in the middle of the night with nary a concern<br />
feminism is being able to make your own decisions about your body<br />
feminism is equal compensation for equa<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">l merit<br />
feminism is making sure the doors are open for all<br />
feminism still has a ways to go</span></i></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show">Amanda Recupido, who I know through <a href="http://www.twitter.com/theundomestic">twitter</a> (and we have common friends, it turns out) has a blog <a href="http://thisiswhatafeministlookslike.tumblr.com/">This Is What A Feminist Looks Like</a>. The blog shows pictures of women living their lives. There is not "feminist" look - these are pictures of women from all walks of life, doing all sorts of different things. This made me think of one woman in particular: Jenny Hodgers.</span><i><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I hadn't made this connection previously, but I've always thought of war as chaos, unleashing all sorts of unpredictable energies that can completely transform a society, not least of which, it can shatter it, if you're on the losing side.</span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></i><span class="text_exposed_show" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> And WWII seemed to have improved the lot of American women economically, and as a consequence, socially<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">.</span></span><span class="text_exposed_show"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Here's a public radio piece about a woman who fought in the US Civil War</span></span><span class="text_exposed_show">, and she was transformed because of it: <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104452266">In Civil War, Woman Fought For Freedom Like A Man</a></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://transom.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/pic10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://transom.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/pic10.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Albert Cashier, right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show">Her name was </span>Jennie Hodgers; her <i>nom de guerre</i> was Albert Cashier.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Here's an excerpt from the piece, but I encourage you to give it a listen.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div>LINDA PAUL: To get an idea why Jennie Hodgers may have subjected herself to the rigors of war, you need to know a little about the U.S. job market in 1861.<br />
<br />
Ms. DEANNE BLANTON (Co-Author, "They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War"): Well, a private in the Union Army made $13 a month, which was easily double what a woman would make as a laundress, or a seamstress or even a maid.<br />
[...]<br />
Ms. BLANTON: But once they were in the pants and earning more money and spending their money, they seemed to greatly enjoy the freedom that came with being perceived as a man.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
PAUL: Women at the time of the Civil War couldn't vote. They mostly depended on men to survive. In return, they were supposed to devote their time and talents entirely to husbands, children and their extended families. That was the Victorian ideal...that was mostly aimed at middle and upper-class women, and they're not the ones who went off to war.<br />
<br />
<br />
Ms. BLANTON: The women who went to war, who disguised themselves as men and carried a gun, were overwhelmingly working-class women, immigrant women, poor women, urban women and yeoman farm girls.<br />
<br />
<br />
PAUL: Jennie Hodgers part of this group. She was an immigrant from Clogherhead, Ireland, who couldn't read or write. By the end of the war, she needed to make some tough decisions about her identity. If she stayed Albert Cashier, it was more likely she'd find work, keep the friends she made during the war and be part of a respected community of Civil War veterans.<br />
<br />
<br />
Ms. BLANTON: She can have a bank account. She can vote in elections - and she did, by the way. Or, if she goes back and puts on a dress and tells everyone that she's Jennie, she has just lost her entire life. <br />
<br />
PAUL: Jennie's decision: to continue her life as a man. <br />
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The radio piece goes on to describe what happens to Albert/Jennie:</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div>PAUL: It's not Jennie Hodgers' name that's read on Memorial Day because it's Albert the town remembers. And it wasn't Jennie, the doctor sent to an insane asylum at the end of her life, it was Albert's name on the commitment papers.<br />
<br />
<br />
PAUL: Here's what happened: late in her life, Jennie Hodgers was still living undetected as Albert Cashier in Saunemin, but at age 67, when she was hit by a car, she was sent to live at a soldiers' and sailors' home for disabled war vets. A couple of people there knew her secret, but remarkably, it was a few years before it slipped out and made it into newspapers around the country. That's when the Pension Bureau launched its fraud investigation.<br />
<br />
At about the same time, Cashier had become confused and noisy. Her condition was what today we'd probably call dementia. But back then, as was typical, she was deemed insane and dispatched to an asylum. The identity she had chosen was ignored, or as they may have seen it, corrected. She was placed in the women's ward and forced to wear skirts.<br />
<br />
Ms. O'DONNELL: It was so devastating to her that she would take pins and pin the skirt together between the legs to make them look like pants. And when she did that, they were very awkward 'cause they were so baggy, and she fell. And the fall resulted in an infection, and she never ever recovered from the infection. That was the cause of the death.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://transom.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/dsc07357.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://transom.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/dsc07357.jpg" width="200" /></a>PAUL: In the end, Jennie Hodgers did get rid of that dreaded cumbersome skirt. Albert Cashier's comrades made sure that she was buried in her soldier's uniform. And that she received a proper military funeral. <br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></i></div>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-52766407963915250902010-05-01T16:40:00.000-07:002010-05-01T16:46:28.545-07:00<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>New York City Thoughts</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I've been thinking about New York City and the 9/11/2001 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon nine years ago. Here is a holiday card that was sent out that year by the <a href="http://www.parkslopegallery.com/">Park Slope Gallery</a>. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidx5zi-kjCR0hogdw95AeFT_soXC9wqunpXB5wTHbfa44hXl_Atpyl2uo6woQ9dX2ufSzKMCMiSnbGCRizme1wq8KvqYSLkuwf-0mfkIFWPmigaW3Ns6olmlqS4LZ_BBik3GjK-w/s1600/The-Message-Redux.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="91" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidx5zi-kjCR0hogdw95AeFT_soXC9wqunpXB5wTHbfa44hXl_Atpyl2uo6woQ9dX2ufSzKMCMiSnbGCRizme1wq8KvqYSLkuwf-0mfkIFWPmigaW3Ns6olmlqS4LZ_BBik3GjK-w/s400/The-Message-Redux.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Today, nine years later, because of these attacks, we are enmeshed in two wars in the Middle East, with blood directly spilled in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Our country is deeply divided over the conduct and execution of the war on our part. In addition to the 3000+ lives lost in America that horrible day, we've lost nearly <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/">5,500 US military lives</a> not to mention an additional <a href="http://icasualties.org/">1,000 coalition military lives</a> as well as about <a href="http://icasualties.org/Iraq/IraqiDeaths.aspx">10,000 lives from the Iraqi security forces and almost 48,000 Iraqi civilian lives since 2005</a> (with low-bound estimates of about <a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/year-three/">22,000 reported Iraqi deaths for 2003 and 2004 including the invasion phase</a> and higher civilian casualty estimates of <a href="http://brusselstribunal.org/pdf/lancet111006.pdf">about 425,000 to 800,000 for the period of March 2003 to June 2006</a>). In Afghanistan from 2001 to 2009, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29">estimates are around 10,000 to 13,000 civilian lives lost</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Afghan_security_forces_fatality_reports_in_Afghanistan">around 4,000 to 5,000 Afghan police and military lives lost</a>. And I am not even going into the numbers of people wounded but not killed.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The image from this peace rally in NYC's Union Square after the 9/11 attacks was taken and assembled by gallery director Phyllis Wrynn. I am often moved, sometimes to the brink of tears, by the power of the image, the power of its timeless message. Within a week of the tragedy and horror that gripped the city, our nation, and for a time, the world, somehow citizens of New York City came together amidst the roiling raw emotions of the time to call for not blood nor revenge, but for peace and justice. I've thought of this image and Gandhi's quotation so many many times over the years since the attacks - so powerful, so important, and yet so easily forgotten, much to the peril of all of us who seek to make our world a better place.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My great thanks to <a href="http://www.parkslopegallery.com/">Phyllis and The Park Slope Gallery</a> for helping to dig up a copy of the original card for me several months ago! And also: bonus image from NYC photographer <a href="http://www.parkslopegallery.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=198">George Forss</a>. Check out his <a href="http://www.parkslopegallery.com/html/gallery_store.html">Landmark Photos in the Park Slope Gallery store</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvl0ybEtoWXrBZHTrLzBqzO6RSU3r3xEZi0vt_VCzbFhnLMypuIRb59hvhC3gf5g0d0M7mqU3eKZMiOlfbQ1g8_NbJ5AKIHkEthl3F6roqoLJEVD7B8aeOJw-HxzfNcg6o8ESOQ/s1600/welaughwecry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvl0ybEtoWXrBZHTrLzBqzO6RSU3r3xEZi0vt_VCzbFhnLMypuIRb59hvhC3gf5g0d0M7mqU3eKZMiOlfbQ1g8_NbJ5AKIHkEthl3F6roqoLJEVD7B8aeOJw-HxzfNcg6o8ESOQ/s320/welaughwecry.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
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</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[ If I may indulge in a wee bit of intellectual masturbation:</i></span></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The numbers represent a hell of a lot of blood from war deaths- if you assume 4.5 liters of blood in an adult, that would be over 120,000 gallons of blood (based on the low end of the number of deaths, and this doesn't count those who are wounded and do not die). </i></span></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The standard oil barrel is 42 gallons, so we're talking about 11,000 barrels of blood so far from these two wars minimum. Interesting fact: the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2174rank.html">estimated oil consumption for the US, EU and China combined is about 42 million barrels PER DAY</a>.</i></span></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This is a bullshit comparison, of course, I mean, how many natural deaths occur, and what's that blood volume? Or volume of urine produced per day. Etc etc etc. Also, a huge problem with thinking of the Afghan war in terms of blood-for-oil is that Afghanistan itself doesn't have much in the way of petroleum fields. On the other hand, one can (and I do) argue that much of the money that is/was funding al Qaeda at the time of the 9/11 attacks had its source in Saudi oil profits, as well as the wealth of the bin Laden family and its various industries, such as construction engineering. ]</i></span></div>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-75604626173036347422010-03-08T12:46:00.000-08:002010-03-08T12:48:10.010-08:00<h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="UIStory_Message">OK, it seems like a manufactured red-letter day, but in collaboration with and respect for my feminist collaborators, I'm honoring Marie Skłodowska Curie today, for International Women's Day.</span></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJD1qYVBZMs4tVdeSoTllEE6_JT0hsYA_piBxbiGAlfrF_vwcaP4lGhpqDQFNmWYRZN-raCB0ocU62DrflglG6Tq9nNlhiMm06zuHCYwoQQIycd46vLuMg3eZZUO9eDG29AVEgA/s1600-h/3334194920_e4014f35a4_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJD1qYVBZMs4tVdeSoTllEE6_JT0hsYA_piBxbiGAlfrF_vwcaP4lGhpqDQFNmWYRZN-raCB0ocU62DrflglG6Tq9nNlhiMm06zuHCYwoQQIycd46vLuMg3eZZUO9eDG29AVEgA/s320/3334194920_e4014f35a4_o.jpg" /></a></div><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="UIStory_Message">She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (Physics, 1903, w/ advisor Henri Becquerel and fellow student Pierre Curie). She<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show"> was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes in two different subjects (Physics 1903, Chemistry 1911). The work of her and her family on radioactivity and nuclear chemistry and physics has had a tremendous influence on modern physics, chemistry, biology. <br />
<br />
With respect to society, she was the first woman to serve on the faculty of the University of Paris. As a woman, she faced considerable discrimination from her male peers, and it wasn't until her husband's tragic death that she truly emerged from his shadow and became the first woman professor at the University of Paris / Sorbonne. Despite her second Nobel Prize, the French Academy of Sciences (barely) failed to elect her into its membership in 1911 (her student became the first woman member in 1962). The revelation of her affair with physicist Paul Langevin was fuel for her rivals in academia, helped spur xenophobic (she was Polish, though working for France) and anti-Semitic rumors against her (she was not actually Jewish, though apparently even the anti-Semitic bigots that would fuel the Dreyfus affair wanted a piece of her).<br />
<br />
She founded the Radium Institute (now the Maria Skłodowska–Curie Institute of Oncology) in Warsaw in the early 30's, while actively continuing her research in radioactivity at the Sorbonne to the very end. Sadly, it was that very subject matter that ultimately killed her by way of aplastic anemia, from exposure to the very radioactivity and substances that she discovered. <br />
<br />
She has been described as an early feminist: emancipated and independent. And, it was said of her by Einstein, "Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted."<br />
<br />
<i>Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have<br />
perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe<br />
that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. -- Marie Skłodowska Curie</i></span></span></h3>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-69795507589789570212010-02-14T11:21:00.000-08:002010-02-15T04:32:35.848-08:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKWV5MOZlJWtAIHDshU3PcYt_wYHwkMGOlo9UEPl9CcSt1WP1iRrjp2a0hcqqXwDducGsBq-XnvHOl9PAbLDn7ly_MDGGF1hGyDA-6PTrsuDA6dUKHhamgZAXvVNfOpOBgEEVjQ/s1600-h/logo.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438193368332601634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKWV5MOZlJWtAIHDshU3PcYt_wYHwkMGOlo9UEPl9CcSt1WP1iRrjp2a0hcqqXwDducGsBq-XnvHOl9PAbLDn7ly_MDGGF1hGyDA-6PTrsuDA6dUKHhamgZAXvVNfOpOBgEEVjQ/s400/logo.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 310px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 225px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"> Love</span><br />
by Kathleen Fisher<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">The heartshape,</div>it turns out, is based<br />
not upon the heart, but<br />
the vulva. The heart,<br />
it turns out,<br />
more closely<br />
resembles<br />
the fist.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">(from the literary journal <span style="font-style: italic;">Exquisite Corpse</span>, No. 45, 1994)</div>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-52423775014661894012010-01-31T13:14:00.000-08:002010-02-15T04:29:43.083-08:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS1bgf2urKHgkPdTFifno7Phw50D0vAUQM00SN0t4-O7HrDWTuhVhHoLhFbuWMx32fCRUmf_wT-mzsZnSzMT8odXUUUbHlN2HueRpKhROOrPUkzvpTThYVYx8hYqP3U4Cctna_zQ/s1600-h/coupe5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433019184036930418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS1bgf2urKHgkPdTFifno7Phw50D0vAUQM00SN0t4-O7HrDWTuhVhHoLhFbuWMx32fCRUmf_wT-mzsZnSzMT8odXUUUbHlN2HueRpKhROOrPUkzvpTThYVYx8hYqP3U4Cctna_zQ/s320/coupe5.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 266px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Difference Between Men and Women</span><br />
<br />
I was hanging out at my local watering hole, the Lone Palm, the other night, and started talking to a young woman named Bethany.<br />
<br />
She was drinking a glass of water - it was late, and wisely, she had switched over from the spirited drink to the hydrating drink in anticipation of the morning after the night before. She asked what I was drinking.<br />
<br />
"It's a French martini." She stared at me, the martini glass, and at me again. "What's a French martini?" she asked, with a hint of dubiousness in her voice. "It's a classic drink actually - pineapple juice, Chambord, vodka. Maybe a hint of lemon." Perhaps appreciating the combination, she then asked, "Well, you know what they say about martinis, right?" Quizzickly, I said, "No, actually, what do they say about martinis?" At this point, her friend, a tall red-haired gentleman with a neatly trimmed beard and haircut had wandered over. "Well," Bethany continued, "One is not enought, and three are two many." I laughed, as did her friend.<br />
<br />
"But," I pointed out, "you realize that you're trying to tell this to me, a guy. I think I can appreciate a third breast, maybe even a fourth." Her face twitched subtlely, as if she had just stopped her eyes from rolling up. She turned to her friend, "well, what do you think about martinis being like breasts." He thought for a moment, "Three breasts - I can work with that." This time Bethany's eyes DID roll. "OK, I get it. This saying doesn't work for guys."<br />
<br />
I was surprised to discover that this saying about the martini has been attributed to Herb Caen, the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist... though frankly, I'm surprised that the saying isn't as old as, say, vermouth. Curiously, this also brought to mind the French idea that the perfect breast will fit into a champagne coupe - supposedly the coupe was modelled after the breasts of Marie Antoinette, and the dance troupe Folies Bergere used such a comparison for choosing their dancers.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-13807838662332352722010-01-09T07:10:00.000-08:002010-01-09T08:08:43.114-08:00<span style="font-weight: bold;">Art Opening Reception for José Arenas, Philip Hua and.... Marta!</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hangart.com/images/artists/AREN/aren101.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 297px;" src="http://www.hangart.com/images/artists/AREN/aren101.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The other evening, I attended a first-Thursday reception for <span style="font-weight: bold;">American Pastiche: Choose Your Own Adventure</span> - <span style="font-style: italic;">Jose Arenas | Phillip Hua</span> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hangart.com/images/artists/HUAP/huap068.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 249px;" src="http://www.hangart.com/images/artists/HUAP/huap068.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>at Hang Art Gallery in San Francisco. Jose is one of my fantastic art teachers at Foothill College, and I rather like his work. The exhibition web site is <a href="http://www.hangart.com/art/ingallery_shows/larger.cfm?ExhibitId=653&st=1">here</a>.<br /><br />Amid the hustle and bustle, the schmoozing and networking, I happened to notice these two girls, completely absorbed in the creative process, perhaps inspired by everything going on around them, perhaps indifferent to it all.<br /><br />I was captivated by their focus and dedication to their drawing. There's something pure about childish exploration.Many kids possess a single-m<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA-IiqHEt6PtbxaZrU_xY3-XqfQRLTSPlFzoxsvCqCQuWUkXIZ4U1GkRRFXntpxwBYTErVWhGdAEBoaXEyF-jUS6NKrWDby_nWlYa48pEO9nYT1mBSMTAOk218PkDIaDk2O_mFMQ/s1600-h/art20100107-0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 229px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA-IiqHEt6PtbxaZrU_xY3-XqfQRLTSPlFzoxsvCqCQuWUkXIZ4U1GkRRFXntpxwBYTErVWhGdAEBoaXEyF-jUS6NKrWDby_nWlYa48pEO9nYT1mBSMTAOk218PkDIaDk2O_mFMQ/s320/art20100107-0.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424771290096326770" border="0" /></a>indedness and dexterity of engagement that many of us lose as we mature into adults. This is why it's often said that children make the best scientists, and why their artwork contains an élan that is elusive to many adults.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"> I was not the only one to notice this. The woman talking to these exciting new artists runs the Hang gallery (DJ Harmon, I believe). Well, she has a keen eye for emerging talent, and it made perfect sense to introduce the San Francisco art scene to the works of these two young ladies during this First Thursday event.<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSqXOYGDmEFuNeNDRynRjAhhkoLt7VJGvjycIU3TcMrMpJA0EYw0h4b8On9FcZVHAng7EcEeZQ6ykzlloJHlc4r114PP9Bu2y4i-qNjKhZ_vBp08r-XCsWsmnyuEWQdlv6GV9lQ/s1600-h/art20100107-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSqXOYGDmEFuNeNDRynRjAhhkoLt7VJGvjycIU3TcMrMpJA0EYw0h4b8On9FcZVHAng7EcEeZQ6ykzlloJHlc4r114PP9Bu2y4i-qNjKhZ_vBp08r-XCsWsmnyuEWQdlv6GV9lQ/s320/art20100107-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424771294812284578" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The drawing that's going up, is labelled "Marta, age 4 1/2. (NFS)." The collection of this evening's output from these two exciting new artists can be found <a href="http://hangartsf.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/a-really-emerging-artist/">here</a> and also <a href="http://hangartsf.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/drawings04.jpg">here</a> and <a href="http://hangartsf.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/drawings02.jpg">here</a>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-15382220748599537342009-11-18T11:37:00.001-08:002010-02-15T04:35:18.479-08:00<div style="color: #003300; float: right; font-family: verdana; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yuweiquan/4114875865/" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2778/4114875865_745fb1b79c_m.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yuweiquan/4114875865/">birthday</a><br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/yuweiquan/">yuweiquan</a></span></div><span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana; font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">On The Use of Office Products as Beauty Aids</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">Linda Dyer</span><br />
<br />
<div style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper-weight..."</span><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">--Theodore Roethke</span></span></div><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">Free use of office supplies</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">could be called a benefit</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">of my profession; I'm never</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">without remedies. Paper clip</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">holds a teased hairdo,</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">package tape around my waist</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">gives me form; ledger green</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">correction fluid makes a fine</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">eyeshadow: smart</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">as well as practical.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">Say it's true the unkind</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">words of others actually cling</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">to our skin until we bathe;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">I use file-folders under</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">my blouse as a deflector-vest.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;">This is the life I live</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;">so that out of it</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;">I can create another.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">With an arsenal of mechanical</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">pencils and hand-held dictaphone</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">I go into the night</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">and walk with the moon</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">down urination alley</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">to the employee parking lot, </span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">skirt held with a binder clip</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">where a button failed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">But the policeman assumes something</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">disloyal about the three-hole punch</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">and postage meter under my arm</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">and invites me to the station,</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">where he takes my fingerprints,</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">one of which looks unusual to him</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">with its series of dots, until</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">he recognizes I'm wearing </span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">one of those rubber fingers</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">a secretary uses to page through</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">deposition volumes looking for</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">some defendant's name,</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">the very name which paused</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">the stenographer's fingers</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">over a shorthand machine--</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">think of the testimony lost</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">while she spelled it</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">letter by letter.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">The cop questions me: how long</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">have I been at my job, do I</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">get retirement, why a not-bad-looking</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">woman would stay so late</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">on a weekend without extra</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">pay? I tell him about the scientist</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">who suggested that our moon</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">influenced the tides -- how he</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">was considered not only foolish,</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">but a dangerous occultist</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">by his scientific peers;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">yes, the very moon walked upon by men,</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">the one consulted by lovers to predict</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">good fortune or impermanence,</span><br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">the one which will follow me home.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #003300; font-family: verdana;">(c) 2001 by Linda Dyer </span>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-58997650165073781372008-08-06T23:26:00.000-07:002008-08-06T23:48:38.713-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlSHzPU8fagsb2hoiGDOkzZSzxc1mWJpYfhyphenhyphenUwEiET3ORBA2lRdjK-yop0eeL9-QuXlfv0OhOad2dLzhWRHx45c3UOZ10UW6bsPl0ORt42UtkUzqEmvOwE_HagYbe4x5sjIaCFg/s1600-h/KoL+lucky+find+copy.jpg"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:lucida grande;" ></span></a><span style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;">Results from diving in the Heap!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I guess the RNG doesn't hate me after all!</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlSHzPU8fagsb2hoiGDOkzZSzxc1mWJpYfhyphenhyphenUwEiET3ORBA2lRdjK-yop0eeL9-QuXlfv0OhOad2dLzhWRHx45c3UOZ10UW6bsPl0ORt42UtkUzqEmvOwE_HagYbe4x5sjIaCFg/s1600-h/KoL+lucky+find+copy.jpg"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlSHzPU8fagsb2hoiGDOkzZSzxc1mWJpYfhyphenhyphenUwEiET3ORBA2lRdjK-yop0eeL9-QuXlfv0OhOad2dLzhWRHx45c3UOZ10UW6bsPl0ORt42UtkUzqEmvOwE_HagYbe4x5sjIaCFg/s400/KoL+lucky+find+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5231663445501006578" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />This is from the web game <a href="http://www.kingdomofloathing.com">Kingdom of Loathing</a>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-64277327720566560762008-07-29T07:42:00.000-07:002010-02-15T04:31:37.788-08:00<span style="color: #333333; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">For Linda Dyer,</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Bold Soul</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">, <a href="http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/dyer.htm" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Poet</span></a>,<br />
</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">d. 7/28/2006</span><br />
<a href="http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/book_files/linda.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/book_files/linda.gif" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUZOCzAav4" style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="font-style: italic;">smile smile smile</span></a><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;">by dan zanes</span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 85%; font-style: italic;"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;">every time I think of you,<br />
smile for a while<br />
that's the one thing you always do<br />
smile smile smile </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;"> </span> <br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">acting out stories and hugging your friends<br />
smile for a while<br />
i know what i'll do when i see you again<br />
i'm gonna smile smile smile</span></span></div><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;"> </span><br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">chorus:<br />
like ripples in a pond<br />
or runners who pass the baton<br />
good feelings will go on for mile after mile<br />
and your big heart circles the world<br />
every time that you smile</span></span></div><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;"> </span><br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">doing those voices and telling your jokes<br />
smile for a while<br />
your crazy hairdos and your thriftshop coats<br />
smile smile smile</span></span></div><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;"> </span><br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">every time you break into a broadway song<br />
smile for a while<br />
the whole world starts singing along<br />
smile smile smile</span></span></div><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;"> </span><br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">well you know i love you and i'm glad you're my friend<br />
smile for a while<br />
you know what i'll do when i see you again<br />
smile smile smile</span></span></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 85%;"><br />
(Thanks to Trish McKinney & the BPP Kubler-Ross musical series for introducing me to the song. Not sure about the video, however)</span>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-1690442004436541562008-07-01T14:57:00.000-07:002010-02-15T04:37:41.661-08:00Is Donna Noble wearing the Master's ring? Not likely.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEIem9uDDYYLTnCRslR8cMhZ4Cwhyphenhyphenaq6434iSPMc-MH_0dp72al_AJ-Ol2z-HIi1XqcF5FaUU2_Rt5irMcV4PWYKn42v6MPBalmlJBSmeEBmTLcjSDBl9HpyHW-_IiIMBRc3-kA/s1600-h/vlcsnap-2784411.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218168747005673522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEIem9uDDYYLTnCRslR8cMhZ4Cwhyphenhyphenaq6434iSPMc-MH_0dp72al_AJ-Ol2z-HIi1XqcF5FaUU2_Rt5irMcV4PWYKn42v6MPBalmlJBSmeEBmTLcjSDBl9HpyHW-_IiIMBRc3-kA/s320/vlcsnap-2784411.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXb7bmGI3PaW24rXRd_dEXnWxD_3weO2v-4btcfob-av85dgRswv1tW4dlGnLMpDD9nqS-QkXt4yV5szy6yDUZTWZSsUSxsoMnU_OWBtCHZR5pO5jEK-o1CyFClJJhyQeavTyWew/s1600-h/vlcsnap-2788336.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218168752577115314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXb7bmGI3PaW24rXRd_dEXnWxD_3weO2v-4btcfob-av85dgRswv1tW4dlGnLMpDD9nqS-QkXt4yV5szy6yDUZTWZSsUSxsoMnU_OWBtCHZR5pO5jEK-o1CyFClJJhyQeavTyWew/s320/vlcsnap-2788336.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /></a>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-39573253987663781952008-03-31T10:15:00.000-07:002010-02-15T04:38:40.090-08:00<span style="font-weight: bold;">Snacking in the Floating World<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />
</span></span><br />
This is one of my favorite prints, by the artist <a href="http://www.masamiteraoka.com/index2.html">Masami Teraoka</a><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOKRZnL6Q72XozF-JPHBKIvVVWANRHd49otEoaQ_MeNMq61G7QObPr0Su3aDr9eGuRWKvr_hKs_bmaa74M2NnUSqYawCZc7Z2BTVEW5smlNpW7VmKIMgfapITbLnFopUtpAoH9g/s1600-h/McDonalds.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183956679118639362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOKRZnL6Q72XozF-JPHBKIvVVWANRHd49otEoaQ_MeNMq61G7QObPr0Su3aDr9eGuRWKvr_hKs_bmaa74M2NnUSqYawCZc7Z2BTVEW5smlNpW7VmKIMgfapITbLnFopUtpAoH9g/s400/McDonalds.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOKRZnL6Q72XozF-JPHBKIvVVWANRHd49otEoaQ_MeNMq61G7QObPr0Su3aDr9eGuRWKvr_hKs_bmaa74M2NnUSqYawCZc7Z2BTVEW5smlNpW7VmKIMgfapITbLnFopUtpAoH9g/s1600-h/McDonalds.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="color: #333333;"><span class="imagecaption" style="font-style: italic;"></span></a><span style="font-style: italic;">McDonald's Hamburgers Invading Japan / Geisha and Tattooed Woman, 1975,</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Watercolor on paper, 14-1/4" x 21-1/2"</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Private collection, New York, NY</span></div>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-4915687197808869462007-10-14T10:43:00.000-07:002007-10-14T11:31:32.232-07:00<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >I Wish I Could Travel One Month Back In Time<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRllKhADIgkwXVZiBTBVz01fF36C56iikd8hjEHhmOHCVagtcgtLHyCgSxiVLsvea6csUt5eqd8ovk9Bz6YWCofOAHb1C9RFRgDeUZ0RXqtc_oYhuxNepNTIGKXHV0BOYKCMOhA/s1600-h/sugi_times_lg.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRllKhADIgkwXVZiBTBVz01fF36C56iikd8hjEHhmOHCVagtcgtLHyCgSxiVLsvea6csUt5eqd8ovk9Bz6YWCofOAHb1C9RFRgDeUZ0RXqtc_oYhuxNepNTIGKXHV0BOYKCMOhA/s320/sugi_times_lg.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5121250026841215602" border="0" /></a>Yesterday, I dropped into the Asian Art Museum in SF, and there are two exhibits that just opened.<br /><a href="http://www.asianart.org/sugimoto.htm"><span style="font-weight: bold;">History of History</span></a> by Hiroshi Sugimoto.<br /><br />Renowned Japanese photographer <a href="http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/">Hiroshi Sugimoto</a> presents a number of works exploring the connections between different eras of mostly, but not exclusively, Japanese history.<br /><br />This is an interesting exhibit - the installation itself was designed by Sugimoto, in accordance to his belief that the installation is as much a part of the artwork as the artwork itself.<br /><br />I'm impressed by the way different historical eras are tied together by various bits of artwork. Among them is a 17th century etching by Rembrandt that is mounted on a Japanese scroll. One of the figures in the Rembrandt bears a physical resemblance to one of the major figures in Japanese Buddhism. The etching is itself mounted on a scroll using Japanese textiles that are roughly contemporary to that Rembrandt. Serendipitously, as the artist later discovered, the paper used by Rembrandt was, in fact, exported to the Netherlands <span style="font-style: italic;">from Japan</span>. I was impressed by the superficial clash of cultural styles, but as one explores deeper, there is, in fact, a common context that's represented by the whole work.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0nREB859ELH6FzE_9GjPCQ3FGVvwqf4AVoIBVXUItXZ39Y8eLThKci81OccKzT2BK_Mpc3RvVBVfecgB5YpyvCPwpNTAe2aVTfMkFr8UqkyWZsHpLGklwXfa_PybWoCTjkFXZg/s1600-h/watanabe_b.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0nREB859ELH6FzE_9GjPCQ3FGVvwqf4AVoIBVXUItXZ39Y8eLThKci81OccKzT2BK_Mpc3RvVBVfecgB5YpyvCPwpNTAe2aVTfMkFr8UqkyWZsHpLGklwXfa_PybWoCTjkFXZg/s320/watanabe_b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5121250211524809346" border="0" /></a>Another exhibit, also at the Asian, is <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="Exhibit title" --> <p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.asianart.org/stylizedsculpture.htm"><span class="sectionheader">Stylized Sculpture: Contemporary Japanese Fashion from the Kyoto Costume Institute</span></a>, a collaboration between Sugimoto and the Kyoto Costume Institute. This is, perhaps, yet another of the "controversial" fashion shows to be shown in a museum. (There have been <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/02/MNSMRQ8I5.DTL">criticisms and controversy</a> over the injection of couture into the realm of the fine-arts museums in San Francisco. What the fuck ever. If people can't figure out the artistry of, say, <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1231_vivienne_westwood/exhibition.html">Vivienne Westwood</a> (excellent exhibit at the <a href="http://www.deyoungmuseum.org/deyoung/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?exhibitionkey=657">deYoung</a>, btw), then they're trapped in a rather narrow artistic paradigm, and I'd rather they spend more time doing oral performances of Cage's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E">4'33"</a>.)<br /></p><br /><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Anyways, this exhibit aims to show the couture of Japanese designers (including many from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comme_Des_Garcons">Comme des Garcon</a>) from 1983 to present as sculpture. Sugimoto's photographs of these fashion pieces are framed to minimize the human form. Interestingly, there is one piece that aims to distort the human form. Here, the body is but a frame for the clothes (and to make this point, there is a chair frame, a piece of furniture, that is upholstered by the same jacket that the adjacent mannequin is wearing). It's quite fascinating, but the exhibit, by design, has no didactics - the intent is to encourage the museumgoer to look at the artwork, not the little plaques about the art.</p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Sadly, about a few weeks too late, I just discovered that the De Young had shown a retrospective of Sugimoto's work. If only I had known, if only I had known.<br /></p>yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-32296917029484796022007-09-29T13:23:00.000-07:002007-09-29T13:27:07.443-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyZ7h5JHzXY-4W5jqYvFr1-8msrPsJQsZAZH5HdoDzkn9O_SiSBisZzuE6npw7WK_OOn_XdbTr-Futau0ZsPvwathYS30LkqO8NehHi73aNBJMdOMpHpUod85evm9KDXAzhdOsg/s1600-h/Rachael+Ray+Event+Instructions.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyZ7h5JHzXY-4W5jqYvFr1-8msrPsJQsZAZH5HdoDzkn9O_SiSBisZzuE6npw7WK_OOn_XdbTr-Futau0ZsPvwathYS30LkqO8NehHi73aNBJMdOMpHpUod85evm9KDXAzhdOsg/s200/Rachael+Ray+Event+Instructions.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115725294444253794" border="0" /></a><br />I came across this while cleaning out old paperwork the other day.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-4422348457553948022007-06-30T18:35:00.000-07:002007-06-30T18:38:42.186-07:00Oops. I haven't posted here in over a year! I'll try to be better.<br /><br />As for all for those spammers who posted a year's worth of bullshit for me to disposition? DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL, FUCKHEADS. Well, except for the Christian dating spam people: DARN YOU TO HECK, SINNERS.<br /><br /><br />More later.<br />-ywqyuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-1149355515343114182006-06-03T10:05:00.000-07:002008-07-29T12:05:41.929-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/1600/bookstation.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/320/bookstation.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO RIPPED ME OFF!<br /><br />I thought I'd provide a testimonial regarding my experiences with an online bookseller named bookstation.net.<br /><br />In my opinion, they are a fraud.<br /><br />If you look at their textbook prices, they seem to have AMAZING prices, about 50% of what you can get from Amazon used sellers or just about anything else on the web. So how do they do it? Well, here is their apparent scam.<br /><br />I ordered two books from these people. Both technical textbooks, US street value about $150 (Microwave Engineering by Pozar and Signals and Systems by Oppenheim for those who need the deets. I know who you are). For these two books, "BS.net" was selling them for a total of $75 for BOTH. Not bad, since textbooks are waaaay overpriced anyways.<br /><br />I ordered the books, and received the confirmation mail (twice, actually - they screwed up the order by perhaps trying to bill me twice, but after a quick and responsive email exchange, they cancelled the redundant order). I waited for the 2-week ship time, and as expected, a package arrived. It had a return address from Kolkata (aka Calcutta) India!<br /><br />NOWHERE on the web site, to the best of my knowledge - perhaps it is very obscurely buried somehwere - NOWHERE do they declare they are based in India. Which is fine, but it would have been nice to know. I opened up the package, and it is indeed one of the two books I ordered, but unexpectedly, it was the foreign Indian-market version, and not the US version, with the price magic markered away. It's a paperback, and it has the very very inexpensive and fragile thin paper that you can see through. No sign of the second book, however. I talked to a friend of mine who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, and he said that I paid way way way too much for that copy of the book, and that this is not an uncommon scam these days.<br /><br />I waited a few days for the second book, but nothing arrived. I sent them multiple queries and email, NOTHING. It wasn't until I started a complaint process with PayPal before I got any response - they claimed there was an error, and they would ship the second book or if I desired, they would credit me for the book. I asked for the credit. No response. More queries, nothing.<br /><br />So the deal with PayPal is they do not track this kind of apparent fraud (they would if there were no shipment, but in the case of a partial shipment of an apparently misrepresented item) not so. Even if they were to track fraud, it has to be done within 90 days, and unfortunately, because I trusted bookstation's lying asses, it exceeded the 90 days. ARGH.<br />In my opinion, bookstation.net is fraudulent. I believe they are: crooks.<br /><br />It turns out that at the time, they had <a href="http://www.bizrate.com/ratings_guide/cust_reviews__mid--60323.html">a link to bizrate.com</a>. Geniuses! I go to the site, and noticed that there were maybe half a dozen of more reviews of bookstation that were all 1 or zero stars out of 5. I was, apparently, not the only person burned by these lying motherfuckers. So I posted my experiences with them and my description of their apparent business model, and gave them the lowest possible rating.<br /><br />A week or two later, I noticed that bookstation.net (aka the people who seem to have RIPPED ME OFF) were no longer linking to this consumer review site. Heck, if I were a lying, piece of crap swindler, I sure wouldn't link to a site where people could post their experiences.<br /><br />So, I got burned. I went for the cheap price and ended up paying, essentially, full price for the super low-cost version of a book that I could have bought new with much better quality and longevity in the states for the same price.<br /><br />You have been warned.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-1148748106717780202006-05-27T09:33:00.000-07:002006-05-27T09:45:17.966-07:00OK, I am the world's lamest blogger. In fact, it's reasonable to ask the question: am I a blogger at all?<br /><br />For those who answer yes, I must ask: whaaaaa???? are you nuts? I've made maybe two posts here, one of which is of the "tap tap is this thing on" variety. You must have a liberal definition of what is considered a blogger. To you, I ask: are bloggers journalists? And, if you were to apply the laws of transitivity, does that then make me a journalist as well?<br /><br />For those who answer no, I must ask: whaaaaaaaa???? Are you nuts? I have maybe 2, 3 no, sometimes FOUR views of this site EVERY WEEK. I'm guessing that YOU, you UNFAITHFUL DOUBTER, are probably among those who come back week after week (all four of you), saying to yourself, what the fuck: doesn't this lameass person ever update their blog? I wonder if he is among the living? Well fuck you and your monkey. I live, I breathe, I blog. OK, well, I sort of blog. Come back in 6 months, and you'll see: I might even have another post.<br /><br />Until then: entertain yourself with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eQQTFSbjM0"> this</a>.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-1137789869970150602006-01-20T12:54:00.000-08:002006-04-12T11:13:37.753-07:00Pop quiz: why are you such a Pussy? A Moment of Silence<br /><br />Back in the early 2000's, there was a wonderful tool called the Burn Maker. It was a sophisticated text filter. The Timid You <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/1600/timid5.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/200/timid5.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a> would enter some benign text into a form, and hit the "Oh Yeah?" button, and your mild mannered text would be transformed into a wonderfully ribald, obscenity-laced version, revealing the Fucker Inside.<br />For example, here is a Burn Maker version of a friend's business letter to her bank, converted by the Burn Maker to reveal her inner fucker. The letter dates from 2001, I believe.<br /><br /><hr><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/1600/innerfucker.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/200/innerfucker.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Alice,<br /><br />I received a motherfucking letter from you and your hand-job today to fuckin' confirm our phone conversation regarding direct deposit, along with the fucking letter for my stupid ass to sign agreeing to that shit.<br /> <br />Unfortunately, fucking what you and your sluts refer to in the fucking letter is a "wire transfer" which is not fucking what I requested. Fucking what I requested was direct deposit, and I would still like that piece of shit to be done that way. Savor the brimstone. I presume this bullshit can be done through ACH. I also (in addition to the fact that you're a shit) imagine this bullshit would save us the fucking "wire transfer" fee.<br /> <br />I do not want a wire transfer. Pop Quiz, why are you such a pussy? Please set that bastard up as direct deposit as we requested. Are you ready to burn? I'll follow this bullshit up with a fuckin' paper letter with a motherfucking signature so god-damn you can go ahead and proceed with this bullshit.<br /> <br />Also (in addition to the fact that you're a bastard), the fucking letter I received today was addressed to fuckin' Madam "Little pussy" B--- L---. For the fucking record, my fucking name is Ms. "Has-been fuckmonster" B--- L---.<br /><br />You are a fuckmonster.<br />Thank you,<br />B--- L---<br /><br /><hr><br /><br />The Burn Maker was put together by the founders of what is now SparkNotes, Chris Coyne (and Justin Kester?), then undergraduates at Harvard. The Spark was quite a fun site - there was the "Date My Sister Project" and a variety of quizzes and personality tests. Very humorous. What was nice about the Burn Maker is that it was more than a text filter like "jive" or the Swedish Chef filter (bork bork bork), but it actually had a relatively sophisticated algorithm to parse the grammatical structure of the source text and substitute/insert appropriate (or inappropriate, if you will) phrases.<br /><br />In 2004, tragedy struck. OK, not necessarily tragedy for the founders - the mission of The Spark was apparently always to have an educational component - but at some point in that annus horriblus The Spark was acquired by Barnes and Noble and it became SparkNotes, a purely educational site, for teens, and other young impressionables, who, I'm sure, had never ever had their sensibilities assaulted by the obviously damaging language that the toxic Burn Maker was built from. The language of the Burn Maker could obviously lead to the eventual decline of America into some subservient colony beneath the heel of a prurient gutter in today's developing world (AKA the nation states of tomorrow's Great Overlords).<br /><br />As far as I can tell, the Burn Maker intellectual property is completely owned by Barnes and Noble, and not for sale. I can only hope that somehow, somewhere, a new Burn Maker can arise from the ashes. But frankly, unless somehow someone can take a huge number of Fucker Inside texts and reverse-engineer the conversion algorithm, I'm afraid we will have to be content with our fading memories of this brilliantly important web tool, snuffed out before its time. The graphics can be found at archive.org, but like an online Terry Schiavo, the brains of the Burn Maker are no more.<br /><br />Rest in Peace, Burn Maker, I ought to slam you and your monkey's ass.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-1137739902762322672006-01-19T23:36:00.000-08:002006-01-19T23:36:00.320-08:00Here we go.<br /><br />OK, making some progress here. I suppose my obsessions will begin tomorrow. This is my first blog! I kept asking myself, what should I blog about? The things that happen to me every day? Good gosh, I can't imagine anyone would be able to stay awake after the first couple of posts. I could blog about the things that go on in my workplace, but I'm sure HR would come by with a hard copy of my posts, so NO.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/1600/ring_of_fire.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3112/2145/320/ring_of_fire.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />One idea I had, was a blog about the RING OF FIRE. Yes, about the Johnny Cash song and all of its covers. But also about, well, how should we say, the after effects of eating food that's way way way too spicy. I'm not talking about the heat when you eat, I'm talking about the BURN several hours later. You know what I mean, and if you don't, it's probably better that way.<br /><br />But jeez, how much can anyone write on that one subject? So instead, I'm just going to write about whatever my latest obsession turns out to be. If you don't like my current obsession? Wait 10 minutes.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21227550.post-1137714813327242592006-01-19T15:53:00.000-08:002006-01-19T15:53:33.343-08:00Testing testing. I haven't figure out what I'm doing here yet. Stay tuned.yuweiquanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15162137392888784812noreply@blogger.com0