The Sand Dancer

Ephemeral art is one of life's special pleasures. Whether it is chalk on a sidewalk, a Navajo sand painting or Tibetan mandala, or just sand on the beach, the image is transitory. If you're lucky enough, you get to see the work from when it commences to when it disappears. Some people memorialize this ephemera with photography. National Geographic, for example, has had photo essays & stories on mandalas and sand paintings off and on over the decades.

My link today goes to a CBS news story about a man in Christchurch, New Zealand named Patrick Donnelly who is called "The Sand Dancer." Please enjoy seeing the video that clicking on the title will take you to. It's a delightful story.

Interesting Comments About Futile War On Drugs

You Gotta See For Yourself

As my good friends know, I'm a news reader. I have been this way all my life. My dad taught me to read the newspaper, The Saturday Evening Post and Time Magazine. One story at a time, starting at the front and reading to the back. One did not strew the sections apart. I still read like that. After he died and my mother went back to work when I was in 4th grade, I discovered to great glee, that when Time (among others), was delivered on Wednesdays that I could read it cover to cover before Mom got home from work. "What a deal!", I reckoned, "I don't have to wait til Saturday, anymore! Friday if I'm really lucky!" Ok, Mom got to read in between dealing with the six of us, mediating our spats, cooking, teaching us household chores and her working and going to night school to brush up on her bookkeeping and stenography skills. I liked it too, sitting curled up in the living room, in the formal wingback, the curtains drawn to bring in the sunlight.

My imagination has been captured over the years by a hugely eclectic variety of stories. Some stories can resonate deeply with me for some reason, others I forget promptly by the time I've read the last word. Sports has typically been drier for me than the business reports. Now, I'm sincerely glad there are ways to embed these 'bits' because sometimes, when I was a kid and would tell people that I'd read about stuff like this, I thought they thought I was just making this stuff up. And a "So There!" to 'em if they did think that!

So here's this clip about a kickboxer who also happens to be a glamorous model and I think her intrepidness must be similar to what some of my favorite science fiction writers have in mind when writing some of their cool heroines.

http://clipsyndicate.com/publish/video/442817?wpid=1904

Genarlow Wilson Prediction

I want to follow up a bit on Genarlow Wilson. My prediction is that he is going to prove to be an outstanding human being throughout his life. He lived through one of the most unjust prison sentences I've ever seen and within a day or so of his release was candid and gracious toward the men who prosecuted him and sent him to jail. According to CNN:

"Although Wilson believes his sentence was foul, he tells CNN that he understood that prosecutors were just doing their jobs, and he's not blaming anyone.

"We did everything we had to do throughout the court system, and justice was finally prevailed," he said. "No words really can explain how thankful me and my family are. The Bible says there’s a time and season for everything. I guess that time finally came.”"

Lemme tell ya, folks, that is grace personified.

'Burque Segue

'Burque is shortspeak for Albuquerque. Rhymes with turkey. Everyone not from here says Albuquerque is a mouthful. I like to think most of us around here are a pleasant people on the most part. Certainly we got some quirks and an interesting sense of humor. Take food, for instance.

In fact, local eateries all around town have a version of the Albuquerque Turkey sandwich on their menu. Ideally, this sandwich should be done with grilled sourdough bread just barely kissed with a sweep or two of clarified butter so the bread carmelizes to that perfect golden brown on a griddle. Lay on a couple thin slices of provlone while the bread grills and smoothe on a couple tablespoons diced fresh roasted Hatch green chile so they melt into the cheese. Layer 3 full slices of moist turkey breast and cover with the second slice of grilled bread. Turn once. Serve with guacamole on the side to dip the sandwich in or add as a spread. Mm-wah! The frou-frou -- lettuce and tomato can be ignored unless they're exquisitely garden fresh, in which case get extra! I like salad on the side with my sandwich, but that's part of keeping my cholesterol down too.

Oh and there is the famous New Mexican green chile cheeseburger that Bill Clinton used to love. He'd get a few from Monroe's whenever he was campaigning in or around Albuquerque. It was always local news. And he had good taste. They make a fine, juicy burger and oh! the green chile they get to go with it! Yee-haw! Good stuff! Of course now, I smirk everytime I go past there. I did win myself a tee-shirt out of Clinton's sex scandal. It was a contest where writers "confessed to having sex with Clinton, too!" It was total fiction of course; folks like me don't get in messes like that. But I like the local connection anyway. Just that tiny faint lil' thread of one. Course, I don't get to eat too many of those tasty wonders these days, what with trying to keep up with my diet and exercise.

No doubts here. I'm seriously watching how things are shaping up with Hillary and Barrak these days. They both have their merits. Although what either of them will be saddled with when Shrub goes is anyone's guess -- it's messy now, but in the next 441 days, 1 hour, 18 minutes and counting, who knows what more will be added to the mess? Oh, and speaking of messes, how about what's happening in Pakistan with Mousharrif suspending the constitution there and then going after the lawyers instead of the Taliban and Al-Quaeda? That's a scary mess. I STF (work it out) don't want nukes getting into those two groups hands. No. Not at all. Brinksmanship is not a game zealots play. It was bad enough living through it with Kennedy and Kruschev.

Tonight's local news carried a story about a 3 year old toddler who was the victim of an accidental shooting. The guy who shot him was a 20 year old. A kid himself. I'm sure there will be the usual polling to get the work on the guy's rep. I asked my hubby Jim, "What are people thinking when they bring handguns out in the presence of toddlers?" I reckon if ya gotta be a gun owner and ya need to have it out, how about locking yourself up in a room separate from the rest of the family area? Or waiting until the kid(s) are in bed asleep? Some preliminary words are that the shooter was the kid's father. I wanna smack him upside the head for being immature and way stupid. I get real tired of stupid human tricks and I so, so do not want to hear any reportage of the shooter getting whiny and saying stuff like: "I didn't think anything like this could happen!" Bull shite! Well he'd be right, he wasn't thinking! Yet, it's exactly the first thing he should've thought of when he bought the gun. He had a kid in the house, fer crying out loud! Gun safety shouldn't be an afterthought!

On the other hand, I'm NOT going to agitate for even more anti-gun laws because of this either. Our 2nd Amendment rights are in place for a reason and I wouldn't support repealing it anytime soon.

Painting is "Autumn in San Antonio, NM" by Carl Von Hassler

City Journal

I recently discovered a new journal titled City Journal. It has some very thoughtful articles and the current online issuse has 2 fine articles in it this quarter.

The first is titled What The New Athiests Don't See by Theodore Dalrymple, the second is From The H-Bomb To The Human Bomb by Andre Glucksmann. Google will lead you there. I hope you take a few moments to read them. Both are worthwhile considering as we look into tomorrow and the day after.

What do we want, how do we get there and what do we believe will get us there?

Genarlow Wilson Is Freed...

Finally! I wrote about Genarlow sometime back in Sunday Nooz.

He was the 17 year old boy put in prison in GA for receiving fellatio from a girl 2 years younger at a party. Remember? If they'd done the old in/out, the worst he'd have faced would've been a misdeamenor; maybe. Now the Georgia State Supreme Court has found that his punishment is Cruel and Unusual Punishment and has ordered him freed. The vote was 4-3 in favor of him being freed.

It was past time. But the moral of the story is that this teen was put in prison because adults created laws meant to punish genuine pedophiles BUT did NOT even once consider the implications the law would have for innocent teens being caught having consensual relations themselves. So when we ask our legislators to create new laws, we do need to think ahead and out of the box about what it is exactly that we are asking for.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071026/D8SGVIIO0.html

http://morgansher.blogspot.com/2007/06/sunday-nooz.html

A Deserved Honor

I read today that Dr. Michael Debakey was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. I think that is one helluva deserving recipient. I remember him from when I was 7-8 years old and the big news of the day was his pioneering work in open heart surgery along with Dr. Denton Cooley in Houston, TX. It was a frelling miracle to most of us in the early 1960s. There was a sense of that what they did was audacious; them laying hands on someone's heart and repairing bad valves and more. It was a world shaking time and even as a kid, I got 'it' that this was history with a capital 'H'. Some people say when that recognition hits, it's like a shimmer. I was dazzled, it shimmered so brightly. Today, millions of lives have been improved for the better because of him and his audacity. So, yeah, I'm pleased that Congress did this.

The press release from the American Heart Association said this, congratulating Dr. Debakey:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/10-17-2007/0004684504&EDATE=

Whoopi Asks For Sharpton Apology To Duke Accused

More on the Duke lacrosse players. Whoopi asks Al Sharpton to apologize.

Friday Nooz

That girl in Kentucky won her suit against McDonalds.

Good thing. Why, you ask? The girl was victimized in a humiliating way for over 3 hours and sexually abused during the time she was held hostage at her place of employment.

In America, in 2004 to now, being 18 is about the equivalent of being 13 back in 1965-67 when it comes to knowing what the law can and cannot do to it's citizens. Civics and government is not taught in most schools and when it is, it is maybe a 2-3 week section that glosses over the basics.

So many people are thinking, "Oh, she was 18, she was an adult." Sure, by most states' laws, she had achieved her legal majority, but that alone does not make her an adult or equip her to stand up to the "authority" she was confronted with and let her say "No" both to her manager and the guy on the phone who purported to be a cop.

Since McDonalds had run into a similar scam before, they had a corporate responsibiity to inform ALL their employees that these kinds of things were occurring and that under NO circumstances were they to comply with any phone demands. And they should have repeated the warning; in fact, it should be written into the employee handbook as per how to handle law enforcement contacts. That should be basic. However, the problem was exacerbated by a regional manager who didn't think the information about these scams/hoaxes was important enough to pass on because of "vague" wording in a communication sent out from the home office.

Lets move along now.

The three Duke University Lacrosse players accused of raping that stripper are suing ex-prosecutor Nifong, the cops involved in the case, and the city of Durham, NC under federal law for the way their arrest and all was handled. They should. Nifong withheld exonerating evidence in order to make his case. The community does have culpability in this. After all, he was elected to office by the voters. The cops were employees of the city. So the legal entity of the City has responsibility for them as well.

Sometimes law suits are necessary to right wrongs. Neither case struck me as frivilous.

Click the title for the story about the McDonalds case.