Traffick 911 PSA 10 from Nate Bernard on Vimeo.

also, i really like taekwondo.

i typically advocate for women, for the impoverished. but there is injustice and wrongdoing everywhere. i found the following article on huffington post about the iowa football team. it caught my attention even though i don't particularly care for that sport. college sports need accountability, as do professional sports, and something is radically wrong with this situation.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The University of Iowa confirmed Wednesday that 13 football players were hospitalized this week with an unusual muscle disorder following grueling offseason workouts.

The players have rhabdomyolysis, a stress-induced syndrome that can damage cells and cause kidney failure in severe cases, school spokesman Tom Moore said at a news conference two days after the players were hospitalized in a Iowa City.

The school has said the players, whom they would not identify, were "in safe and stable condition" and responding well to treatment.

Moore said the cause of the disorder has not yet been determined. University of Iowa physician John Stokes said the common denominator is they had all participated in strenuous exercise, which commonly brings on the disorder in otherwise healthy young people.

jurassic park, pixar style

I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren’t worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it.

She wanted her next lover to be a broom.

Sombrero Fallout, by Richard Brautigan

love the discussion part deux:

Philosophy has historically viewed literature with suspicion, or at least a vague unease. Plato was openly hostile to art, fearful of its ability to produce emotionally beguiling falsehoods that would disrupt the quest for what is real and true. Plato’s view was extreme (he proposed banning dramatists from his model state), but he wasn’t crazy to suggest that the two enterprises have incompatible agendas. Philosophy is written for the few; literature for the many. Philosophy is concerned with the general and abstract; literature with the specific and particular. Philosophy dispels illusions; literature creates them. Most philosophers are wary of the aesthetic urge in themselves. It says something about philosophy that two of its greatest practitioners, Aristotle and Kant, were pretty terrible writers.

Of course, such oppositions are never so simple. Plato, paradoxically, was himself a brilliant literary artist. Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard were all writers of immense literary as well as philosophical power. Philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre and George Santayana have written novels, while novelists like Thomas Mann and Robert Musil have created fiction dense with philosophical allusion. Some have even suggested, only half in jest, that of the brothers William and Henry James, the philosopher, William, was the more natural novelist, while the novelist, Henry, was the more natural philosopher.

i love this discussion:

Can a novelist write philosophically? Even those novelists most commonly deemed “philosophical” have sometimes answered with an emphatic no. Iris Murdoch, the longtime Oxford philosopher and author of some two dozen novels treating highbrow themes like consciousness and morality, argued that philosophy and literature were contrary pursuits. Philosophy calls on the analytical mind to solve conceptual problems in an “austere, unselfish, candid” prose, she said in a BBC interview broadcast in 1978, while literature looks to the imagination to show us something “mysterious, ambiguous, particular” about the world. Any appearance of philosophical ideas in her own novels was an inconsequential reflection of what she happened to know. “If I knew about sailing ships I would put in sailing ships,” she said. “And in a way, as a novelist, I would rather know about sailing ships than about philosophy.”

i don't agree with everything he does, but i'm glad to see someone with authority and some celebrity clout at least acknowledging that this is a problem. maybe we'll make some headway.

(CNN) -- Count Jesse Ventura among fliers who don't want their "junk" touched by Transportation Security Administration agents.

The former Minnesota governor and pro wrestler filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in Minnesota against the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA.

The suit alleges enhanced airport security procedures, including pat-downs and full body scanning, violate Ventura's rights under the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Ventura is not seeking monetary damages, according to his attorney, David Olsen. Ventura wants an acknowledgment from the court that his rights have been violated and a court order that would stop the government from subjecting him to the screening procedures, Olsen said.

"We consider the pat-downs and the whole body scanners to be a step too far, and they have crossed into the realm of the unreasonable," Olsen said.

The TSA said it cannot comment on pending litigation, but it has characterized pat-downs as one of multiple layers of security used to protect the traveling public.

"Pat-downs are one important tool to help TSA detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives," the agency said on its website.

The lawsuit calls the TSA's enhanced pat-downs "warrantless, non-suspicion-based offensive touching, gripping and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of the body."

Ventura had hip replacement surgery in 2008, and the resulting titanium implant routinely sets off metal detectors, requiring him to undergo pat-down searches, according to court documents. The lawsuit alleges the pat-downs and the TSA's whole body imaging procedures meet legal definitions of unlawful sexual assault and unlawful video voyeurism.

Ventura, who is host of a TV program called "Conspiracy Theory" on truTV, a CNN sister network, flies two to three times a week for work, according to the suit.

His professional schedule means he must either submit to routine searches, "or retire from his television work and forgo his income," the lawsuit said.

Ventura has stopped flying commercially to avoid the screening, Olsen said.

"It virtually makes it impossible for him to work in his present job," he said.

rosie thomas is my favorite female vocalist. hands down. she originally recorded this song with sufjan stevens, which, as you can imagine, was incredible. this is a pretty decent live recording. don't worry, it's ok. you can love her too.

i want to be here:

http://www.livetravelmountains.com/adventure/rocky-mountaineers/

i keep these postcards at work. they fuel my wanderlust and remind me of how i am loved.

found this gem on msnbc "moms" today.

Journalist Peggy Orenstein wrote "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" out of concern over what messages the "pink, princess" girl culture was doing to her daughter Daisy. Far from being a harmless phase, Orenstein says the girl culture that's aggressively marketed to children actually sets girls up to focus on their appearance and become sexualized younger and younger.

What's a parent to do? "Lock our daughters in a tower," Orenstein joked to TODAY's Ann Curry. Hmmm, tempting. What do you think of the 'pink, princess' girl culture?

Now. My first reaction to the "princess" culture of little girls is one of annoyance. I think it's great for girls to dress up, play around with traditionally "girly" toys, etc. The problem comes in when girls have the princess-like sense of entitlement or prissy attitude. alternately, i it's dangerous for boys to be taught an over-inflated affection for violence. My brother played cops and robbers and various games (heck, I joined in) and he's not a violent person today, nor did he get in fights growing up. Yes, society barrages children, teens and adults alike with both subliminal and not-so-subtle marketing techniques, but ultimately, parents have a lot of control over what their children are allowed to do, see, watch.

On a slightly snarky note, I found it laughable that Orenstein was up in arms about the "pink, princess" culture and its effect on her daughter. and in the next sentence we discover that she named her daughter daisy.

this is my friend nate, who dan and i stayed with for part of our trip to australia. he auditioned for the Australian version of Big Brother. Yes, he made it! No, he didn't win, because the guy actually has morals. =) but i thought you'd all enjoy his audition tape.

oh my.

because we have to laugh too.

self-immolation protests in Egypt

"The incidents come as protesters in Mauritania and Algeria also set themselves alight in apparent attempts to copy Tunisian Mohammed Bouazizi, 26, whose self-immolation helped inspire the protests that toppled Tunisia's authoritarian president.

"While isolated, the incidents in Egypt, Mauritania and Algeria reflect the growing despair among much of the Arab public which has no real means of expressing its dissatisfaction. They are deeply symbolic means of protest in a region that has little or no tolerance for dissent.

"...Nearly half of Egypt's estimated 80 million people live below or just above the poverty line set by the United Nations at $2 a day. The widespread poverty presents a potential threat to stability, along with the absence of any meaningful political reform.

"Bahey Eddin Hassan, head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said the growing number of people setting themselves on fire was an indication that Egyptians were beginning to think they can emulate the Tunisian experience in their country.

" 'The reality is that people see their rulers as the ones responsible for their economic setbacks. People think the Tunisian recipe could work in Egypt since they have tried everything else and nothing worked,' he said."

-from the Huffington Post

one of the best cancelled shows ever.

i experience a very distinct sadness for women and dignity in general each year the miss america pageant comes around.

apart from the obligatory requests for world peace, requirement for aggressive veneers and the apparent return of the bedazzled pantsuit, there's idea that we continually, as a society, just say, screw it- judging women by their looks is valid.

take, for example, the runner up, whose talent was ventriloyodeling. i am not kidding. a ventriloquist. who ventrilo-yodels. i couldn't make that up.

and the winner. oh, the winner. whose particularly insightful response to a question about national security boiled down do "the main focus of national security should be security."

no, i didn't watch the pageant. but people are talking about it and showing clips from it today. sadly, it continues to be as vapid and stereotypical as always.

thanks america.

‎"we see the world not as something to react to, but as something to impact." - dr. debbie cherry in the strong-willed wife: using your personality to honor God and your husband

this book has helped me immensely and offers an in-depth view of Biblical submission in marriage that most churches don't teach and don't bother to understand. rather than viewing a strong-willed, intelligent, capable woman as deviant, it acknowledges that God gives women those traits(not just men... whoa, what?). They can be used appropriately and as God intended, repressed, or used to be manipulative and angry. With that insight, Dr. Cherry delves into the world of women who aren't content to be a doorstop, while still desiring to be a woman of God and wife that Christ intended. She doesn't shy away from difficult topics. She will say things you don't want to hear. But she will also affirm (with scripture to back it up!) that you're not sinful for having an opinion.

backdate jan 15 & 16

i went to a bridal show as moral support for a wonderful friend of mine who is getting married soon. have you ever seen anything more majestic?




with dan working 3rd shift, our time together is always randomly chosen and changes every week. we planned to eat breakfast together, and i took full advantage of this rare occurrence and surprised dan with more food than we've eaten in a single sitting for a very long time!

jan 14

backdate jan 13

yeah, we made snow angels at work.

backdate jan 12

oral fixation.

20/20: 1,000 female Peace Corps volunteers sexually attacked since 2000.

A while back, we brought you the story the of the white female volunteer who was gang raped in Haiti. This case is by no means isolated. Now ABC’s 20/20 says that the mostly white, female volunteers in the Peace Corps are raped in 3rd world countries on a regular basis.

60% of the Peace Corps’ current 8,655 volunteers are female. The average age is 28. Over 40% are in Africa and Haiti. Most of the rest are in Latin America, the South Pacific, and parts of Asia.

In many of the places female Peace Corp volunteers are sent, the men view them as prey and rape them with impunity. The US government spends $400 million on the program a year.

According to the report on 20/20, the Peace Corps does not inform female volunteers of the danger, nor does it provide appropriate security. Victims told 20/20 that Peace Corps officials told them it was their own fault for getting raped.

From ABC National News…

More than 1,000 young American women have been raped or sexually assaulted in the last decade while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in foreign countries, an ABC News 20/20 investigation has found.

In some cases, victims say, the Peace Corps has ignored safety concerns and later tried to blame the women who were raped for bringing on the attacks.

“I have two daughters now and I would never ever let them join the Peace Corps,” said Adrianna Ault Nolan of New York, who was raped while serving in Haiti.

She is one of six rape and sexual assault victims who agreed to tell their stories, in hopes the Peace Corps will do a better job of volunteer training and victim counseling. The report will be broadcast Friday night on 20/20.

In the most brutal attack, Jess Smochek, 29, of Pennsylvania was gang raped in Bangladesh in 2004 by a group of young men after she says Peace Corps officials in the country ignored her pleas to re-locate her.

“They all took turns raping me,” she told ABC News. “They raped me with their bodies,. They raped me with foreign objects.”

Smochek says the group began to stalk her and tried to kiss her and touch her from the very first day she arrived at the city where she was assigned.

I like that age, where you’re not quite into boys yet and really think you can be an astronaut, a teacher, a doctor and a roller skater. That girl and I live in the same world.

Amy Poehler

Dr. Sasha Kramer, working towards sanitation and better living standards.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/13/huffposts-greatest-person_17_n_808534.html

jan 11

with yesterday's puzzle in the background. of course.

jan 10

aaand, now we're caught up!

the 6" "snowpocalypse" that halted business, school and travel in the south.

make fun of yanks all you want, kids, but i'm not the one with my car in a ditch.

backdates

i could cheat, and pretend that i actually took pictures on the 7-9, or i can just pick it up today and you can accept that i was a slacker.

i choose option 2.

backdate jan 6

yes... it's almost a week after the new year and i haven't taken down our christmas tree. but with ornaments like this, can you blame me?

backdate jan 5

yes. i got a slap chop for Christmas. i was actually somewhat excited about it since i cook pretty often. i used it for the first time in 2011.
however, one of the few perks to my background as a carney is that i am STELLAR at quickly chopping/dicing green peppers, onions, tomatoes, etc. i can proudly say that i'm faster than a slap chop. slap! chop!

backdate jan. 4

this is often how i feel about having a sedentary desk job. there's sunshine here, trying to break through. but God help me, there's just so much fog!

fell in love with language, tried to tell the grown ups about the storm clouds, the weather in my head. hadn't heard the word for meloncholy yet.

-dessa. children's work

"We are all broken in some way, but we are also gifted in some way." - Jennifer Casto

james franco is writing and directing as i lay dying by william faulkner. can this be true?

backdate jan 3

dan is on a cross-country road trip, helping a friend move. often i make dinner for myself since our schedules are so different. but it's a strange thing, making dinner for myself, not being concerned with making extra to package up and send with him to work. not worrying that it might not turn out right. i've found that when i'm cooking only for myself, i am less concerned with flavor. i want it to taste good, but as long as it's healthy, i know i'll eat something less than savory.
it was a strange realization.

backdate jan 2

i made a wrong turn, the gps rerouted me home. i crossed this bridge. i am sincerely afraid to drive across bridges but have to do it with alarming frequency. thankfully, i'm a big believer in facing unfounded fears. just with preparation and concentration.

backdating to jan. 1

my husband's parents always throw a new year's party with games and fun people. we watch the ball drop, and laugh a lot, and i can't possibly think of a better way to bring in a new year than with someone you love.

in addition to my regular postings, which are usually (ahem) borrowed from someone/somewhere else (with proper citation, of course!) i have decided to borrow another idea i've seen roaming the internets.
i'll be taking an original picture-per-day and posting them on here. while the sites i've seen usually have the author as the subject matter, my project will be a little different. mostly because even i don't want to see myself every day, so doubt anyone else does!
instead, they may be of me, or of something that was significant (or perhaps, insignificant) about the day.
the purpose behind this is threefold:
1. it means that i have to post something EVERY DAY.
2. hopefully it will make me stop and look at the world a little more rather than just rushing through my day
3. perhaps, through photos, i will be inspired to write more flash fiction, because i have been quite the slacker lately.

*disclaimer: i am not a photographer, nor have i ever taken a photography class, nor is my camera very expensive. i may, in fact, be using my phone camera for a majority of pictures. apologies to all the artistically sensitive.

i don't know why i find this so funny. but i do.

http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/

Most people fail at whatever they attempt because of an undecided heart. Should I? Should I not? Go forward? Go back? Success requires the emotional balance of a committed heart. When confronted with a challenge, the committed heart will search for a solution. The undecided heart searches for an escape. A committed heart does not wait for conditions to be exactly right. Why? Because conditions are never exactly right.
-Andy Andrews