I've been keeping a secret.....

It's not MY secret, so I don't feel so bad.  And in fact, in some ways it may be among the worst-kept secrets in blogdom.... 

Even so I feel pretty honored to have been trusted with it for so long, but now the proverbial cat's officially out of the bag, and I can share it with y'all.

My darling girl Helen is up the duff!  (that's p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t for you yanks!)

After many ups and downs, failed rounds of IVF, and many other difficulties, it seems Helen and her man Angus are about to become parents.  To twins!

I wish you both (publicly for the first time!!!) all the joy and happiness in the world over the next few months and the double blessing of two healthy babies in October!

These two little angels couldn't have picked a better mum and dad, who are thoughtful, and caring, and deeply committed to each other, and of course, already completely besotted with their very-much-wanted pair of babies.

If you're so inclined, drop by and share in their joy!

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Done deal

Pending escrow, we've got a house!

I know I haven't posted about it much, but that's because it has been BEYOND stressful, including some nasty negotiations, 7 counteroffers, and a lot of threats to walk away from the deal.

Here's hoping the rest of the deal goes smoother than the contract negotiations.

Escrow opens tomorrow!

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Keeping up with the Memers

Velocidude recently posted a cartoon short that was one of his favorites as a kid.

So I tried to find mine, but alas, it is NOT available on the web.  Ugh.

You see, I was always a Merrie Melodies gal.  Not so big on the Bugs Bunny and pals, but I loved the Mel Blanc shorts.  My all time favorite is a bit from 1953 called "A Sheep in the Deep" starring Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf, who many of you will recognize a an early version of Foghorn Leghorn's nemesis George P. Dog and Wile E. Coyote.

If you have never seen any of the series, the premise is that Sam and Ralph are buddies, except at work, where the sheepdog's job is to keep the wolf away from the sheep, and the wolf's job is to catch them.  Sam and Ralph clock in and clock out every day.

And to appease those of you who MUST have a video, my favorite of the modern Warner Bros. cartoons. Pinky and the Brain present "The Parts of the Brain:"

For the curious, this little ditty was actually part of my PhD thesis talk. No, really.

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Armenian Martyrs' Day

April 24th is the day we remember the victims of a forgotten genocide.

On April 24, 1915, turkish soldiers arrested 250 Armenians in the first of hundreds of raids designed to wipe out the Armenian population of turkey.

Armenian villages were rousted one by one, and the men ordered to leave at once and serve the turkish army.  Boys as young as 9 or 10, and men as old as 70.  Many never made that far, as turkish soldiers often took these "new recruits" not to the army camps but out to the woods, where they were summarily executed.  The women and girls, thus undefended, were easy prey for the turkish soldiers.


Those who remained behind were forced from their lands, homes, and belongings, and force-marched to "settlement camps" in remote areas.  Many died along the way from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure to the elements.  According to French scholars Joel Kotek and Pierre Rigoulot, there were up to 25 such camps.


But the Armenian's plight was nowhere near as unknown, even in that day, as it is now.  Despite the lack of internet, video cameras, and TV screens, in 1915 the plight of the Armenians was a worldwide topic of discussion.  US Consular officials, as early as July of 1915, were concerned enough to beg the US government to step in. 

No less than Winston Churchill, then Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty noted, "the clearance of race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act could be...There is no reason to doubt that that this crime was planned and executed for political reasons. The opportunity presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race opposed to all Turkish ambitions."  And he was then in the midst of the "war to end all wars" against Germany!


During 1915, the New York Times paper published 145 articles about the mass murder of the Armenian people, describing the massacre as "systematic, "authorized" and "organized by the government." In 1918, Theodore Roosevelt called it "the greatest crime of the war."

But today, no one even knows it happened

Denialists of all stripes, from US and EU officials who find turkey's past "annoying", to the turks themselves who believe such raids were justified to "pick up deserters" (yeah, little old men, deserters.  right.) have managed to decrease the general public's awareness of these atrocities.  But they happened.  There was no Photoshop in 1915.  All of the horrible pictures you see here are real.


Despite missions from the US and UK, Austria, France, and others, the plight of the Armenians faded off the radar screen as war in Europe intensified.

Looks a lot like Germany around 1942, huh? 

In fact,  Adolf Hitler said of the Armenian Genocide: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"as his justification for the atrocities carried out on the Jews and others during the Nazi's reign over Germany.

We did not forget.  We do not forget.  We will always remember.

My previous remembrances here.  This stays on top all day.

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A lack of posting on my part....

Sorry folks, real life intervenes.  More this weekend, I hope.

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Would that more journalists saw things this way

ESPN.com's Jemele Hill apologizes to the Duke Lacrosse players wrongfully accused of rape (it's a long passage, but well worth the time and bandwidth):

My being a black woman, my knowing too many athletes who treat women like items to be purchased in a vending machine, and my witnessing enough athlete rape trials where accusers are overwhelmed by their fame and fortune -- it all tainted my perception and made me doubt your innocence.

I feel stupid now.

I could blame Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong, but that would be too easy. Oh, he's a lout, no doubt. He played upon the emotions of a community and its long-held hostilities, and put his reelection bid above morality and common sense. He played all of us and should be punished with nothing less than disbarment.

I could blame Jesse Jackson, who I have hoped for years would disappear to a faraway land where CNN wouldn't follow. As usual, Jesse showed up and showed out. He incited the masses and then left everyone else to sort out the wreckage. And if Jesse wants to gain an ounce of the credibility he no longer has, he would find the nearest camera -- and we know he's good at that -- and express sorrow with all the sincerity he can muster. But the day Jesse apologizes for causing a scene is the day Rosie O'Donnell wears a muzzle.

But if there is anything to be learned from Don Imus' fall, it's that real apologies are never accompanied by rationalizations.

So to Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, the three Duke lacrosse players whose lives were mangled by an unsupported rape accusation, I say two of the hardest words in the English language:

I'm sorry.

It's not enough, and I won't pretend that it is. For the last year, your lives and those of your families have been more difficult than any of us can possibly imagine. I'll never know what it was like walking around normal society labeled a rapist. I'll never know what it's like to lose everything -- your school, your program and your life -- because of one unproven accusation.

You deserve all of that back and then some, but unfortunately, you won't get it. You have every right to not trust anyone and think less of people. Duke University abandoned you. An overzealous prosecutor tormented you. A community, a nation, didn't believe you. Journalists everywhere, sensing ratings and salivating over the salaciousness of black strippers and white athletes, chose to keep you under attack.

Not that this is a contest to see who was wronged the most, but the Rutgers women's basketball team at least received justice, because Imus was suspended and dropped by MSNBC, which simulcasts his morning show. Plenty of people are outraged on their behalf.

But who is outraged on your behalf? What justice will you receive? Will the same networks that willingly aided in destroying your reputations now give you airtime to vent your frustrations? Will Jesse Jackson now offer the three of you a free scholarship like he did the "victim," since he helped assist in your battered reputation?

Maybe the only modicum of fairness you have received is that the News & Observer in Raleigh decided to print the name of your accuser. I don't normally advocate that the names of alleged victims be printed, but it feels right in this instance.

I know I'd certainly like to ask your accuser a few questions, even though she stood by her story as North Carolina's attorney general vehemently proclaimed your innocence. Does she understand she has tanked not only her credibility, but that of other women, too? Does she understand the next time a woman comes forward with an allegation this serious, all of our minds will scroll back to this case, and we will be less inclined to believe her? Does she know women with legitimate sexual-assault complaints will look at this furor and decide silence is best?

I can't deny that your race, gender and class have everything to do with how you were treated then and how you are treated now. Some people believe white men are exempt from sympathy and incapable of being maligned, so they will not swallow their pride and offer you the decency you should have received in the first place. Yes, you made an unwise decision to entertain strippers at a residence, but that just makes you guilty of being like 90 percent of college males.

Read the rest here.

Bravo to Ms. Hill, who put politics and BS aside in the face of what is right, and my best wishes to these three young men, who have learned a very painful lesson about race, class, and sex in this country.  I hope that they are able to pick up where they left off, and come to a place where people don't know their names except based on their accomplishments and kindnesses.

h/t Goldstein

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For those of you in the know...

They say no news is good news, right?  I'll let you know when I know more.

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A Literary Loss

Kurt Vonnegut died today at the age of 84.  You might be surprised to find me a Vonnegut fan, given his politics, but he had a GENIUS way with words.

Breakfast of Champions was the first Vonnegut I read.  In high school.  In between giggling at his picture of an a$$hole....

I discovered the first REALLY SMART book I ever read.  Admittedly it took me a couple of trips through before I really got it.

And I was hooked.  Over the years, I've put a lot of Vonnegut between my ears, including many of the lesser known books, especially Hocus Pocus, which gave me one of my favorite phrases ever, "When the Excrement Hit the Air Conditioning".... And yes, he capitalized it just like that.

His sense of the euphemism was unmatched, and he used them like metaphors.  In a world of fumbling double entendre and pathetic punnery, his phrases stand out for their lack of self-importance.

My favorite of his works, though, was his last novel, Timequake, a book I love so dearly that I have thumb tabbed a number of quotes.
I have two favorite passages, a short one I will share with you here, and a longer bit below the jump (profanity below the jump, BTW).

Vonnegut's advice to the physicist Leo Seren, who apologized for participating in the atomic bomb production:

"Somebody should have told him that being a physicist on a planet where the smartest animals hate being alive so much means never having to say you're sorry."

h/t Jack of Random Fate
more...

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Science and Belief, Not Incompatible

As you all know, I am a scientist. Most of my friends are scientists, my colleagues are scientists, and I have had the privilege of meeting many of the world's deepest and most renowned scientific thinkers.

And again and again, I am struck by the depth of faith to be found in the scientific community. While laypeople bitch and moan over Evolution, Creation, and Intelligent Design, many scientists simply don't see the incongruity.

The more you know about the amazing intricacies of the world around us, the easier it is to believe in an omniscient supreme being as designer and creator. It's all just so smart you know?

Anyway, the point of this post is to share with you a bit of this piece from CNN, where Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project at NIH, discusses his faith and how one can be a scientist AND a believer.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

That's absolutely how I feel, and I know many others who feel the same way. Science and Faith go hand in hand. Science is the discovery of the majesty of our world, and revealing the wonder of the universe gives glory to its author.

Have a Blessed Easter, Passover, or whatever you choose to celebrate this weekend!

h/t John at Wait 'til Next Year

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This gives a WHOLE NEW MEANING to the "troll under the bridge"

Let's put it this way, if I was the mama Billy Goat Gruff, I wouldn't go near this bridge myself, let alone the little BGG....

Paroled sex offenders living under Miami highway bridge

 

MIAMI -- Several paroled sex offenders are living under a noisy highway bridge and fending off rats each night, because they cannot find housing in compliance with strict county ordinances for violators, state officials and one of the men said Thursday.

At least three men are making their home under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, which connects Miami with neighboring Miami Beach, said Gretl Plessinger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Corrections Department. One of the men under the bridge said he was among five.

The state decided they could live under the bridge because the men were unable to find housing they could afford and that did not violate Miami-Dade county rules, which say sex offenders must live at least 2,500 feet from places children gather.

They must stay there between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. because a parole officer checks on them nearly every night, Plessinger said.

"This is not an ideal situation for anybody, but at this point we don't have any other options," Plessinger said. "We're still looking, the offenders are still actively searching for residences."

[...]

"This is an injustice," said the man who wouldn't give his name. "I completed my sentence."

The man refused to discuss the crime that landed him under the bridge, but state records show a host of offenses for the men who live there: sexual battery, molestation, abuse, grand theft. Many of the crimes are against children.

"Public safety is our main focus and we feel like public safety is being achieved in these individuals," Plessinger said. "But this is a problem that is going to have to be addressed. If we drive these offenders so far underground or we can't supervise them because they become so transient it's not making us safer."

Most homeless shelters won't take the men, Plessinger said, because they're sex offenders. One that would is within the prohibited range of a school or daycare center. She said one of the men, for example, found dozens of residences he was happy to live in, but parole officers vetoed all of them because they violated county rules.

Plessinger said she believed the state first authorized sex offenders to live under a bridge last June. Before the causeway, some of the men lived under a bridge in downtown Miami. They were forced to leave, Plessinger said, when it was determined they were within range of a daycare center.

The man under the causeway on Thursday said he had been there for about six weeks. He said he fears for his life.

Here's the creepy part:

Ironically, putting the men here hasn't kept them out of reach of children. On Thursday afternoon, down the concrete slope from the men's makeshift home, a family with young children played in the bay next to their boat, oblivious to the sex offenders who call a place under a bridge their home. (emphasis mine, --Ed.)

Personally,I could give a crap that they can't find a place to live.  Shoulda thought of that BEFORE you raped or molested, asshole.  Living with rats is HIGHLY appropriate for this kind of vermin.

At least the state isn't putting them up at taxpayers' expense.  Out of prison, off the taxpayers' dole and still living in shit.  Nice Job.

h/t LindaSoG

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It's not often when you know the genesis of a story idea

...and you don't even know the reporter.

But this story, from Sunday's Raleigh News and Observer, well, it's not hard.

Hispanic DWIs rooted in immigrants' culture

When Eliseo Hernandez came to the United States 30 years ago, he thought he drove better after a few beers. Driving drunk had been normal back in Mexico, he said. But Hernandez, 54, learned of its perils firsthand. He quit the practice after falling asleep at the wheel and hitting a tree 18 years ago.

Then, last year, a young Hispanic man who authorities say was drunk nearly killed Hernandez's only son, Diego, in a crash on a rural Johnston County road. Eliseo Hernandez's daughter, who was nine months pregnant, lost her unborn child in the accident.

Hernandez has spent the past year following Diego through four hospitals and 14 brain surgeries. Diego only recently began to smile again and might never walk.

Hernandez said he hopes his painful journey will teach his friends and family a lesson. Car accidents are the top killer of Hispanics in North Carolina, and the disproportionate number of alcohol-related arrests and wrecks are an embarrassment to a minority already beleaguered by hard feelings over illegal immigration.

"It makes the Mexicans look bad, very bad," Hernandez said. "The American people say 'Oh, it's just another Hispanic, the same as the others.' "

It was a commonly held assumption among the Orange County sheriff's deputies and other local cops that a hispanic man driving to the ABC (state-owned liquor store) was probably already drunk.  And that if you pulled over a hispanic man, chances are he would fail a roadside sobriety test.

DWIs are far higher among hispanics than any other culture in NC, and for a while this was seen as racial profiling by police and State Troopers.  In CA, many times the DWI hispanic driver is also an illegal alien. Interesting now to see this article owning that DWI/DUI is sometimes part of the culture.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

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Now this is more like it

I would use some cliche title like "Fat and Happy" but that would insult ME, so I didn't.

This so perfectly expresses my attitude about my body. 

Fat happens.  Get over it.  Yes, I can diet and exercise. In fact, I do.  But my body happens to LIKE being this size, I guess.  So what?  Why should you care?  Projecting YOUR insecurities on me, huh?  I'm happy, my husband thinks I'm sexy, and the doctor says I'm 100% healthy except for a disease that has NOTHING to do with my weight.

So why should I waste my time being upset about it?  Seriously.

As my buddy Cartman once put it, "I'm not fat, I'm festively plump."
h/t RG

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