Fear Factor

What is it about bullies that we love so much?

I was watching Bill O'Reilly last night. Just to see what this guy is all about, again. Here's a guy who makes a living off of saying the most inflammatory, one-sided statements he can make about any issue, and pretending that he has the answers to save us all. All the rightwing pundits do this. It's an art form and science...that whoever interrupts, intimidates or insults the most....wins. If you go on the Factor and have a differnt viewpoint than Bill, you better have the lungs in order to scream over his constant showboating interruptions and insults. And people glom onto this shit like bass to a worm.

People like O'Reilly appeal to emotionalism, not reason. It is a tactic designed to eliminate true debate. They don't want you to think and consider. They want you to react so you won't check their sources. They will tell you lies and take stands, and belittle their opponents so you can sit in your chair and feel vindicated. It's like watching show wrestling. You like the blood and the drama, and you want the biggest, most outrageous asshole to win, and when he does, you're behind him all the way, because now you too are a winner, not a loser.

CNN is no prize. Their constant repitition of reporting old stories is designed to not only cover up the fact they won't report other news but because they like to keep you glued to the set out of sensationalism and fear. But I can't watch FOX news on a full stomach or I'll blow chunks. It's so full of slanted bullshit that so blatantly insults its veiwers it makes me sick.

Democracy for All?

Here's a question to really think about: is democracy for everyone? I realize our president seems to think so, now that he's pulled our country into some glorious holy war to bring democracy and liberation to the people in Iraq and Afganistan. But even if it were true, is democracy the right mode of governement for these people?

Think about it. A free society only will thrive in a place where people are free to work how they want, worship how they want, and pursue the kind of life they want. It's crucial that all are equal. It's crucial that we don't have a government mandated religion. It's crucial to be able to vote unimpeded and have a voice in government. It's crucial we have laws based in absolutes, and that everyone is entitled to a fair and speedy trial if we break those laws. It's crucial we have freedom of ALL speech, no matter how unpleasant. It's crucial to question our government and each other. It's crucial we can access whatever artistic culture we want without censorship.

When a people are used to thugs and mystics running their countries, expecting a democracy to just spring up after their present mode of government is dismantled will lead (as it has) to chaos and death. It's not that some don't dream of democracy. But their values are fundamentally different. They are values that cannot foster any form of true democracy unless they decide to take on the values stated above. Tribal rule must die, and mystics need to step aside.

Fighting a real war against tyrants and despots may be noble, but in the end it is not in our best interest, unless they are threatening us imminently. Killing terrorists and bringing Bin Laden and his like to justice is one thing and we should do it, but forcing regime change on any country whose actual threat to us was dubious at best is a good way to waste our military's resources, create illwill with those who would otherwise be allies, and burden every American into an impossible debt for generations to come. And there's no end in site.

Freedom spread at the point of the gun is a lie. Freedom can't be forced. Only a people ready for freedom can claim it, like the first American settlers did. Bush was warned by those who understood this principle before he started his war in Iraq, but he chose to ignore it, and look at how it has cost us. With our attention preoccupied with Iraq, are we ready for Iran and North Korea, should their threats turn to violence against us?

Nano Nano

"A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. That's like comparing a marble to the size of the earth."

So begins the article on Nanotechnology in the June 2006 edition of National Geographic. I've made the assertion before that the Great Green World will be the new wave of the future, allowing us to create a revolutionary technology that will change the world and its economy (again). But Nano might be the god of the new church, bringing us things only science fiction writers dreamed of, allowing us to live even safer, healthier and happier lives. Add that to human enhancement technology, and this world is going to be a very different place in the next 50 years. Think grandma is mystified by today's computers? Just wait till you're a grandma. "May you live in interesting times," the saying goes, which, appropriately enough, can be either a blessing or an admonition.

Definition of Nano from the National Nanotechnology Initiative government website: "Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale."

Nano is already present in the things we use. Those pants that you can buy that are stain resistant? Flourinated nanopolymer. It's in sunscreeens. On sunglasses. On cutting tools. In wound dressings. The biggest breakthroughs yet will be in the medical field and environmental energy field, where nano will be used to fight cancer and other illnesses, and filter water supplies and supply cheap, efficient energy.

Carbon nanotubes and "buckyballs"--a 60 carbon atom molecule that takes the shape of a geodesic dome ala Buckminster Fuller, discovered by late scientist Richard Smalley in 1985--are, in Smalley's description, 50 to 100 times stronger than steel and 1/6 the weight. Putting nanotubes in epoxy strengthens it by more than 30 percent. Nanotubes are found in high-end tennis rackets, racing bikes and golf clubs. Nanotubes also conduct energy extremely well and could be dropped in cheap chemicals and painted on windows to turn any building into a solar building. In theory, nanotubes could replace all electrical wires since they conduct way more current and lose much less energy in the process. If this technology is ever perfected, entire cities, and even houses, can be wired and powered by solar alone.

Nano is being developed to fight and detect cancer. One goal is to design a test using Nano that could detect up to 20 different cancers with just a finger-prick. Jennifer West, a bioengineer, is battling cancer by injecting mice with gold nanoshells. The gold nanoshells are injected into cancerous tumors, then activated with infrared rays that heat the gold and kill the tumor. The gold is only toxic when heated and will only be confined to the tumor. She has injected the mice with huge doses of nanoshells and not one mouse has died from any side-effects from the treatment.

There are set-backs, however. Scientists have yet to figure out how to manipulate nanoparticles and tubes with ease, so those new energy wires are a long way off. Also, there are concerns of toxicity. But the science is growing and corporations are investing (up to $4 billion in 2006), as this technology has the potential to affect every industry imaginable. It has been called as revolutionary as plastic, a material in almost everything that we take for granted on a daily basis.

I sometimes think we're all going to hell in a handbasket. But it's news like this from the world of science that brings back the dormant hope I've always had in our ability to master our world and create a better quality of life. If the mystics don't blow us all to hell, that is.

My thanks to National Geographic and the National Nanotechnology Initiative for the info I gleaned to pen this post. Visit both those websites (you'll have to buy the June issue of NG for the full story, though) for way more information than either you or I could imagine from this fascinating technology.

This One's For Mooselet and her Calves...

From the National Geographic online:

June 13, 2006—Perhaps not since the Cowardly Lion has an animal's appearance been so at odds with its attitude.

On June 4 a black bear wandered into a West Milford, New Jersey, back yard, was confronted by a 15-pound (7-kilogram) tabby cat … and fled up a neighbor's tree. Hissing at the base of the tree, Jack the clawless cat kept the bear at bay for about 15 minutes, then ran him up another tree after an attempted escape.

Finally, Jack's owner, Donna Dicky, called the cat inside, and the timorous trespasser disappeared back into the woods.

"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said of Jack in an interview with the Newark Star Ledger.

Unlike cats, bears aren't typically territorial, roaming instead over vast areas that would be impossible to patrol for intruders. Fairly common across North America, black bears are seen fairly often in this region of New Jersey.

Full-grown black bears weigh between 200 and 600 pounds (90 and 270 kilograms) and measure as much as 6 feet (1.8 meters) long. Their diets can include fruits, honey, insects, acorns and animals as big as moose calves—a fact apparently lost on Jack.

—Ted Chamberlain

Coulter Shock

Ann Coulter is a second-rate psuedo intellectual who is the darling of hardcore Christo-facists who read her hate-filled invective that masquerades itself as policital analysis. She is the flaxen-haired, anorexic-thin sex symbol for asshats like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the rest of the gorging swine. She is a political porn star. Hers is not a centrist or even remotely moderate agenda, but a radical one fertilized in fundamentalist, jingoist dogma. She is the Extremist Imam of the Neo-Con Mob. She also might very well be a genius.

She's enjoying quite a bit of controversy these days for her comments in her new book regarding the 4 widows who lost their husbands in 9/11 and became activists who pushed for the independent investigations into the governments role in handling the attacks. "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," she writes in "Godless."

Want to read a page ripped right from the playbook of our religious right taliban, a virtual manifesto of their agenda? Go here. It's so bad you wonder if it's all a joke. Even if it is, and she's just making a buck off the gullible idiots who wank to her drivel (like an artist that craps in a can and sells it for thousands), there are still people out there who swallow it whole! Which makes me think.....if this is a joke, she's a muthafuckin' genius of Dominique Francon proportions, a Stephen Colbert of a more insidious nature. Show the monsters their ugliness in the mirror and maybe they'll be destroyed. Or, maybe just buy more of her books.

Here's a funny article by the Washington Monthly that has a slew of her more ribald and tasty "Coultisms". Also, an opinion piece by James Love on the Huffington Post that makes the "joke" argument. It's just gotta be, right? Right????

If so, then it is effective. While everyone knows Colbert is a brilliant satirist, he is still just making jokes. Coulter, on the other hand, does not appear to be on a lark. She in fact appears to be dead serious. Whether she is or isn't doesn't really matter because she is such a polarizing figure that all conservatives except for the staunchest of the extreme will not want to be associated with her. The monster is ugly as she has shown us whether she intended to or not, and that monster is the ogre of mean-spirited politics, not "godless" Liberals. If she in fact means what she says, her books will backfire on her and cause the Neo-Conservative movement to lose ground. Most Americans don't go for this sort of ugliness, and if conservatives embrace her rhetoric, they will alienate those Americans, who will then gravitate to more centrist and moderate levels, which is what I hope.

So either way, it does no good for Democrats and Liberals to get their Dockers in a wad over what big bad Coulter says. Don't go banning her, fercrissakes, like they're trying to in New Jersey. Let her blather on, let her get even worse if she wants. The uglier she gets, the more that everyday, working-class folks who feel the GOP has fucked them over and who find no more solace in a Democrat solution will want...and hopefully demand....a balanced administration.

Angies's List

Here's an interesting link for anyone who wants to find "word-of-mouth" reviews on anything from home contractors, hairstylists, mechanics and even vetrinarians.

http://www.angieslist.com/AngiesList/

I just joined, it's free to join in FL since it's just starting up here. Might not be free elsewhere. So far I've been able to leave good reviews on my gym, vet and mechanic, and I've read reviews on painters and landscapers. If you are as sick of bad service as I am...this is your chance to do something about it. If you know of a service that is great, and deserves more business, you can do something about that too.

Right now in FL we are experiencing an amazing amount of contractor dishonesty since everyone is here trying to make a buck off of hurricane damage. This is a good resource for homeowners to separate the goats from the stallions.

As someone who is in business, I really go out of my way to give exceptional work for a reasonable price. I try to show up on time, listen to my clients, provide more than they expected, and above all respect their needs and budgets. Is that so hard these days? I like Angie's List because I can keep an eye on things I need to improve by seeing what matters most to people, and because I'm a consumer who is fed up with businesses that insult my intelligence while attempting to take my money.

Fear of a Gay Planet

What a shame that 1000's of Americans, including our doofus of a president, want to corrupt the most precious document in our country by amending it to include blatant discrimination against an entire class of working, taxpaying people who deserve the same rights as all.

What a shame that so many think it's just hunky-dory for government to legislate forced "morality" based on the irrational demands of a minority fundamentalist mob.

Whether or not you agree same-sex unions are right or wrong, it shouldn't be the federal government's place to tell anyone who to marry or how. It is a state's right to decide those laws, as Massachusettes has done. It's the right of a religious group to decide their own code of morality, and there are many reform groups that support same-sex unions. It's a debate we should be having fairly and openly, and a Federal Marraige Amendment would close that debate.

Most people who are against gay marriage probably don't know many gay people. They haven't seen happy, loving gay couples walking together on a sunny day with a baby stroller. They don't know about gay couples who've been together for over 20 years and who by all rights and purposes, should be allowed marriage. Many everyday Americans who have been biased against homosexuals in the past have changed their minds as they've come to know homosexuals and see them for the real people they are, and not the demons the religious right makes them out to be. Many Americans who don't support gay marraige at least support civil unions, which the religious right wants to eliminate as well.

The religious right has a well-known history of denying rights to those they consider deviant or otherwise damned by their god. The religious right need to have their bogeymen, their scapegoats. It wasn't too long ago that blacks and women had little to no rights at all. The gay struggle today for equal rights echoes the struggles blacks and women had (and still have). Is it no coincidence that religious fundamentalism brings about inequality for minorities, ie: anyone but "straight" men?

Quote from an article in USA Today:

"Once, black people, women and homosexuals were viewed the same way by the leading theologians of the times: "They were all cursed by God in Scripture, inferior in moral character and willfully sinful and deserving punishment," says the Rev. Jack Rogers, former head of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and author of a new book, Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality.

Eventually, most churches found a biblical basis for changing their stance on race and gender but not on homosexuality."

We are a country based on religious and individual freedom, not religious dominance and mob rule. Writing anti-gay dogma into our Constitution corrupts religious freedom and denies equal rights to gay Americans. Each religion has the right to decide whether to sanction same-sex couples, and an anti-gay marriage amendment would deny that. Passing the Federal Marriage Amendment would impose the beliefs of some upon all.

What I'm afraid of is that the same people who would deny gays their rights to marriage are the same people who want to take away my reproductive rights. I am a strident secularist involved in a committed hetero relationship and I don't want kids, ever. This makes me the enemy to these people as well. If I'm not married and popping out children and quoting Psalms, I am not a good American or even an adequate human being.

5'7", 110 lbs, 38D? BULLSHIT!

So I'm trying to lose a few pounds. What women isn't? Whatever you do, ladies, don't open a Playboy.

The lowest weight I ever reached in my life was 124. That was when I was working my hardest job ever...department manager of flooring at Home Depot in Plano, TX. I was constantly moving...pacing the cement floors with customers, heaving 20 lb. boxes of vinyl tile, 50 lb. boxes of ceramic tile, 30 lb. bags of grout, endless rolls of heavy carpet...you name it. It got to the point that I was stronger than some of my male customers. I had one waifish fellow ask me to find him someone to help him lift the new box of heavy porcelain tile I just sold him, aso I picked it up for him, easily. He didn't say much after that.

As a worked this job I didn't even notice the weight dropping off. All I knew was that after about 5 months I could take my smallest jeans off without unbuttoning them. I started lifting weights at a gym in order to keep general muscle strength up. After about 2 grueling weeks of working overnights to prepare for inventory, I was actually getting sick. I might have dropped to 120 for all I knew. But I was wasted, tired, drained. After the overnights were done with I started looking for another job. In retrospect, I could have been eating way more calories than I did, but in general my diet was pretty good.

I mention this episode because 120 doesn't sound too thin, does it? Not for a girl who stands 5'5" with a classic mesomorph body type, which is basically good musculature, hourglass figure and ability to put on both muscle or fat pretty easily. 120 sounds thin alright, just not too damned thin. But it was. You see, I could only reach that weight after working a job that forced me to move all day long. I was really an athlete in training, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Not too many people can live like that constantly, and who the hell can go to the gym that long?

When you read Playboy (we have a subscription, and it's a great mag!) you find they like to mention the stats of the models. Sheila is 5'7", weighs 110, and is a 38D. PUH-LEASE!!!! Are they subtracting her tits in that equation or what? Honestly, mine must weigh 5 lbs each! Now, I know Playboy is all about airbrushing and the illusion of perfection, and those stats are probably bullshit. But they're out there, feeding the illusion women struggle each day to attain, thinking men want that too. Maybe they do. Playboy isn't the only place you'll see a girl with great curves and big boobs telling her audience she only weighs 110.

I used to subscribe to muscle and fitness mags for women. It's there that you find the more realistic stats. Women in those mags, although their bodies are perfect (at least for the photo shoot), you don't see ridiculous bodyweights of 110. They average around 130, more or less depending on height. When you watch the Olympics, the women athletes are healthy, strong, and usually weigh in the 130's, again depending on body mass and type of sport.

So, I'm 140. I wear size 6 dress, 8 in jeans. I will never see 124 again unless I get my old job back at Home Depot, and I don't want it. I can't live my life like that anymore, although I do know the key to keeping weight down is simply just moving more and eating less. My injury, while it prevents me from biking 20 miles or running like I used to, gets even worse if I sit all day. I have to move just to keep it from getting worse. I can't ever have a sit-down job again. Go figure.

These days I speed walk with weights, and have even started jogging (not running...keeping the heels close to ground to reduce impact) with weights. I'll be investing in a weight vest because that is far more safer for the body than the injuries you could possibly get from swinging weights around with your arms. I've been so busy I haven't been to the gym, but I do a series of pilates for my core, I do pushups and tricep dips, and I do these about 3-4 times a week. I've lost about 5 lbs in the past month alone, down from around 145-ish.

(Looking for a great way to flatten and strengthen your belly? Screw crunches. Go pilates! I can't do crunches anyway since it pulls right on my sciatic. You won't lose body fat, but how powerful and flat you'll feel!)

My goal weight is 135. It's realistic and healthy. The lowest I'll go will be 130, but I'm not going to go nuts trying to get there. I'm not even sure I could if I wanted to. Even 140 is fine, since a lot of it, I like to tell myself, is muscle....and boob!

The Latest Faux Job

Well, it's finally done. 6 bathrooms, 6 columns, 4 ceiling medallions.

Here is the big accomplishment...the master bath in a onyx type marble finish, with two of the marbled columns visible. It was very tough to do...the original photo they found for the job was slightly different, the artist used a different technique which I couldn't for the life of me duplicate. I came close enough, and they approved the sample. However, once it was done, the finished product was so overwhelmingly bright that I suggested I glaze it down with transparent white. The wife loved it since she loves colors, the husband (and writer of checks!) went for the white glaze. I am much happier with it with the glaze, and think it looks like some sort of sunstruck cavern in a canyon. Before the glaze it looked like Bozo the Clown on acid with a box of Crayolas.

Here are more columns at the entrance to the bathroom, they look slightly bowed due to Matt's camera lens for some reason...



Another marble column, part of a pair in the master bedroom. They came out really cool, and not bad for someone who's only done minor marbling here and there and not all of it was good!! It's amazing what you can get when you apply 3 different colors of glaze to a piece of plastic wrap and stick it on a white painted surface. Of course, I did a lot more work after that with more glazes and the veins, but if you want a decent cheap marble finish, get the Saran wrap and 3 similar toned colors mixed with glaze and go nuts!

Here is a small bathroom near their large family room I was supposed to paint but didn't since it was off budget. This is one of my favorites. It's a 2 color troweled latex paint and 90 set drywall mix with metallic accents. The colors are tan, cocoa and metallic antique gold. The light is hanging off because everything is brand new and they're changing all the original cheapy crap the builders place in the house.

This is the medallion that got me the gig! I painted this for a high-end lumber and architectural mom & pop store in my town so I could get some exposure. I signed the back of it. My latest (and first here in FL) client bought it for his new house, saw the signature on the back, and hired me for everything else.

Another medallion painted with a ivory and tan marble-type stipple, then highlighted in silver and gold metallics to match the chandelier. There were 2 of this kind.

This is a huge medallion, and ornate as hell, but it's going up on a ceiling 20' high so that's good. I washed it with a beige glaze and rubbed off the high points to show the original white, then highlighted here and there with gold. I could have got away w/o the gold but these folks like small tasteful bits of metallic mixed in with their largely neutral decor. It is almost too easy to turn a heavy piece like this into a gaudy eyesore.

This client and his family, native of Jamaica, live in a giant new subdivision that has many affluent people, and he is a man of influence as well there as he works in the construction industry. His neighbors are all coming over to take my business cards since he and his wife have been recommending me. They were some of the nicest folks I ever had the pleasure of working for and I can only hope all my customers are this sweet and appreciative of my work. So far the neighbors are all different nationalities...Latin, Chinese, Haitian....which is really cool for me because everyone will have vastly different tastes and backgrounds to build designs on.

Tomorrow at 10:30 I have an appt. with a client who wants a ton of mural and possible faux work. He found my website....thank goodness for metatags! I'll keep my fingers crossed on this one, since murals are what I really want to do in this business. But the faux shown above was hellof fun, and challenging!

The rest of the bathrooms were finished a while back, viewed here.