Saturday Morning Open Thread

Posted: June 2, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because, open thread | Tags: , | 20 Comments

It’s a rainy day in Boston. I don’t know if it’s from the tropical storm or what, but it’s nasty out there, and I guess it’s going to rain all night and tomorrow too. It’s a good day to curl up with a good book. Or maybe just surf the internet for weird news….

There have been so many cases of people eating other people lately, that New York Magazine decided to do some research on the topic. It turns out this behavior is fairly common.

In just the past week, a naked man ate a homeless guy’s face in Miami, a New Jersey man threw his intestines at police, a Canadian porn star killed a man and ate parts of his body before mailing other parts to government officials, a Maryland man killed his roommate and ate his heart and brain, and a Staten Island pizza parlor owner nommed a dude’s ear. It seems clear that this sudden burst of zombie activity points inexorably to the beginning of the end for mankind. But we started to wonder this morning — from inside our fortified, WiFi enabled, mountainside bunker — whether the only thing that’s changed is that, in the wake of the headline-grabbing Miami incident, we’ve suddenly started paying a lot more attention to zombie-esque stories than we had in the past. After digging around, we found that while the frequency of cannibal stories over the past week is unusual, this kind of stuff happens fairly regularly.

Go read the examples if you dare!

The victim of the face-eating attack in Miami was a homeless man who had abandoned his family years ago and was presumed dead.

“I tried to reach him, but I just thought he killed himself,” said Ronald Poppo’s sister, Antoinette. “And we really thought he was no longer on this earth.”

Antoinette Poppo said the family hasn’t heard from Ronald, 65, in 30 years. Details of his life after he attended New York’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School in the 1960s remain scarce, traced in a string of mostly petty arrests, hospital records, and a call to the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust last week from the Jungle Island zoo, where Poppo had been sleeping on the roof of the parking garage.

According to the Miami Herald, Stuyvesant’s records show Poppo enjoyed an above-average IQ of 129, and a former homeroom classmate said he enrolled at nearby City College before the pair lost touch.

Arrest records show Poppo spent some time in New Orleans before making his way to Miami, where he was shot in Bayfront Park by an unknown “John Doe” in 1976, spending five days at Jackson Memorial Hospital — the same place he now lies in critical condition with much of his face gone and only one remaining eye.

Poppo will need a complete facial reconstruction if he survives. There is a fund for people who wish to donate to help him.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: The Jackson Memorial Foundation has set up a fund to assist Ronald Poppo in his recovery, which experts in facial reconstruction have said will include lengthy treatment, staged reconstruction, and psychological care. Donations can be made by check or online at jmf.org.

Poppo’s daughter has also been located.

Janice Poppo DiBello, 44, told the New York Daily News that Ronald abandoned her family when she was just 2-years-old. She said she was stunned to find out her absentee father was the homeless man who was attacked and eaten by the Causeway Cannibal.

“Since I was like two-years-old, him and my mom got divorced and there was no – like how normal divorces are, where you see your father,” DiBello told the NY Daily News. “Nobody ever heard anything from him, so I’ve never met him. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead.”

DiBello told the Daily News she knows Ronald is in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital and he’s missing between 75 and 80 percent of his face. DiBello called her mom to confirm the details about the victim, which her mother did.

“It was a complete shock, because like I said, I’ve never had a relationship with my biological father,” DiBello told the Daily News. “I have never heard from him. I have no idea what happened to him.”

What’s happening where you are?

RIP: Influential Folk Musician Doc Watson Dies at 89

Posted: May 29, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , | 17 Comments

The New York Times:

Doc Watson, the guitarist and folk singer whose flat-picking style elevated the acoustic guitar to solo status in bluegrass and country music, and whose interpretations of traditional American music profoundly influenced generations of folk and rock guitarists and that make many people to go and find the Music Critic acoustics list of guitars after listen to him, died on Tuesday in Winston-Salem, N.C. He was 89.

Mr. Watson, who came to national attention during the folk music revival of the early 1960s, injected a note of authenticity into a movement awash in protest songs and bland renditions of traditional tunes. In a sweetly resonant, slightly husky baritone, he sang old hymns, ballads and country blues he had learned growing up in the northwestern corner of North Carolina, which has produced fiddlers, banjo pickers and folk singers for generations.

His mountain music came as a revelation to the folk audience, as did his virtuoso guitar playing. Unlike most country and bluegrass musicians, who thought of the guitar as a secondary instrument for providing rhythmic backup, Mr. Watson executed the kind of flashy, rapid-fire melodies normally played by a fiddle or a banjo. His style influenced a generation of young musicians learning to play the guitar as folk music achieved national popularity.

“He is single-handedly responsible for the extraordinary increase in acoustic flat-picking and fingerpicking guitar performance,” said Ralph Rinzler, the folklorist who discovered Mr. Watson in 1960. “His flat-picking style has no precedent in earlier country music history.”

There’s much more at the link.

USA Today:

Doc Watson played the acoustic guitar with such pure precision that Bob Dylan once compared his picking to “water running.”

The folk-music icon, 89, died Tuesday, after a fall last week at his home in Deep Gap, N.C., and subsequent colon surgery.

Blind from infancy, Watson grew up playing harmonica and a homemade banjo but learned guitar after his father bought him a $12 Stella acoustic when he was 13. Born Arthel Lane Watson, he picked up the nickname “Doc” at the suggestion of an audience member at a radio broadcast when he was in his teens.

Rest in Peace, Doc, and thanks for the music.

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Memorial Day Open Thread

Posted: May 28, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , | 62 Comments

There are all kinds of veterans to remember today!

Don’t forget our furry heroes!

This an open thread.

I thought I’d post this picture of my mom and dad.  My dad is a veteran of World War 2. He was a bombardier for the 8th Air Force–although it was the Army Air Corps when he joined– and was stationed in Northern England.  He once flew under the command of Jimmy Stewart.  He said he sounded just like he did in the movies. He flew missions over Northern Europea in B-17s.  Anyway, he’s nearly 90 and will finally share his war stories with us after years of not wanting to talk about it.  I took him to the WW2 Museum here in New Orleans on his last visit.  He really liked that.  There’s very few of his crew left but they all remained in contact with each other until the day they died. He’s a young lieutenant in this photo.  I’m going to have to get him to remember exactly when it was taken but that’s by the front porch of my grandparent’s house.  I’m posting this in remembrance of all his buddies that are no longer able to reminisce with Dad.  I keep asking him to give me all his stuff–including their pictures and logs–so I can put them in the WW2 museum documents library.  We all will never forget their service.

So, if you have any one you’d like to remember, please post their picture or a remembrance!

UPDATE by Boston Boomer: Here’s a photo of my Dad in his National Guard uniform. I couldn’t figure out how to put it in a comment, so I took the liberty of putting it here. I hope Dak won’t mind. The little girl is my cousin. He was really young. He lied about his age to get into the Guard so he could use the money for college. Dad didn’t meet my mom till after the war and returned to school.

This must have been taken before Dad left for Louisiana for training. His National Guard regiment, the 164th, was the first army regiment to be shipped out after Pearl Harbor. They went right to Guadalcanal to support the Marines who were stranded there with diminishing supplies. They were down to one meal a day by the time Dad’s unit got there. I think Ralph’s father was one of those marines.

When the bombs were dropped my Dad was on the way to Japan. Ironically, I might never have been born except for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I miss my dad so much. He died on March 11, 2010. He was almost 88.

Caturday: Sisters of the Moon edition

Posted: May 26, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 39 Comments

Good morning, news junkies! I’m super-tardy, so this will be short and sweet.

  • MUST-SEE FOOTAGE: Saudi woman stands her ground against religious police telling her to leave; tells them it’s none of their business if she wears nail polish!

Lnouisiana [sic] is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”

That paragraph opens a devastating eight-part series published this month by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans about how the state’s largely private prison system profits from high incarceration rates and tough sentencing, and how many with the power to curtail the system actually have a financial incentive to perpetuate it.

The picture that emerges is one of convicts as chattel and a legal system essentially based on human commodification.

First, some facts from the series:

• One in 86 Louisiana adults is in the prison system, which is nearly double the national average.

If you’ve got the time this weekend, you best read the rest.

  • Oh and before I close this… a Very Happy Birthday to Ms. Stevie Nicks! “She is like a cat in the dark, and then she is the darkness…” Here’s one of my favorite live performances of hers on youtube… “Sisters of the Moon”… absolutely mesmerizing, just WOW…

Alright. Comments, Sky Dancers. You know what to do! Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

Caturday Reads: What Happens to a Cat Dinner Deferred?

Posted: May 19, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 64 Comments

Kitty, it’s the tainted food supply causing the hold-up. Mommy has to spend extra time trying to find dinner that isn’t poison.

Morning news junkies…and cat enthusiasts! A little vintage Lolcat for you to get things started.

Also, a crazy cat lady book recommendation. Authoress Michèle Sacquin is curator at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France–and apparently cat historian on the side. I bought this hardcover a month or so ago at the MFAH (Museum of Fine Arts–Houston). It’s translated from French to English…I think there’s some quirk *gained* in the translation! And from what I can tell of the last page, there’s also a version out there available in Italian, which I’d love to locate along with the French. Anyhow, currently The Well-Read Cat is right here with me at my desk as I type this, but it travels regularly to and fro, between my kitchen and coffee tables and nightstand.

Now for some linky-business to go along with your morning cuppa…enjoy!

No farmer in their right mind wants to poison pollinators. When I spoke with one Iowa corn farmer in January and told him about the upcoming release of a Purdue study confirming corn as a major pesticide exposure route for bees, his face dropped with worn exasperation. He looked down for a moment, sighed and said, “You know, I held out for years on buying them GE seeds, but now I can’t get conventional seeds anymore. They just don’t carry ’em.”

  • Ag Department says healthier food costs less than junk food. I think I’ll have to take a closer look at that study. Wapo’s writeup makes no mention of special dietary needs and food intolerances, as if the poor are immune to such things and only the wealthy’s blood and organs have time to disagree with what they consume. Healthy foods cost less, my health nut butt! Plus, frankly most of our food supply is tainted with the complicity of Congress and our government agencies, so the US Ag department’s designation of fruits, veggies, and proteins that are “healthy” is suspect to me to begin with.

Perryton High — located just south of the Oklahoma border — has an annual “Red Ribbon Day” in which half the students portray Jews in the Nazi era and are forced to obey any commands by students or teachers and be subjected to random discipline, the suit says.

  • John W. Smart: Who Are These Bedbugs? I don’t like the source, i.e. Fox Nutsack, or its Fox Nutsack take on it. However, I’m glad John Smart gave a heads up on this story, because otherwise I probably would have had no idea Obama was inserting factoids about himself into past presidents’ bios. I’m trying to believe that compared to everything else at stake right now, this really is harmless, but it still seems a little odd, unnecessary, and insecure on the Administration’s part. They are fighting a GOP stuck in the 1800s, if that. Really, stop with the Obama vanity bios already, and give us some public sector gains to talk about. Cook this election up.

The “underground” is always with us. For better and often for worse, it’s how marginalized populations tend to survive —often not very well. (Think of the old, the young, the formerly incarcerated, or foreign.) In recessions – surprise, surprise– “irregular” employment grows. Consider recent stories from Greece, about wageless public “workers” swopping skills, and trading food for teaching. Austrian economist, Friedrich Schneider, an expert in underground economies, has documentd a surge in shadow economy activity in 2009 and ’10 in Europe. University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Edgar Feige has been doing his best to follow what’s happened here.

  • Jump Rope Physics from SciAm. Now, first and foremost I’m a bicycle enthusiast (“Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human race.” –H.G. Wells), but for GoRed Women’s heart health month this past February, I also procured from Tarjay two pairs of jump ropes made all fancy for grown-ups, one for myself and one for my mom. See, I’m all about the easy cardio that’s more about PLAY than cardio, ’cause that’s just how I roll. Enter bikes and jump ropes. Throw in some Saturday morning science, and we’re pretty much in girl geek heaven.

The play that “changed American theatre forever,” according to The New York Times, started with a few short lines from a long poem.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?

Langston Hughes wrote the poem, and Lorraine Hansberry was inspired – both by the poem and by her own real-life experience – to write A Raisin in the Sun, the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. Today, on what would have been her 82nd birthday, and we’re celebrating Hansberry’s groundbreaking work.

A Raisin in the Sun (Amazon.com)

A Raisin in the Sun (Amazon.com)

Okay, you know what to do in the comments, Sky Dancers. Have a lovely weekend!

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