Little Horror

Wisconsin state officials insist that a halfway house (type thing) for sex offenders has to be built somewhere in Milwaukee county, but every time they decide on an area the residents rally in protest. These protesters say heinous things. They say the offenders are monsters, and they need to go to jail for the rest of their lives. The men sound like snotty third grade tattle-tales, but with gruff Cheesehead voices. The women have all sworn to protect their children, so how can they allow this home to be built?

If I wanted to ruin my life, if I wanted to lose every shred of my sense of self, I would be a sex offender. In my experience working at Indian Oaks Academy, I began to see that these kids could never, ever be normal again. The institution ensures that they think of themselves as freaks whose every instinct has to be second-guessed. If their life was my life, I would be utterly hopeless.

But having that sympathy for a sex offender will do little to placate the neighbors where this home will eventually be built. I have no kids, so I can't imagine what their fears are like. It doesn't make sense for me to say that what these people should do once the criminals move in is bake them a damn pie and bring over the whole family for some card games. I would want them to feel normal.

(It's sort of a facticity thing, right? Like, if you kill someone how long are you a murderer for? What are you besides a murderer? Can you ever stop being a murderer?)

Pegi Taylor has a much more sane approach to the issue than I do, and a pithier response. She did some good research. She found a study that shows that something like 95 per cent of people who are offended knew the person who hurt them. She says that the house should go about two blocks from her house. I think that makes sense. I'd like to see them build it in my neighborhood; considering I don't know any of the residents, I'll sleep safe and sound.

A Clean and Pure Blog

You potty mouths!

You vulgardirtynaughty excuses for thinking people!

You oughta be ashamed of yourselves.

Have you noticed the amount of curse words that people just freely use around the blogosphere? There is no thought of what message they may be sending or whose eyes they may be offending. No thought.

Well we here at The Tarantular Chief Jason are taking a stand, you filthy mouthed vermin. No longer will we Fuck the world, we will Fart the world. No longer will we go out drinking and get Shitfaced, no, we will get Kakafaced. There are no Assholes here at The Tarantular Chief Jason there are only poopooheads.

So listen here you kaka loving motherfarting dirty lipped poopoofaces.

No more!

No more!

No more!

You are absolved of your need to cuss at The Tarantular Chief Jason

After all, we are a Clean and Pure Blog with little to no damn cussing.

Iraq

I'm not one for links usually, but I figure we should keep this in the forefront and realize it's still going on. This article talks about journalists in Falujah who describe U.S. soldiers killing civillians and children. Our military is apparently using napalm as well. They link to one of the journalist's blogs here.

At least the senate voted down the $14 billion proposed cuts on Medicaid funding.

Coming Soon:

Music - As soon as I figure out how to put audio on here, I got a new song for ye.

Zinn - Another post on Zinn's history of the U.S.

Lynch - A comment on David Lynch's web series, Rabbits.

I roil.

A feature on Allison's show from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Reg(i)stry

Wedding registry is a funny thing idn't it? I mean, honestly, who the hell registers?

Emily and I are registered at Target, Crate 'N Barrell and REI. Fuck yeah we put a canoe on there! If someone's gonna give me a canoe, just because I'm gettin hitched to the best goddamn girl in the world, then by god I'm gonna let em.

I can picture myself, Emily and our newborn babe lunching on the lake in the shade of a willow tree. The babe is suckling his mother's white breast in the cool air of a hot days heat. I, munching on chips and swigging a pale ale, looking at the marvelous bugs on the limb in front of my face. I ask Emily if she knows what kind of bugs they are and what their mating characteristics are (she knows alot about this shit). She, giving me her look as she smiles the smile that goes along with that look, contents herself with holding the child in front of her face and kissing his eyes. We lunch on lentils and kool-aid and love the love that love's the love that love's the love that love's the love.

Go right now to REI and make this scene a reality. Help promote family and nature and love, all at the same time. Can all of your clamoring about Bush and the Republican's and the defense budget really compare to this? Spend your tips wisely. Go into debt just a little more. Give to the American Dream.

*************************************************************************************

There are alot of Jason Lees' getting married. What the hell? I put in my name to get to our registry and there are a gazizillion number of Jason Lees' signed up. So I started looking at their registries. Some poor couple got married in November of 2004 and nobody got them shit! Then another couple from '04 got almost everything on their list.

Well I have half a mind to go buy something for that poor schmuck, Jason Lee, who didn't have any friends decent enough to even buy him an espresso square plate! what the hell? Somebody already got us a vacuum food sealer , a four slice toaster and the spicy salsa pillow. I'm already happy with that!

I wouldn't mind the type of furniture that Bethany and Fred got for their wedding. Although I don't know if people are man enough to do it again. Are ya? Huh? Huh? Are ya?

Word.

Let's All Clear Our Throats

It's awesome that Jason's blog is awesome.

Russ is here and Jeff is coming tonight. We're gonna have some fun. Also, I've joined a band. Isn't that exciting? We've got a show on April 1. Tomorrow I'm going to be featured at Linneman's open stage. There have been two rehearsals for my play and it's going, it's going.

Rejoice!

I have been taking pleasure in my hands recently. I guess more specifically, the work that I put my hands to.

I look forward to the turning of the lock to the front door and the good feeling that key has as it slides in perfectly and turns the deadbolt.

I take pleasure in the drawing of the small sharp knife with the white plastic handle (not one of the "better" knives*)from the silverware drawer--the wooden drawer that slides out smoothly, but not too smoothly--in order to cut the cellophane packaging of some spinach that was fresh bought tonight; I am having a strawberry jam, spinach and Wasa cracker sandwich.

I watch and listen to the pooring of the oolong tea into my tiny Chinese teacup and the dribbling sound of the tea from the small spout of the small brown pot.

My hands. Their work is more deliberate, with purpose. I have never felt this before.

I did three loads of laundry on Monday--two of them were Emily's. It felt good as I folded her shirts and pants and underwear, knowing that when she selects her clothes for the next week she will be undoing my fold-job and placing them on her body.

I cooked dinner for Emily and Bridget on Wednesday night - Spicy Pesto Chicken Pasta with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Whole Kernel Corn Out Of A Can. It was the first time I have ever roasted Garlic and I got the cloves a little on the dark side of browned. For the pesto chicken I substituted Cholulas hot sauce for the "chili paste" that the recipe called for (do you like the sound of "chili paste?") The roasted garlic mashed potatoes tasted of blackened garlic and were palatable yet not that good. The pesto chicken pasta may have been one of the best dishes I have ever made. It is definitely going into my repiratoire.

I have discovered why my dad always stayed up later than everyone else. This time is my time to do with as I please. Some of it is used to tap into my latent OCD and pick up the living room, the dining room and the kitchen. It feels good to make a place new and clean and ordered.

At least 3 times today, I put my face up to Emily's belly and said in a high pitched voice, "Hello baby, how are you doing in there?" That always gets laughs from whomever's watching, and of course it makes me look cute. I expect my conversations to get longer and more complex as my child gets older. We'll start on Socrates at 12 weeks and maybe move on to the pre-Socratics at 15.

I picked up a book today by Marcel Mauss - A General Theory of Magic. I read the prologue and the first chapter. It looks intriguing. I remember my friend, Virgil Brower, always talking about Mauss and Levi-Strauss.

I drove 45 minutes to sit through a 4-hour seminar today about baby cribs and highchairs. The products they were selling looked great. Too bad I don't have enough money and don't like layaway plans. At least Emily and I have a coupon to send in so we can get deluxe accomodations for 3 days and 2 nights in one of a list of cities, none of which I have any real desire to visit.

At any rate, life feels good. This is a heroic and liberating time. It is mundane and practical and good. The work of my hands is my art.


*better knives - knives with wooden handles that don't necessarily cut better but just feel better in the palm of your hand.



Update: I have found another recipe for some pesto chicken pasta that looks even better! It uses sundried tomatoes--something Emily and I have been loving lately. I make a damn good sundried tomato and spinach pizza. And yes, I make the dough myself thank you very much.

Update: If you were wondering, you spell that plasticy packaging stuff celophane, and you spell that garbage heap of famous knowledge your repertoire. I also helped blogger learn "oolong" and "sundried" tonight. What can I say, I'm a good vocabulary teacher.

Prohibition anyone?

A prohibition is afoot in Turkey. Apparently the goverment has instituted a tax on liquor so high that bootleggers are having a heyday. The article cites the effects of bootleg "raki":

A total of 44 people have been hospitalised so far with complaints of vomiting, dizziness, headache and loss of eyesight.

Hello people, you're hungover!

The one thing Ataturk forgot to teach--how to drink like an Irishman.

Beer

Have I ever mentioned that I brew my own beer? My most recent brew was a variation of a "palace bitter." The recipe for a palace bitter calls for two different kinds of hops, whereas I used three different kinds. The use of hops has different effects on a beer depending on when you put said hops into the "wort" (this term refers to the liquid that you boil up before you seal it in a vessel to ferment). As soon as the wort starts to boil, you would add hops in order to give the beer a bittering effect. If you like pale ales, then you appreciate this bittering effect. You may have heard a pale ale referred to as an "India Pale Ale." The history of this apparently stems from the shipping routes from England to colonized India. This route went south around the tip of Africa. In order to preserve their beer, the English used hops as a preservative so that their beer would not spoil. Thus the India Pale Ale.

Adding hops into the wort in the last 5 to 10 minutes of the boil is known as "flavoring hops." This is just as it says--the beer takes on the flavor of the hops. There are many different types of hops with varying flavors, so depending on which types of hops you use is the flavor that your beer adopts.

The last addition of hops occurs in the last minute or two of the boil. This is called the "aromatic hops." Again, this is self descriptive as this addition of hops adds a nice aroma to the final product. Of course the end aroma of your beer depends on the type of hops that you use.

I have been drinking my "palace bitter" for a couple weeks now and have enjoyed it thoroughly. There really is nothing like drinking a beer that you brewed yourself. Similarly, there is nothing quite like pissing off of your own porch.

Word.

Zinn #1

It is the year 1776. You know, the year the colonies declared their independence from England. The Declaration of Independence. It was shouted from the rooftops. The Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." So equal that four days after the reading of this document from the town hall balcony in Boston, the townsmen of this city were ordered to arrive on the Common for a military draft. A draft that could be avoided if one were rich enough to pay for a substitute. If you had enough money, you could buy your way out of "patriotic duty."

All men are created equal. What a joke. This country has never been about equal rights. It's always been about giving the dissenting voices enough table scraps to keep them quiet. And it has worked overwhelmingly well.

I'm reminded of Fahrenheit 911 when Michael Moore is trying to get congressmen to sign their children up for military service. They weren't really going for it. Not so much. They were, however, more than willing to send other people's children. Your and my neighbors, friends, brothers and cousins.

(from a reading of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States)

New Beginnings

I moved to a new house this weekend. Emily (my fiance), her roommate Bridget and I have moved into a pretty nice house in Henderson. One of my new amenities is a gas fireplace that sometimes leaks and makes me feel high. Another new amenity is the DSL capability. It is my first high speed internet at home and ooh am I thrilled. This jubilation is a little sarcastic if you did not catch it. I both love and loathe technology, as I'm sure you do too.

At any rate, I am making a commitment to be more active on an intellectual level--with both reading and with blog activity. I will be the first to admit that I have not put all that much time into this blog. But my friends, IT IS A NEW DAY.

Perhaps Adam will post more, the bastard.

Coming soon: A series of posts on my reading of Howard Zinn.

What kind of man kills another man? Out of revenge? Out of duty? Out of rage? Out of protection?
I cannot fathom the thought. I cannot even comprehend extinguishing the life of an other.
Perhaps you can. Please explain.

I remember seeing Saving Private Ryan for the first time. The scene where the German soldier and the American soldier end up fighting hand to hand after they both run out of ammunition. They come face to face, eye to eye, with only the thought of killing. The enemy. The German soldier ends up slowly sliding a knife into the American soldiers heart. He gazes into his eyes saying, "Shhhh. Shhhh," while the American soldier screams, "No!" repeatedly. His life is gone, ended in a moment of passion and survival. Kill or be killed. As the German soldier descends the stairs, he sees Upham--the very green, scared, ammunition toting war journalist. The German soldier passes him by without a second glance. Upham does nothing. In another battle scene, this same German soldier is shooting Upham's comrades. Upham could have prevented this, if only he would have acted. He just didn't have the stomach for it.

Was it harder to kill before gun powder? From a distance, behind a gun, you don't have to watch your enemy die. You don't have to look him in the eye and decide he is not worth living. There is separation. Objectification. Like hunting a deer. Maybe it was only harder from a technical standpoint? I don't know.

In the end, Man is and has always been his own worst enemy.

Anti-Terror

I was just listening to a radio broadcast discussing how some state prosecutors are using anti-terrorist laws to prosecute "regular" criminals. The first example involved a young girl who was shot in the head by a gang member in New York City. The people involved in the shooting apparently fled to Mexico, but the prosecutor brought charges against 16 members of the same gang under the anti-terrorist laws stating that they were "intimidating the civilian population." The second example was from Boone, North Carolina where the district attorney was tired of the violence associated with crystal meth labs, and the people who make crystal meth that were getting off with only short jail terms. He tried to bring charges against some of these crystal meth makers using an anti-terrorist law that had to do with the production of weapons using toxic chemicals (they use toxic chemicals to make crystal meth) with the intent to do violence or to intimidate the civilian population. Of course someone who is prosecuted under an anti-terrorist law is subject to stiffer penalties and longer jail terms.

Both examples seem fairly ridiculous to me. It is an obvious stretch to jump from production of an illicit drug to manufacturing chemical weapons. And since when do we prosecute people because they were in the same "association" as someone who committed a crime? McCarthy couldn't have done it better himself.

I don't think that the word "terrorist" should be limited to foreign nationals who illegaly enter the country. There are plenty of examples of domestic terrorism--the Unibomber and the Oklahoma City bombing to cite two. However using anti-terror laws to prosecute criminals just because the prosecutor thinks the regular laws aren't stiff enough? That seems criminal in itself. Not to mention the basic human rights violations that seem to accompany anyone associated with the word "terrorist." This stuff makes me ill.

God is dead

Co-Worker: God is dead.

ChiefJason: No she's not, I just talked to her this morning.

Co-Worker: "Her," huh? What did she say?

ChiefJason: She told me to love you and to die for you.

Co-Worker: Harrumph.

ChiefJason: My sentiments exactly.

Influenza

I have been convalescing for the past four days. I ache all over and have the chills. My nose is stopped and my throat makes me cough. I used to love being sick when I was a kid--who didn't? Who can beat getting to stay home when everyone else is at school? I remember in junior high spending two days straight in my parents big bed reading Dragonlance books. That was nice.

Staying home from work doesn't have the same enjoyment. I'm losing money that I can't afford to lose, I'm getting further behind in my paperwork, and I feel like shit to boot. Sometimes being an adult sucks.

I have made myself Kool-aid and I've watched Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back. Why did they have to make the new ones suck so much? Carrie Fisher is still hot.

I think my brain is going to explode.

**Update--Yeah, so I've been pissing myself all day long. You know when you're sick and you think you've pushed all of the pee out of your wee willy wonka that you can get out, then you zip up your fly and sure enough if there isn't a warm tinkle going down your leg. For fuck's sake! I'm paying for a quart of oil at the gas station, trying to smile at the old lady, while my sickly little guy is leeking urine into my cordoroys. This is not cool.

What if?

An Israeli settler next to an unexploded rocket, following a Palestinian attack on a settlement in the Gaza Strip.

What if the Iroquois were to start fighting back? How long would it take before US citizens stopped complaining about getting a room with two doubles when they specifically reserved a king way back in September?

You Are a Mother Fu**ing Tarantula Fu**er

There. Are you happy. You got Tarantular. You got your Title Field. Why don't you just go back to the Pickle you demanding piece of Mothe* Fuck**g monk*y dung.

Furthermore, did you hear I'm getting married?

WHAT THE FEEZEE (sp?)?

I never understood that expression, or knew its origin.

What I DO understand, though, is that I just wrote a post only to see it disappear. Well, not see it disappear, which would be impossible, but only notice that it is gone. And now, even though the same thing will probably happen again this time, I'm composing in Blogger rather than Word because I'm the definition of insanity.

What I said, real quick, was:
If you want, Chief Jason, you can turn post titles on for each post under the "Settings" tab.

Also, I said I liked the name "Cold Room/Warm Heart" (punctuated like that) for this blog, and that the metaphorical meaning will outlast the winter. If, however, you are looking for a name that is more universal, you could take the greatest name I ever came up with, which is:

Tarantular.

In the deleted post I really built it up. But that's it. "Tarantular" is a really good blog name. While I'm on the subject, does anyone know of a better onomatopoeia in the funnies than "Pifft"?

Finally, I told a story about my dog that I don't feel like going through again.

Thank you.

Driving my Saturn to work today with Interpol coming from my dash, I felt good. Maneuvering myself smoothly between the lines, following the curves with just a touch of my wrist. My bowels were empty and my body relaxed. My feet secure in thick socks and snug boots. My favorite long sleeve shirt. The sun bringing out the green of fields and the reds of bushes and the black of people, I was on top of the world. Surely it is good to be alive today.