Metal on Sunday

Sharks and Rays

2010-08-03T17:02:00.000-04:00

Pumpkins

2010-08-01T22:28:00.001-04:00

Hello..

2010-07-31T09:55:00.001-04:00

Hola.
You Live?
I do.
Well then,
Whatever shall we do?

It is a nice sunshiny daydream day, whatever shall I do?

Oh Man...

2009-02-17T02:51:00.000-05:00

Chinese mistress contest takes tragic turn

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep.

But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported.

The spurned mistress died and the other passengers were injured, the reports said.

Police initially thought the car had plummeted off a mountain road in eastern China on December 6 by accident. Then they learned of the contest through a letter the dead woman had left behind, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said.

The 29-year-old woman, identified only as Yu, was a waitress when she met the businessman at a restaurant in the coastal city of Qingdao in 2000.

At the time, the businessman, identified only by his last name -- Fan -- was married and had four other mistresses, according to the Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper in Qingdao.

The women knew of one another, but none elected to break up with the man and give up their rent-free apartment and a 5,000 yuan ($730) monthly allowance, the reports said.

When the economy soured, the businessman apparently decided to let go of all but one mistress.

He staged a private talent show in May, without telling the women his intentions. An instructor from a local modeling agency judged the women on the way they looked, how they sang and how much alcohol they could hold, the Shanghai Daily said.

The judge knocked out Yu in the first round of the competition based on her looks. Angry, she decided to exact revenge by telling her lover and the four other women to accompany her on a sightseeing trip before she returned to her home province, the media reports said.

It was during the trip that Yu reportedly drove the car off the cliff.

Fan shut down his company after the crash and paid Yu's parents 580,000 yuan ($84,744) as compensation for her death.

The four other women left him, as did his wife when she learned of the affairs.

sunshine, Stella Artois, and some wings

2009-02-13T16:48:00.000-05:00

Chicken wings,that is. I totally survived Disney. And for what? To sit at the bar here and listen to bad Jimmy Buffet karaoke. Yeesh. The place is out of Blue Moon, but Stella will do. The bar is poolside, the breeze is warm, and the race is on. Daddy is unwinding. Damn vacation is short, we're leaving day after tomorrow. Back to the twenty degree weather on the shore. Xould be worse, I could have not gotten to go on vacation at all. And the boy had a great time today, which when it comes down to it is all that matters. So I'm lovin it for at least another 36 hours anyway. Then it's back to the grind and no more vacation. At least till labor day. Then we're going to Vermont. Word to that. So say hey, peoples

LJ

dispatches from the road

2009-02-13T07:41:00.000-05:00

And actually from the road this time. Well, at least from the lunch table. I've gone to Disneyworld! Drove 18 hours in the car, had a flat in Savannah. Got lost in a bad part of Orlando. Been swimming. Been drinking (yay!). Have been to 3 Disney Parks. We're at Magic Kingdom for my son's Bday. And am just enjoying the eighty degree sunny Florida weather. Ohh yayerr. More later, peoples.

Much love-
LJ

What's Really Wrong With America Part 5

2009-02-05T03:54:00.000-05:00

Ex-husband told to pay slain woman's rent

She was 1 of 9 victims of Christmas Eve shooting by man dressed as Santa

COVINA, Calif. - The ex-husband of one of the nine people killed at a Christmas Eve party has been asked by a landlord to pay the dead woman's rent.

Broadcrest Foothill Apartment Homes claims Alicia Ortiz broke her lease and gave "insufficient notice to vacate."

Ortiz and her 17-year-old son were killed by her sister's disgruntled ex-husband.

The landlord of her Upland apartment informed her former husband, Carlos Ortiz, that he owes $2,821 in rent and penalties.

Says Carlos Ortiz, "I just don't understand it."

The manager of the property, Candyse Wardlow, refused to comment. Messages left at the company's office were not returned.

Alicia Ortiz, her son Michael and seven others were killed Dec. 24 by a gunman dressed as Santa Claus. He then burned the house and killed himself.

Surgeons remove healthy kidney through donor's vagina

2009-02-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

In what is being heralded as a "first-ever procedure," surgeons removed a healthy kidney through a donor's vagina, the Johns Hopkins Medical Center has announced.

Although the procedure has been previously done to extract cancerous and nonfunctioning kidneys that threatened a patient's health, the January 29 surgery was the first time it was done for donation purposes, the center said in a news release issued Monday.

"The kidney was successfully removed and transplanted into the donor's niece, and both patients are doing fine," Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief of transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins, said in the release.

The surgery is considered less invasive and could pave the way for an increase in organ donations, it added.

"Removing the kidney through a natural opening should hasten the patient's recovery and provide a better cosmetic result," Montgomery said.

He told CNN on Tuesday, "We want to make it easier for people to donate, to have less impact on their lives, [be] in hospital a shorter amount of time and get back to their lives quicker."

The woman was chosen to be the first donor to undergo the procedure because a previous hysterectomy enabled doctors to operate without a uterus obstructing their efforts, he added.

The three-hour procedure typically allows the donor to return home within 24 hours.

The more traditional surgery requires a 5- to 6-inch incision through the abdominal wall and generally is followed by two or three days of hospitalization.

"If you asked our patient, she said it was like getting a tooth removed. She was walking that night and left the next day," Montgomery said.

The procedure is done by inserting "wand-like cameras and tools" through small incisions in the abdomen and navel.

Doctors then insert a hollow tube through the vagina with a bag at the end.

Once the kidney is cut loose, surgeons use video from the cameras to guide them as they maneuver the bag around the organ, place it in the tube and pull it out through the vaginal opening, Montgomery said.

A kidney weighs approximately one pound and is roughly the size of a clenched hand.

In an effort to ensure a more sterile procedure, the vagina is treated with Betadine, a sterilizing solvent commonly applied during surgery.

But some physicians wonder how clean the procedure can actually be.

"It's good to take such [sterilization] measures," said Dr. Jihad Kaouk, director of laparoscopic and robotic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. "But the tube touched the vagina. And the bag touched the tube. And the bag touched the kidney"

He added, "delivering a kidney from the vagina, which is not sterile -- is it a potential risk or a real risk? We'll find out now."

Kaouk also expressed concern over the quality of the kidney once it has been squeezed into a tube.

"The concept of minimizing incisions and decreasing pain after surgery is always a good idea, but we should always check at what price," he said.

Gas on the Drive By

2009-02-01T19:05:00.000-05:00

Randomness

2009-01-29T17:35:00.000-05:00

Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist dies

2009-01-28T09:47:00.000-05:00

ORANGE PARK, Fla. - A keyboardist for the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd has died at his northeast Florida home.

Keyboard player Billy Powell called 911 about 12:55 a.m. Wednesday saying he was having trouble breathing. Rescue crews performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead at 1:52 a.m., said Orange Park Police Lt. Mark Cornett.

Powell, 56, who has a history of heart problems, missed a Tuesday appointment with his doctor for a cardiac evaluation. A heart attack is suspected. No autopsy will be performed because Powell’s cardiologist will sign the death certificate, Cornett said.

The Jacksonville-based band was formed in 1966 by a group of high school students — famously, it took its name from a P.E. teacher they disliked, Leonard Skinner. Powell joined the group around 1972, the year before they released their first album, “Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd.”

It became one of the South’s most popular rock groups, and gained national fame with such hits as “Free Bird,” “What’s Your Name” and especially “Sweet Home Alabama,” which reached the top 10 on the national charts in 1974.

The band was decimated on Oct. 20, 1977, when their chartered plane crashed in a swamp near McComb, Miss.

Six people were killed — lead singer Ronnie Van Zant; guitarist Steve Gaines; and his sister, vocalist Cassie Gaines; as well as an assistant road manager, the pilot and co-pilot.

Powell was one of the survivors.

Two years after the accident, Powell and fellow members Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkeson formed the Rossington-Collins Band. It broke up in 1982.

Powell was on hand again in 1991 when a revived version of the band put out a new album, “Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991” and launched a tour in Baton Rouge, La., where the band was headed in 1977 when the plane crashed. Fans who kept their tickets from the canceled 1977 concert were admitted free.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

Snow Sucks

2009-01-27T16:23:00.000-05:00

Yes. Yes it does.
In two weeks I'll be in Orlando.
Kick it!!!

Price of Gas Today

2009-01-27T16:19:00.000-05:00

Blowfish testicles poison 7 diners in Japan

2009-01-27T07:10:00.000-05:00

Unlicensed chef prepared delicacy eaten by thrill-seeking gourmets

TOKYO - Blowfish testicles prepared by an unauthorized chef sickened seven diners in northern Japan and three remained hospitalized Tuesday after eating the poisonous delicacy.

The owner of the restaurant in Tsuruoka city, who is also the chef, had no license to serve blowfish and was being questioned on suspicion of professional negligence, police official Yoshihito Iwase said.

Blowfish, while extremely poisonous if not prepared properly, is considered a delicacy in Japan and is consumed by thrill-seeking gourmets.

Iwase said the seven men ordered sashimi and grilled blowfish testicles at the restaurant Monday night.

Shortly after, they developed limb paralysis and breathing trouble and started to lose consciousness — typical signs of blowfish poisoning — and were rushed to a hospital for treatment, Iwase said.

A 68-year-old diner remained hospitalized in critical condition with respiratory failure and two others, aged 55 and 69, were in serious condition, he said.

"It's scary. If you go to a decent-looking restaurant that serves fugu, you would assume a cook has a proper fugu license," Iwase said, using the Japanese term for blowfish.

Blowfish poison, called tetrodotoxin, is nearly 100 times more poisonous than potassium cyanide, according to the Ishikawa Health Service Association. It can cause death within an hour and a half after consumption.

Three people died and 44 others were sickened by blowfish poisoning in 2007 — most of them after catching the fish and cooking it at home — according to the Health Ministry.

What's Really Wrong With America Part Four

2009-01-24T21:03:00.000-05:00

Sanjaya is back with a tell-all ‘Idol’ book

Sanjaya Malakar, best known for his hair-raising run on season six of “American Idol,” is back — and he has a tale to tell.

“I realized that I had a story that no other past contestant has said,” Malakar told Access Hollywood.

The “Idol” alumnus has penned an autobiography, “Dancing To The Music In My Head,” and is releasing a new CD of original music with the same title.

Written with Alan Goldsher and centered around his time on the reality competition, the book includes everything from his “grueling” auditions to taking the stage in the “Idol” top 10.

Among the insider info is a look at how contestants make it to the judges’ table. Potential contestants go through three auditions before they ever get in front of the cameras.

“Then they get on the show and they’re beat down,” Malakar said.

Still, Malakar found Simon Cowell’s criticisms fair — even if the snarky Brit didn’t seem to be a fan.

“His job is to really just tell exactly what he thinks,” Malakar said. “Whether that’s brutal or not.”

And after all, it was “Idol” that rocketed the singer and his ever-changing hair to fame.

“The show… really helped and formed who I am as an artist,” he said. “I basically grew up in front of everyone on the show. I was about to turn 17 when I first auditioned.”

While it was “American Idol” that gave him his start, when it came to recording his new album, Malakar looked to global influences.

“(It’s) world pop, like fusion. I have lot of different kinds of influences. I love jazz music. I love funk. I love R&B, hip-hop. I’m trying to comfortably fuse them with like a base of world beats,” he said.

And if things don’t pan out with his singing career?

“I have always been interested in math and the sciences, biological sciences,” he said, adding that he’s interested in being “a public figure” and pursuing acting and modeling as well as music.

But till then, he’s still got his “Fanjayas” — not to mention a steady girlfriend.

“I’ve actually been dating my girlfriend for a year this Halloween,” he said. “She’s in Seattle, she’s finishing her senior year (of high school).”

Mexico: Man admits dissolving 300 bodies

2009-01-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

TIJUANA, Mexico - A man accused of helping a Mexican drug kingpin dispose of hundreds of victims by dissolving their bodies in acid was arrested in the border city of Tijuana, authorities said Friday.

A Mexican military statement said Santiago Meza Lopez confessed to disposing of at least 300 bodies over a decade, but authorities provided no further evidence to back the claim. Officials contend he dumped the bodies in graves, poured acid on them and let them dissolve underground.

The victims are believed to be rivals of Teodoro Garcia Simental, an alleged former lieutenant of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel, authorities said.

Soldiers and police paraded Meza, 45, before reporters at a cement-block shack on the outskirts of Tijuana where he allegedly disposed of the bodies. Two grave-sized holes had been dug near the walls.

The security officers had Meza tell reporters how he allegedly got rid of the bodies, prodding him to speak up whenever he mumbled.

Meza, who has not yet been charged, was arrested along with three other people Thursday at a Tijuana hotel. He told reporters Friday that he got paid $600 a week for his work and repeated his claim that he had disposed of 300 bodies.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration identified Garcia as one of 10 men it believes are battling for drug trafficking routes through Tijuana. The DEA said Garcia is the chief rival of alleged Arellano Felix cartel leader Fernando Sanchez Arrellano.

Mexican officials have blamed the power struggle for a surge in violence in Tijuana, the birthplace of the Arellano Felix cartel. The two men split in April after a shootout between their followers in Tijuana left at least 14 people dead, Mexican and U.S. officials say.

The Arellano Felix cartel rose to power in 1980s. Since 2002, four brothers who led the cartel have been killed or arrested, most recently Eduardo Arellano Felix, who was captured in October in his Tijuana home.

Mexico's drug violence has surged and grown more gruesome in recent years, particularly in northern border cities Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Drug violence claimed more than 5,300 lives last year.

In one case last year, authorities said they found human teeth and other remains inside barrels of acid left on a Tijuana street. Officials did not say whether Meza was suspected of involvement in that case.

Also Friday, two human heads were found inside coolers near police stations in Celaya, a city in central Guanajuato state, said state deputy Attorney General Armando Amaro. Hours later, police found the bodies with their hands handcuffed.

A message was left with the heads threatening allies of a drug cartel knows as "La Familia," Amaro said. It was signed by Zetas, a group of hit men for the Gulf Cartel.

What's Really Wrong With America Part Three

2009-01-24T06:42:00.000-05:00

Judges: Mom not guilty of drowning daughters

CLEVELAND - A mother charged with aggravated murder in the bathtub drownings of her two daughters was found not guilty by reason of insanity Friday.

A three-judge panel in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court determined that 23-year-old Amber Hill suffered from a severe mental disorder when she drowned her daughters on Oct. 1, 2007.

"The court concludes she did not know the wrongfulness of her horrific acts," said Judge John Sutula.

Hill could have faced the death penalty if convicted of killing 4-year-old Janelle Cintron and 2-year-old Cecess Hill.

She remained jailed, where she has been held since the deaths, pending a civil commitment hearing on whether she should be hospitalized by court order. A hearing date was not immediately set.

Sutula said evidence from both the court's forensic psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist obtained by the defense concluded that Hill had suffered from "a major depressive disorder with psychotic features."

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mark Mahoney said the state believed Hill should be hospitalized.

"We will argue she is a danger to herself and others and that she be committed to a psychiatric institution," he said.

Defense lawyers did not dispute that Hill drowned the girls at the Cleveland apartment where they lived.

Defense attorney Fernando Mack had said Hill heard voices telling her to "do it, do it" on the day the children died.

Police said Hill called the girls' father, Jamie Cintron, at his job and told him that the children were "at peace." Cintron rushed home and pulled his daughters from the bathtub.

A forensic pathologist in the Cuyahoga County coroner's office had testified that marks on the older girl's neck indicated she may have struggled and was strangled.

Carolyn Hutchins, Hill's mother, said she thanked God for the verdict.

"Now my daughter can get some help," she said. During the trial, Hutchins had testified that she wanted to take her daughter to a hospital for mental health counseling before the children died.

Mack said Hill had since been medicated and was functioning well.

"She was a good mother," said the defense attorney Myron Watson. "She cared for those children. Those children were the center of her life."

Intersection

2009-01-23T18:58:00.000-05:00

Hayward Street and Maryland Avenue

Price of Gas Today

2009-01-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

The Rambler 22 January 2009

2009-01-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

Word I’m drinkin the coffee tonight so let me break it down to ya one time like my name was DJ Lance. Yayerr…
It’s Thursday here for about another two hours forty minutes. I’m off for the next three so I’m lovin life . No football this weekend but Winter X has started, thank the good lord for ESPN HD. It’s clod. I mean cold. Cold like death creepin out your shithouse backwards. Did I mention the cold? Years and years ago we lived in Miami. Then we moved to North Jersey. In the middle of January! The moving guy looked at me and said, “Yo, I love jersey man, but damn it’s January, dude.” Should have seen it coming, man.
But it didn’t suck completely. Just mostly. I did get the chance to see the final live performance of the original lineup of Govt. Mule. They played a festival at Waterloo in West Jersey, in August 2000. Three days later, Alan Woody was dead.
Tomorrow being Friday, I will be paying bills and running the errands. I may swing by where they’re bustin down that old shopping center over there in town. I should hurry, though, it’s almost gone. That reminds me, I have to go to the bank tomorrow, which is right by where the demolition is going on, which reminds me, did I bring my check home or is it in my desk drawer… Questions for tomorrow, or two hours and a half hours from now, provided I make it up that long. I don’t really feel old and I like to stay up and kick it late when I can, but ten fifteen and I’m done, man. I think my grandparents stay up later than I do these days.
I’m hoping to take some pictures tomorrow. I know I said it was cold, but it’s supposed to be in the fifties tomorrow, who knows. I’ve gotten some good ones the last week or so. I’m lucky to live in a really photogenic place; there’s never any shortage of subject matter, it’s just getting the good lighting.
I would be upstairs watching tv right now, but I’m not into One Life To Live (OLTL ZOMG!). That was weird. I’m not allowed to actually touch the tv I paid for during the nine o clock hour, so here I am, wondering if Neil Young really did want to kill people from Laurel Canyon, or was he just really really drunk? I thought only good ole boys from the south got angry drunk like that, oh to live vicariously…
I do like it at night in the winter, like tonight, when there’s a little bit of humidity, just enough so it feels like it wraps you up and keeps you warm. Nights with rings around the moon, and it’s so light outside you can see everywhere.
I don’t have much else tonight. I’ve got a china cabinet over there in the corner of the kitchen, too bad there were no corners in the dining room. It’s a pity, most of my non sequitur go to Twitter these days, so not a lot gets stored. But on the really bright side, not much gets lost either.
I’ve been jamming to a lot of M Ward the past week or do. Today I listened to Stevie Ray and Jimi all day. I finally listened to all NINE CDS of this Chuck Berry box set I ran across last summer. I picked up about a hundred cd off torrents last weekend. Arrr!!! Ha! I heard Dave Matthews solo album recently, it was not terrible, I was impressed, a little. I have the new Franz Ferdinand, haven’t listened to it yet. I’ve had the new Andrew Bird for about a month and haven’t gotten to that one either. I bought Chinese Democracy and fifteen minutes later saw it in a blog. Damn. I always forget to look there first. I’ve been watching a lot of the original Electric Company with my kid. Good Stuff. Seeing those old ones makes me think of things I hadn’t remembered, maybe ever, it’s an interesting phenomenon. Remember, long before Spider Man shared a comic cover with a President he was on the Electric Company, cool.
Well, the coffee’s gone and so am I. We’ll holler at ya tomorrow, y’all come, now.

Intersection

2009-01-23T07:05:00.000-05:00

Travers St. and Choptank Ave.

End Of The Day

2009-01-22T18:28:00.000-05:00

Damn Seagulls

2009-01-22T18:26:00.000-05:00

Seagulls don’t care, man. They do not give a damn about you. They do not like you and you just about have to run slap over them to get them to move. And don’t even think about waving some bread around. It’ll be you in The Birds, not Tippi Hedron.
Immediately after I took this, I gunned, it, took out about sixty of them, and drove like hell. The remaining 4200 followed me through three counties to my house, and proceeded to give me “one for the road”. Sleep soft, fallen gulls, sleep soft.

What's Really Wrong With America Part 2

2009-01-22T08:22:00.000-05:00

Pa. man considered bank error ‘a gift from God’

BLOOMSBURG, Pa. - A Pennsylvania man said he considered it divine providence when a bank error put more than $175,000 in his and his wife's account.

Fifty-year-old Randy Pratt and 36-year-old Melissa Pratt face trial in Columbia County Court on felony theft and conspiracy charges. They waived a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

The trouble started when a $1,772.50 deposit to the Pratts' FNB Bank account showed up as $177,250 last summer. Police say that instead of telling the bank, they withdrew the money, quit their jobs and moved to Florida.

They were buying a house in the Orlando area when the mistake was traced.

Randy Pratt told the Bloomsburg Press Enterprise he did attempt to ask the bank what happened, but was ignored. He said he considered the money "a gift from God."

The couple gave away thousands of dollars, including $25,000 to a Florida church shelter for the homeless, he said.

Randy Pratt remained in county prison. A judge denied a request to lower his $100,000 bail. Melissa Pratt, who told the court she was estranged from her husband, was free on unsecured bail.

What's Really Wrong With America Part 1

2009-01-22T08:19:00.000-05:00

John Thain to leave Bank of America

NEW YORK - Former Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain will resign from Bank of America, effective immediately, according to CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino.

Earlier, Bank of America’s shares fell sharply after a report that executives are meeting to discuss Thain’s future with the company.

The report on CNBC followed news that Merrill, which was about to report a $15.45 billion fourth-quarter loss, decided to move up its year-end bonuses, doling out cash just days before it was officially acquired by Bank of America on Jan. 1.

CNBC reported that Bank of America’s chief executive, Ken Lewis, met with executives Thursday to discuss Thain’s future.

A spokesman from Bank of America declined to comment on a potential meeting.

CNBC has also learned that Thain spent $1.22 million redesigning his office — including $35,115 for a "commode on legs" — when he became CEO of Merrill Lynch a year ago. Thain also paid his driver $230,000 for one years work, which included the driver's $85,000 salary and bonus of $18,000, and another $128,000 in over-time pay, documents show. Drivers of top executives are often paid about half that amount.

Such expenses would have followed $12.2 billion of net losses at Merrill in the second half of 2007 as writedowns on mortgages and other toxic debt began to mount. Thain became chief executive in December 2007.

The outlays recall heavy spending on personal items by senior executives at other companies, including a $6,000 shower curtain owned by former Tyco International Ltd chief Dennis Kozlowski, and an office fish tank acquired by former Citigroup Inc executive Todd Thomson.

Bank of America has increasingly come under criticism in recent weeks for its acquisition of Merrill Lynch. The deal forced Bank of America to ask for a second multibillion dollar investment from the government as it absorbed the mounting losses at the New York-based investment bank.

On Thursday, Bank of America said it knew of Merrill’s plans to move up the bonuses.

“Merrill was an independent company until Jan. 1 of 2009,” said Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri. “John Thain decided to pay year-end incentives in December, as opposed to their normal date in January. Bank of America was informed of his decision.”

Bonuses were not paid, though, to Thain and four other top executives — President and COO Greg Fleming, Chief Financial Officer Nelson Chai, President of Global Wealth Management Robert McCann, and General Counsel Rosemary Berkery — who requested they not receive additional compensation.

Bank of America last week struck a deal with the government to receive an additional $20 billion in funds as part of the Treasury Department’s bank investment program. The government also agreed to backstop losses on additional assets. The investment comes after Bank of America already received an initial $25 billion as part of the program.

Offshore wind farm clears one federal hurdle

2009-01-20T09:52:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - Plans for the nation's first offshore wind farm got a boost Friday when a federal agency rejected high-profile opponents' arguments that the giant turbines would damage the environment off Cape Cod.

A bitter fight over the proposed wind farm has lasted more than seven years. Its foes, including Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., argue the wind farm would kill birds and endanger sea life, and harm the scenic area's tourism and fishing industries.

But the new Minerals Management Service report said developer Cape Wind Associates' plans pose no major environmental problems.

The new Obama administration will decide the project's fate. President-elect Barack Obama, who wants to double alternative energy production over the next three years, visited an Ohio company that makes parts for wind turbines on Friday. He takes office Tuesday.

"We're handing off to the next administration," said Minerals Management Service director Randall Luthi. "It is up to them to decide."

Supporters say the project will provide cheaper energy, reduce pollution and create green jobs. Various federal and state agencies have been reviewing the proposal for 130 windmills across 25 miles of federal waters in Nantucket Sound since 2001.

Cape Wind has pitted two of the most powerful politicians in Massachusetts against each other. Both are strong Obama supporters.

Kennedy vs. Patrick
Kennedy, whose family's Hyannis Port compound would have a clear view of the farm, has tried to derail the project in Congress, citing risks to fishing, navigation, aviation and the sanctuary of Nantucket Sound. On Friday, Kennedy criticized the agency's report and said the fight wasn't over.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a close Obama ally who wants his state to be a leader in alternative energy, has been a strong Cape Wind backer.

The developers, who have estimated the project's cost at $1.2 billion, hope the wind farm will be operational by the end of 2011. They say it could provide up to 75 percent of Cape Cod's power demands.

The turbines would stand 440 feet above sea level when the tallest blades are pointing straight up.

The report's conclusions were welcomed by supporters who see the wind farm as a safe, clean way to create renewable energy and new jobs.

"Massachusetts is one major step closer to becoming home to America's first offshore wind farm and becoming a global leader in the production of offshore renewable energy," said project developer Jim Gordon.

Opponents vowed to continue their fight, accusing the government of overlooking environmental, safety and other problems as officials rushed to approve the project before the Bush administration departs.

FAA still reviewing
Noting the Federal Aviation Administration is still reviewing the project and that the Interior Department's inspector general is looking into how the Minerals Management Service handled Cape Wind, Kennedy said the project would face tough sledding.

"I do not believe that this action by the Interior Department will be sustained," Kennedy said in a statement. "By taking this action, the Interior Department has virtually assured years of continued public conflict and contentious litigation."

The Minerals Management Service must wait at least 30 days before issuing its final decision on the project. That order will include a decision on whether to issue a lease, Luthi said. Approval would set the stage for Cape Wind to seek a federal lease for the project to be located in federal waters.

High and Church Streets.

2009-01-19T22:40:00.002-05:00

Price of Gas Today

2009-01-19T17:33:00.001-05:00

I think the last time I saw gas so cheap was probably before I had kids.

Chillin Again

2009-01-17T13:20:00.000-05:00

Another cold one today here on the shore. Though it was about ten degrees wartmer today than yesterday. After this foray this morning, I quickly kicked it indoors where it's 72 all year long. Whew. Twenty One degrees as I type.

Hundreds pregnant again after China quake

2009-01-17T05:38:00.000-05:00

BEIJING - Thousands of Chinese parents lost their only children in last May's Sichuan earthquake, but now a few hundred families are expecting another baby, after receiving a special exemption to the country's strict population controls.

A total of 757 women who lost children in the May 12 earthquake are now pregnant, officials from the National Population and Family Planning Commission announced Friday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The exemptions to China's so-called "one-child policy" were aimed at offering some solace to grieving couples.

According to the Sichuan provincial population commission, more than 10,000 families lost children in the 7.9-magnitude quake, Xinhua reported.

Population officials said 5,724 mothers who lost children were given free reproductive services, including counseling, guidance, health exams, sterilization reversals and fertility treatments, Xinhua said.

Under the country's strict population policy, which has been in effect for more than three decades, most urban couples can have only one child. Rural couples are allowed to have two children if the first is a girl, in a nod to traditional preferences.

The policy does not specifically address whether, in general, a couple whose child dies can have another, but it allows provincial governments to pass exemptions to the one-child policy.

Policy exemptions
A report on the central government's Web site, citing provincial data, said that "more than 10,000 families with one or two children born under the family planning law lost children." Of those, more than 8,000 families were one-child families, the report said.

After the quake, the Sichuan provincial legislature passed a regulation stating that parents who lost an only child or whose children were disabled in the quake could have another. In addition, people who lost spouses in the quake and remarried can have another child, if the new couple has no more than two children from previous marriages.

The quake left nearly 70,000 dead and another 18,000 missing and presumed dead. Many of those who died were children who were crushed when their badly built classrooms collapsed.

The government has never said how many schoolchildren died in the quake but admits some 7,000 classrooms in the province were destroyed. The students' deaths have become a politically sensitive issue as their parents have staged protests, demanding investigations and accountability.

Road to rebuilding
As the province continues to grapple with the task of rebuilding schools, houses and infrastructure devastated in the quake, its economy is expected to grow by 9 percent, according to Xinhua. By comparison, experts have said China's overall growth may fall below 8 percent as the global economic crisis impacts the country's export industries.

Liu Jie, director of the provincial development and reform commission, said the central government would give Sichuan preference in policies and funds to help boost construction for communications and energy, according to Xinhua.

The province will rebuild by September all of the more than 1 million houses that were damaged in the quake, by offering subsidies, loans and technical guidance to farmers and ensuring supplies of construction material, the China Daily newspaper said.

The province will have invested 1.7 trillion yuan ($249 billion) by the end of 2010 on rebuilding and reconstruction, it said.

The Chill

2009-01-16T19:02:00.000-05:00

It is officially colder than a well diggers bit here on the shore tonight. Fourteen degrees as I am typing. I know it's a lot colder in a lot of places, but C-O-L-D spells kiss my ass I'm moving to Florida. I am not feelin this freeze
(Derek Trucks-Already Free)
I tell you who will be feeling it. That's the millions of folks over on the other side of the bay for the inaguration. Cold and cranky and crowded and cramped. A port o Potty nightmare. Check out some shots. It was a brilliant day today, crisp isn't even the word.

A Note About Content

2009-01-16T06:54:00.000-05:00

I just want to quickly comment on some of the content I’m going to be pushing through here. As music has long brought us all together, we know each other closely within that context. Now, I love the jams as much as the next guy, but it’s not the only thing going on in this head. Nah, it’s only a piece in the pie, albeit a large one.
So basically what you’re going to be seeing is just they way I am seeing it. I’m gonna throw out any news article I find either provoking or disturbing. With any luck both criteria will be contained in a single story. Also I’ll be posting up some photos I have laying around, plus a bit here and there about sports.
Music will not be entirely disavowed,however. Mainly what interests me now in writing about music is presenting, within the context of a review, a cross section of the albums I’ve been kickin it to for the past twenty or so years. Really if I can kick out one per week it will something of a small miracle. Plus, I want to try to throw a good theme paper in there every now and then, we’ll have to see how that goes. Maybe some American Idol from time to time, oh yeah.
At once, I thought to attempt to keep the warbling ramblings of my inner mind’s eye to a minimum. I righted myself quickly, though. How much fun would any of this be if I tried to do that? Not much.
So, that’s it. I just going to have to see if this goes…anywhere. I have my doubts, but then again I doubt everything. Happy reading, kids.

American painter Andrew Wyeth dies at 91

2009-01-16T05:49:00.000-05:00

PHILADELPHIA - Artist Andrew Wyeth, who portrayed the hidden melancholy of the people and landscapes of Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine in works such as “Christina’s World,” died early Friday. He was 91.

Wyeth died in his sleep at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Chadds Ford, according to Hillary Holland, a spokeswoman for the Brandywine River Museum.

The son of famed painter and book illustrator N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth gained wealth, acclaim and tremendous popularity. But he chafed under criticism from some experts who regarded him as a facile realist, not an artist but merely an illustrator
A Wyeth retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2006 drew more than 175,000 visitors in 15½ weeks, the highest-ever attendance at the museum for a living artist. The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, a converted 19th-century grist mill, includes hundreds of works by three generations of Wyeths.

It was in Maine that Wyeth found the subject for “Christina’s World,” his best-known painting. And it was in Pennsylvania that he met Helga Testorf, a neighbor in his native Chadds Ford who became the subject of the intimate portraits that brought him millions of dollars and a wave of public attention in 1986.

The “Helga” paintings, many of them full-figure nudes, came with a whiff of scandal: Wyeth said he had not even told his wife, Betsy, about the more than 200 paintings and sketches until he had completed them in 1985.

Wyeth’s world was as limited in scale, and as rich in associations, as “Christina’s World,” which shows a disabled woman looking up a grassy rise toward her farm home, her face tantalizingly unseen.

“Really, I think one’s art goes only as far and as deep as your love goes,” Wyeth said in a Life magazine interview in 1965.

“I don’t paint these hills around Chadds Ford because they’re better than the hills somewhere else. It’s that I was born here, lived here — things have a meaning for me.”

Paradoxically, he said, he loved Maine “in spite of its scenery. There’s a lot of cornball in that state you have to go through — boats at docks, old fishermen, and shacks with swayback roofs. I hate all that.”

Wyeth was a secretive man who spent hours tramping the countryside alone. He painted many portraits, working several times with favorite subjects, but said he disliked having someone else watching him paint.

Much of Wyeth’s work had a melancholy feel — aging people and brown, dead plants — but he chose to describe his work as “thoughtful.”

“I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future — the timelessness of the rocks and the hills — all the people who have existed there,” he once said. “I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape — the loneliness of it — the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.

Wyeth remained active in his 90s, but his granddaughter, Victoria Wyeth, told The Associated Press in 2008 that he no longer gave interviews. “He says, ‘Vic, everything I have to say is on the walls,”’ she said.

Wyeth was born July 12, 1917, in Chadds Ford, the youngest of N.C. Wyeth’s five children. One of his sisters, Henriette, who died in 1997, also became an artist of some note, and one of his two sons, Jamie, became a noted painter in his own right. His other son, Nicholas, became an art dealer.

N.C. Wyeth, the only art teacher Wyeth ever had, didn’t always agree with his son’s taste.

In a 1986 interview with the AP, Wyeth recalled one of the last paintings he showed to his father, who died in 1945. It was a picture of a young friend walking across a barren field.

“He said, ‘Andy, that has a nice feel, of a crisp fall morning in New England.’ He said, ‘You’ve got to do something to make this thing appeal. If you put a dog in it, or maybe have a gun in his hand,”’ Wyeth recalled.

“Invariably my father talked about my lack of color.”

The low-key colors of Wyeth’s work stem partly from his frequent use of tempera, a technique he began using in 1942. Unlike the oil paint used by most artists today, tempera produces a matte effect.

Wyeth had his first success at age 20, with an exhibition of Maine landscapes at a gallery in New York. Two years later he met his future wife, Betsy James.

Betsy Wyeth was a strong influence on her husband’s career, serving as his business agent, keeping the world at bay and guiding his career choices.

It was Betsy who introduced Wyeth to Christina Olson. Wyeth befriended the disabled elderly woman and her brother, and practically moved in with them for a series of studies of the house, its environs and its occupants.

The acme of that series was “Christina’s World,” painted in 1948. It was Olson’s house, but the figure was Betsy Wyeth.

Another well-known Wyeth series was made at the home of Karl Kuerner, whose Pennsylvania farm bordered the spot where Wyeth’s father was killed in a car-train accident.

Before his father died, Wyeth once said, “I was just a clever watercolorist — lots of swish and swash. ... (Afterward), for the first time in my life I was painting with a real reason to do it.” The Kuerner paintings often have an undertone of menace, a heavy ceiling hook or the jagged edge of a log outside a sun-warmed room.

It was at Kuerner’s farm that Wyeth met Testorf, a German emigre who cleaned and cooked for Kuerner.

“I could not get out of my mind the image of this Prussian face with its broad jaw, wide-set eyes, blond hair,” Wyeth said.

Wyeth painted Testorf from 1970 to 1985, but said didn’t show his wife any of the pictures until 1981. In 1985, he revealed the full series to her, and declared he wanted them sold. The buyer, Leonard Andrews, reportedly paid $6 million to $10 million for them.

The Helga paintings created a sensation when their existence was revealed in 1986, in part because many were nudes and because of Betsy Wyeth’s provocative answer when asked what the works were about. “Love,” she said.

“He’s a very secret person. He doesn’t pry in my life and I don’t pry in his. And it’s worth it,” she said.

After 1985, Wyeth painted Testorf at least three more times.

The exhibition of the Helga paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington drew tens of thousands, but it renewed the dispute between Wyeth’s admirers and his equally passionate detractors.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York pointedly refused to accept the exhibition. And it turned out that the original stories about the collection overstated things, since some of the Helga paintings had been exhibited earlier and Betsy Wyeth had been aware of some of them.

Andrews sold the Helga collection in 1990 to a Japanese industrialist for some “40 to 50 million dollars,” dealer Warren Adelson said in 2006, when he was handling the private sale of some 200 of the works. Adelson didn’t identify the industrialist.

“When people want to bring sex into these images, OK, let ’em,” Wyeth was quoted in the catalog to an exhibition Adelson organized. “The heart of the Helga series is that I was trying to unlock my emotions in capturing her essence, in getting her humanity down.”

Some critics dismissed Wyeth’s art as that of a mere “regionalist.” Art critic Hilton Kramer was even more direct, once saying, “In my opinion, he can’t paint.”

The late J. Carter Brown, who was for many years director of the National Gallery, called such talk “a knee-jerk reaction among intellectuals in this country that if it’s popular, it can’t be good.”

“I think the man’s mastery of a variety of techniques is dazzling, and I think the content is in many cases moving,” Brown said.

test

2009-01-07T16:35:00.000-05:00

radda radda radda radda

Daily

2009-01-07T14:49:00.004-05:00

The weather sucks today, well for most people probably. Being the weather dork that I am, I’m kind of digging it. Although if it’s going to be this cold at least it could snow. It’s been 35 and raining for about three days now. It’s dark when I go to work and it’s dark when I go home, I know some of you can relate. Kind of odd not to be on speaking terms with the sun. If I were really a dork I could pretend that I’m a vampire. Hahaha.
(Chuck Berry- Chess Box)
I’m driving to DC in a few hours to pick up my wife from the train station. It’s a scary place over on the other side of the bridge. We’ve been living here for about two years now. It’s the smallest town we’ve lived in in about fifteen years. We left WV to get away from the nothingness, yet here we are, right in the middle of damn nowhere. It ain’t summertime, but the living is certainly quite easy. If you’re into farming, that is. I will say in the summer, there’s an abundance of fresh produce everywhere, beans, tomatoes, melons, squash, cucumbers, just about anything you can think of and I’ve seen lots of things I had never even heard of. I don’t go anywhere near the produce section in the store from about May to October.
Seafood is great here, too. I’m a big fan of seafood, so I’m kind of in food heaven living here. So it’s no wonder I have become a card carrying fat person here in the past two years. Seriously, I could go on biggest loser. Wow, then that Jillian chick could abuse me. Sweet. Anyway… We’re right in the middle of Chesapeake country, so blue crab is king. The bay has been over fished almost to death, so commercial fishing as a way of life here is on the way out, but it still forms the base of the local economy here, and the quality is awesome. I can’t think of much better than fresh steamed whole Blue Crab on a hot summers day. Crab steamed with some potatoes, fresh corn, with a nice light lager…. oh man, good times, good times.
So it’s all about give and take. Like I said, if you just have to have yourself some civilization, you can be in Baltimore, or DC in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Yeah, just right over the Bay Bridge. The fifty year old, rusted out, gaps in pavement, open seams in the metal Bay Bridge. Yeah, I don’t need any civilization that bad. I only go over when I have to, like today. The kid digs it, though. He likes to watch the freight ships in the bay; he’s too young to be scared of much of anything, wish I was.
Other than that, not much to report. I missed yesterday due to consolidation/integration of my social outlets (Multiply, Lastfm, Twitter, NOT the Mog) into one space, the blogger page I’ve had now for almost five years. The blogger page, which has been sitting dormant now for oh, about four and a half years. Um, yeah. I’ve just been biding my time; yeah that’s the ticket. Anyway, if you’re reading this from multiply, please come over and check out the home base for Metal on Sunday from time to time. I’ve kind of known you guys for a couple of years now, but it has been mostly from the sidelines, now, I’m jumping in with both feet, hopefully it will lead to better days and ways. That’s the plan anyway. Yeah, cause I’m just dumb enough to believe that just by pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, I can change my life and maybe a couple of other people’s as well. You kind of have to be dumb to think that, but then again, stranger things have happened.

1448

The Daily

2009-01-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

Recently...

2009-01-06T22:48:00.001-05:00

Recently I have been taking a cup of coffee later in the day, around nine P.M. or so, right about now. Its coffee left from the morning pot. You may not think it would be too tasty, but I think in these times waste not want not applies. We shouldn’t be taking anything for granted in these times. The coffee doesn’t really keep me awake, either. I still pass out reclined back in the computer chair with the jams thumping softly.
(CSNY- Déjà vu)
I came up in high school wanting really badly to be a hippie; but I was around twenty years too late. Don’t get it wrong, though my father went to Marshall so he didn’t have to go to Vietnam, neither one of my folks were exactly rabble rousers. I came about the freakisms on my own. It was really a lot more George Jones than George Harrison where I was, but it was OK.
In Winter 1994/95 I met someone who had been to Woodstock in 1969 and then again to the one in 1994, only a few month’s prior. He told me that the main difference between the two shows was the violence in the kids. He said that in 1969, everyone was so on edge about, I guess, everything, that you were waiting each moment for a riot to break out. There were so many different niche groups of people. That you were so suspicious of your neighbor, times were then, that you didn’t trust anyone. “It created an edgy paranoia,” he told me. So much for peace and love.
The coffee is quite good tonight, I dig the brief late day brain jolt you get when that caffeine kicks in. We’ve got Starbucks here at the house out the ying, but I’m eyeballin a pound of Dunkin Donuts coffee I got in my stocking. Stockings are good.
The river here in town is frozen over in the shallow spots. We haven’t had too much below freezing weather here. We’ve had as much 60-degree weather here as we have had 20 degree weather. It amazes how differently the weather is now compared to just twenty years ago. When I was a sophomore in high school, and it really sucks that it was twenty years ago, we missed almost the entire month of December for snow. Now I haven’t seen snow more than a flake or two in almost five winters. It barely gets even gets cold anymore. Doesn’t it ever make you wonder what we’re doing to our home?
Do You Know?
Do You Wonder?
What’s Goin On?
Down Under You?

I wonder what it will be like in 20 more. No, life is surely not what it once was. I am enduring lately a serious yearning for the times and places of my childhood when before I have had none. I left 14 years ago, but I woke up one day and there it was. But where did it come from, and when will it leave me? Such acute sadness there is some days, very little pleasure from the happy memories I own.
Mmm, chocolate and coffee now. I may be able to stay up late after all.

2154

A New Year

2009-01-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

A new year. I love January and all her cold winds. Even more I love forgetting the old year and kind of resetting myself. It never hurts my feelings to try and forget the old year. I’ve heard that what you are doing on New Years is what you find yourself doing the whole year. This year I stayed home, didn’t have a drop and was asleep by ten thirty. I suppose it means I’ll both be content and behave myself or I’ll be dead, either way they both sound quite similar.
(Listening to Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma)
January allows me to let go of all my musical predispositions and bad habits formed throughout the old year, although when that old year was new, I could assume they were the best of intentions. I like to delete all my play lists, reset my play counts and go in a completely different direction than I had been on December 31. I don’t like to hold on to things for too long. You start to take things for granted that way.
I have no resolutions, no proclamations of intent to better myself for the good of every man. No, I only have hopes for myself. Hopes I can find the strength just to. Hopes that through the course of the year, I can still have hopes. And, of course, to win the damn lottery already.
Also I think we are especially lucky here in America this year to hopefully begin moving in a more positive global direction with the impending inauguration of President Elect Obama. It will be interesting to see how the legacy of the leadership of the past eight years affects the leadership of the next fifty. It’s an exciting and frightening time we are living in.
I would also hope that the number of fat people reality shows on TLC continue to proliferate prodigiously in the coming year. But that’s just me. As I type I am totally stuffing my face with Triscuits and a Swiss n cheddar cheese log from Swiss Colony left over from last week. I was thinking if I could gain a hundred pounds, be a little person, or have eight or eighteen kids I could get my own reality show and get all my shit paid for too. Like I said, I have only hopes for 2009.
The weather here is lousy, though. It’s cold and the wind is steady coming in off the river at about 40 mph. Yesterday it was 60; I wish global warming would make up its mind. But it was nice to sit inside and crank the Rose Bowl up in HD this afternoon. Too bad the game was a clunker. I’m totally looking forward to Florida next month. I won’t miss the cold one damn bit, and you can’t make me.
I’m in to having fewer migraines this year, and also losing fewer family members. I am hoping for more rain and more free music. I’m a pirate of the first degree. Aaarrr! My son will begin kindergarten this fall. Yikes. That doesn’t make me feel old, being thirty five doesn’t make me feel old, hell I’m thankful if I make it to thirty six. No, getting up in the morning and barely being able to move makes me feel damn old. I can think of far fewer instances where I find myself feeling younger, and that makes me sad.

Theology Part Two: The Heathens Triumph

2008-04-20T01:17:00.002-04:00

And there will be no turning back.

Theology

2008-04-20T01:11:00.002-04:00

Ansgar the missionary preaches Christianity to the heathen Swedes. Etching by Hugo Hamilton, 1830

Out The Window Right Now..

2008-02-18T14:28:00.003-05:00

Global Warming, I mean seriously. It's 70 degrees here today on February the 18th. Wow, makes me wonder about Summer...

tuesday morning headache

2006-04-26T07:15:00.000-04:00

got a headache, again, or is it still? Going to cut grass, trim, and wonder where the grass went. yo.

monday in the AM once again...

2006-04-24T07:56:00.000-04:00

apparently the dog (abbey, pix forthcoming) was upset with us for leaving her at the kennel while we were on vacation last week. She left us a nice present to wake up to, (pix forthcoming, not) So life is back to normal, yay, going to work now, gotta go.

music

2006-04-23T22:13:00.000-04:00

Here's some of the music I listened to today:
Ryan Adams
Ravi Shankar
Fiona Apple
Death Cab for Cutie
Tool
Coheed and Cambria
Gary Numan
The Chemical Brothers
Drive by Truckers
Tetsu Inoue
Matisyahu
Santana
Steely Dan
Sufjan Stevens
Derek Trucks
Arcade Fire
Desert Sessions
DJ Cheb I Sabbah
Eagles of Death Metal
Bebel Gilberto (Samba Da Bencao. I can feel the sun pouring over me at 3 in the afternoon with a nice breeze while this plays, nice. Did I mention the naked women?)
Fantomas
The Killers
LCD Soundsystem
So I mean, I guess thats about it, for today. on the music listening front. I mean, i didnt have time to liatn to much else. Going to bed now, how skippy dang exciting. I hope I sleep well for a change, that would be nice. I hope my writing improves, too.

getting used to it

2006-04-23T20:13:00.000-04:00

Just so you know, this is going to be totally stream of concoiusness for me, so if you dont understand some of the things i say, its cool. Just keep reading, here in a week you wont be able to stop, I promise.

im back

2006-04-23T14:31:00.000-04:00

I'm back fools. So head for the hills, and hide your hoes. Tune in every day for site changes, new posts, general info, crazy music mixes (if possible) and lots of pix. I know, you're thinking "how low key" If only you knew how low. see yous later.

red sox

2004-10-27T23:11:00.000-04:00

the last of the ninth, three more outs.
i cant stand it. its eleven thirty one.