This story is from last year but it's as fresh and true as any ancient tale of Aesop. As a matter of fact, let's make it an actual fable. For the supremely filthy John Wagner substitute a giant ground sloth, since it also has thick, matted fur and stuns with its stench. The Luna family will be played by otters:
Best intentions are trashed by homeless manWhen George Luna and his Gilbert family invited John Wagner to live in their grandmother’s home for just $25 a month, they had all the best intentions.
Their dreams included Wagner getting off the hot streets where he’d lived more than a decade. And Wagner encouraged those ideals with plans to go to school and better himself.But just two months after he moved in, Wagner — a homeless man who gained attention after forming a makeshift home under a Gilbert tree — is back on the streets.
And the Lunas’ small home near downtown Mesa is being cleaned top to bottom. Dirt, blood and beer covered the place and forced Luna to throw away family possessions.
At least three other homeless men had to be evicted from the place, Luna said.
This week, Wagner was found living outside in south central Mesa, near the tree he once used for shelter.
He said his stay at the Luna house went awry after he invited a friend in need to join him in the home, and that friend invited five other homeless people who tore up the house.
“I was just trying to help out another guy who said he wanted to improve himself,” Wagner said.
More than $2,000 in equipment and belongings donated to help Wagner get work doing odd construction jobs is gone.Maggots two inches deep were discovered in the kitchen garbage can, Luna said, and trash, from bicycle parts to pieces of chimneys, littered the longtime family home. The entire place is being fumigated, he said.
“It’s a very costly mistake,” Luna said. “I wouldn’t do it again. I would really check out the person to see what it’s all about.”
Homeless advocates say they’re disappointed to see the potential happy ending turn sour. But it’s not an easy task to get someone who had been homeless so long off the streets, they said.
Homelessness itself is often a symptom of a bigger problem, said Kathy DiNolfi, program manager for La Mesita shelter in Mesa.
So before an individual can heal, that larger problem must be addressed.
“People are only ready to get off the street when they’re ready to get off the street,” she said. “They have to be ready and willing.”
Assisting a homeless shelter or organization such as La Mesita is one way to provide help to needy individuals, she said — instead of choosing one person to help. Another trend growing among those who want to help is purchasing gift cards to either support organizations or homeless people in the neighborhood, so they can buy their own food, she said.
David Seigler, chief development officer for Phoenix-based Central Arizona Shelter Services, said often it takes many tries for even the most trained staff to get someone off the street.
It can be heart-wrenching for staff who grow close to clients to see them come back time and again, he said, but each time they could be a step closer to success.
“You give somebody a dollar because our morality and compassion compels us to,” he said. But because about 35 percent of his clients are mentally ill and another 20 percent are addicted to drugs and alcohol when they arrive, “the chances of that dollar doing something to help that person are really pretty slim.”
That concern shouldn’t stop people from helping an individual, he added — but donating in a “smarter” way could be more effective.
Meanwhile, Wagner says he plans to move up north now to escape the summer heat if he can’t find another place to stay. He’s also is trying to locate his daughters, including one who lives in north Scottsdale, he said.
And the moral of the story is: handling a creature that excretes through its pores is bound to be a nasty job. You oughter leave it to the professionals.
No sad suppers of halal catfood for them; they've got Ameritrade:
This according to the latest Governor's Report:
Homicides also increased by 13 for a total of 55 last year. Crying, potty training and feeding were the most common triggers for the fatal abuse, most often committed by the boyfriend or husband of the child's mother, according to the draft.
I'd always heard that you have to be careful about the people you piss off because one day it might be the wrong one. I propose a campaign to impart that knowledge earlier, with a particular focus on hospital nurseries. Just keep hammering that message home, until babies get it through their soft, unfused skulls.
Some might think it would more productive to counsel women to get control of themselves and be careful about the men they're dragging through their kids' lives, but really, who are we to try to cramp anyone's style?
And any cracks about cats being better mothers are just out of line.
Man's very versatile best friend gets yet another new job:
Sgts. 1st Class Budge and Boe are headed to Iraq.Budge and Boe don't have last names: They're dogs. But they now are officially enlisted as the Army's first therapy dogs for soldiers in combat.
The two black Labrador retrievers will be stationed with the Army's combat stress units in Tikrit and Mosul. Their role? To help soldiers deal with the stress of fighting overseas.
There have been mascots for military units and ships before, but never before have dogs been brought to a war zone specifically to help guys get on an even keel. It's a wonderful use of canine TLC.
(Via Cindy in e-mail.)
An Arachnid-American in his home of an evening.
The web's about four feet across. You can see the reflections from the rain on it very nicely here.
I'm watching the Mitchell report live. It's good MLB's little problem is finally getting a thorough investigation and airing. It's ridiculous that lack of cooperation from the players' association and owners has caused things to come to this sorry state.
Tennis is my favorite sport to follow and they don't have this problem for the simple reason that they get tested during every tournament and a player who tests hot will get kicked off the tour for at least a year and have whatever titles or points he earned while using stripped. The environment for steroid abuse wasn't allowed to thrive. Baseball clubs, on the other hand, had this crap sitting in clubhouse fridges along with the coca colas.
Here are some young fellows who are earning their trinkets:
Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64.They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls."
Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.
Allie and Bethan -- who both declined to give their full names -- said they planned to spend a whole month touring Kenya's palm-fringed beaches. They would do well to avoid the country's tourism officials.
"It's not evil," said Jake Grieves-Cook, chairman of the Kenya Tourist Board, when asked about the practice of older rich women traveling for sex with young Kenyan men.
"But it's certainly something we frown upon."
The young men aren't paid cash, but instead things like nice clothes and fine meals. So I guess these women are a sort of peregrinating sugar mama. Equality at last. What a relief we've finally broken the old goat ceiling.
Lots of buzz about Ted Kennedy's upcoming memoir:
Bob Barnett, a Washington lawyer who represented Kennedy in the book auction, said he was "thrilled" with the deal for the book, which publishers expect will include details about Kennedy's personal life and his 45-year Senate career and the historic events he has witnessed."My sense is he's going to write his life as he lived it," Barnett said in an interview last night. "You will hear the [accounts] of these momentous events in the voice of the man who lived them."
I hope he includes old family recipes too. That one for waitress sandwich is supposed to be great.
Speaking of Ted, it looks like Washington University has too much research money:
Researchers at Washington University find a link between heavy drinking and high-risk sexual behavior.They said their study finds that alcohol dependence is associated with having a high number of sex partners.
Next study: is there a correlation between Chivas Regal dependence and greeting guests without your pants?
After a while you get so jaded to the affairs of the world -- been there, done that. That's why it sometimes takes something as startling as hearing "A Whiter Shade of Pale" played on the accordion to make everything seem all fresh and new again.
I love "Ragin' Cajun" Jo-El Sonnier (I've been through a couple of copies of his phenominal 1987 recording "Come On, Joe"), but he's needing to brush up on the lyrics on this particular tune.
He has great musicians in his band, as always, although I'd swear one of the violinists (seen towards the end of the song) is Saddam Hussein in a fedora.
Some truffles and champagne for all you connoisseurs of human folly out there:
Romina Deeken is a classic beauty – long and lithe, cascading blond hair, green eyes set in alabaster – not the type of woman who needs to solicit attention from men.But last year, the 24-year-old German reached out to a convicted killer on Texas' death row. Her motives were altruistic, she said, not romantic. In time, after more than 50 letters posted back and forth across the Atlantic, Ms. Deeken said, mutual feelings grew.
"I have a connection with him," she explained recently, shaking slightly, tears running down her cheek. "Everyone in life has a vision, has dreams, has fears, is searching for something. He is the person I can talk deeply with about these things."
Ms. Deeken's story is coffee shop talk in this small southeast Texas town, home of the maximum-security Polunsky Unit and death row.
Each month, dozens of travel-weary, love-struck European women arrive in Livingston for visits with condemned inmates, a pair of four-hour chats through Plexiglas. There is no touching.
Exactly why they come depends on who is asked. Experts say many of these women have been scarred by violence or sexual abuse, though that's not the case for any of the women interviewed for this story. Others say the women are motivated by compassion and a desire to nurture, or an attraction to the baddest of the bad boys.
Their relationships with the inmates typically begin when women join anti-death penalty groups like Amnesty International, or during Internet research. Pen-pal groups such as LostVault.com post free personal ads based on letters and pictures from death row inmates, like this one from Jose Noey Martinez:"The worst thing in life is loneliness and that's all I've had in my life so I'm hoping by me putting up this ad I can make some great friends out there in the free world. So if you like what you see, please write to me."
In 1995, Mr. Martinez was convicted of stabbing to death a 68-year-old woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter. He sexually assaulted the older woman, defiled the corpse of the child, and reportedly threatened the victims' family as he was led from the courtroom, saying, "It's not over yet."
Many people who live in Livingston say the European visitors are naive. Death penalty opponents counter that even the pathologically violent and vile deserve a dignified life.
Terri Ray, a woman with a quick wit and shoulder-length silver hair, works the desk at The Lake Livingston Inn, which is recommended by an anti-death penalty group in Switzerland. She books about 10 international reservations a month.
"They're so gullible, you just want to shake them and say, 'Are you women that stupid?' " she said, eyes wide behind horn-rimmed glasses. "Those guys over there are running a game. They've got 10 to 20 women at a time they're romancing."
Ms. Ray shares the prevailing opinion in this lakeside town that idealistic amateurs are being played by professional players.
"All those guys put down on their ads: 'I'm looking for a Christian woman for deep spiritual companionship,' " she said. "Please. What they're really looking for is a female who has nothing between her ears and deep pockets."
Ms. Deeken, who works for a media company in Germany, says she knows the deal – some death row inmates manipulate European women for sport, sexual stimulation and money – just like men on the outside.
The death penalty, Ms. Deeken said, is a barbaric punishment in a flawed U.S. justice system.
"Everybody has a right to fair trial, but he never had that," she said, referring to her pen pal. "The fact that he is black – well, there is a lot of discrimination. I know blacks are treated unfairly."
People change, and there is goodness inside those who have committed evil, she said.
Isolation, day after day
Life on Texas' death row is austere and isolating.
Condemned men spend 23 hours a day in a cell the size of a walk-in closet. Each day, they are allowed one hour alone for recreation, and a shower.
Map: Texas death rowInmates may own a small radio, but not a television, and there is no Internet access. Men communicate with the outside world by letter. Snack food – including coveted cups of Blue Bell ice cream – may be purchased from the prison commissary.
Often, that's where European women come in.
Marlin Nelson, who's been on death row 19 years, said money motivates many of the inmates.
"I think most of them have more than one woman," he said. "They do it to get whatever they can get, the money. It gets pretty lonely in here, and once you're with someone awhile, it gets boring."
He said the men also frequently persuade women to send semi-nude pictures in the mail. Pornography and au naturel photographs were banned several years ago, but the current rules allow snapshots in bathing suits and revealing underwear. Inmates on death row hang the pictures in their cells and trade them like baseball cards.
Mr. Nelson beat a man with a metal bar and stabbed him to death in 1987. He is married to an English woman who left her husband for Mr. Nelson about six years ago. Like all death row marriages, the ceremony was conducted by proxy.
He said that their relationship isn't physically consummated but that they enjoy "letter sex" and intellectual intimacy.
"Writing is real personal," he said. "You tell each other things you'd never tell God if he asked you."
Relationships that are both close and distant, Mr. Nelson said, are what many women need. There is intensity in a life-and-death romance, and passion and poetry – but little risk.
"You can have a boyfriend out there, so if you want sex, you can go have sex," he said. "But if you want a relationship where you can tell anybody anything, this is it."
In that way, he said, it's difficult to tell the players from the played. Both sides get what they need.
An endless flow
Christa Haber met her husband, Troy Kunkle, while he was on death row. He was executed in 2005.
Now she makes about $1,100 a month running a guest house near death row that caters to European visitors. The Blue Shelter is booked solid the last two weeks of most months.
One wall in the neat and modest home is decorated with nine pencil portraits of men on death row drawn by an inmate in Florida. Four of them have red letters in the corner, "EX" for executed.
Ms. Haber, a German who has lived in the U.S. since 1993, said many of her guests romanticize the men on death row.
"I think violence is very interesting," she said. "Most normal men are boring, but if you are in a relationship with a violent man, you have something to tell others and ... you are interesting, too."
Ms. Haber said her guests often mortgage their lives to travel thousands of miles to Livingston. Then they spend all day at the prison visiting their pen pals, and all night at her kitchen table writing letters to their convicts.
Once women driven initially by a philosophical opposition to the death penalty meet the condemned men, she said, nurturing instincts often take over.
They say things like, "This man has never known what love means. His parents did not love him and the teacher in the school did not love him," Ms. Haber said. "Nobody loved him his entire life, but I do, and I will show him what love is."
Even though some people see inmate relationships as an oddity, Lene Gabrielsen, a mother of three and a nursing student from Norway, says she knows many stories of long-standing love.
"There are a lot of women out there who start out as pen pals and get married and stay married for years and years and years," said Ms. Gabrielsen, who corresponds with two condemned inmates. "I think that's great. If they're happy, why not, because there's so much hate in the world."
There is no way to track the number of Texas death row inmates who marry each year, or how many wed Europeans, but death penalty opponents estimate the former figure at between 10 and 20.
Hybristophilia is the clinical term for women who are attracted to notorious criminals.
A mother and daughter married two of the infamous Texas Seven, who broke out of a South Texas maximum-security prison in 2000.
Two women called San Quentin in California the day Scott Peterson arrived in 1995. They told the staff they intended to marry the man convicted of killing his wife and unborn child.
Doreen Lioy, a freelance writer, married Richard Ramirez, the serial killer who raped and mutilated his way across California in the mid-1980s. In a television documentary, the college-educated woman described the man known as the Night Stalker as "sweet and funny."
Troubled pasts
Sheila Isenberg interviewed three dozen women in relationships with murderers for her 1991 book Women Who Love Men Who Kill. She is working on a sequel that will focus on the allure for European women and Internet-inspired pen pals.
While not scientific, her research suggests the women have common experiences.
"I found they all had been damaged in their earlier lives or in their earlier relationships," she said from her home in upstate New York. "Many of them had abusive parents, generally fathers, who beat the crap out of them or sexually abused them."
Lon Glenn, a warden for the last 10 of his 30 years working for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said women of all nationalities, including guards and other prison staff, often fall for inmates.
"I've seen a thirty-something married registered nurse with two kids leave her husband and kids for a three-time-loser convict doing a life sentence," he said in an e-mail. "I've seen a prison school teacher, caught having sex on her desk with a convict, request to be placed on his visiting list as she's being fired. I've lost count of the number of female 'officers' caught in romantic encounters with convicts, some veterans of many years."
Rick Halperin, a board member of Amnesty International USA, offered no excuses for state employees who have affairs with inmates. But he said it's important to remember that most European women initially are motivated by compassion, not lust.
"I do not believe the majority of these women are thrill-seekers who are hoping to marry death row inmates," said the Southern Methodist University history professor. "I think they write as a way to try to reaffirm the basic humanity of these condemned prisoners."
Europeans, he said, are steeped and educated in human rights.
"It's easy to scoff at these women when you live in this country," he said. "But this is a real difficult thing they're doing, and it's very human."
Oh, these ladies are so high-minded. Not the least bit like their American sisters who do the very same thing. I bet that when lifers are swapping around the see-through undie pics of their female correspondents, they can tell instantly which ones were posed for human rights.
The photos used to illustrate the simplicity of this home forensics tool only introduce a new mystery: what the heck piece of clothing did that stuff get on and how would it have gotten there?
Where's the rule that says a surprise has to be good?
A Mundy Township [Michigan] man who invited an exotic dancer to close her eyes so he could give her a Sweetest Day surprise, but instead beat her with a hammer, was sentenced Tuesday to a minimum of 5 1/2 years in prison.
It was a surprisingly generous surprise:
At an earlier hearing, the victim said she received more than 30 blows to her head and arm in the attack, and that it required 25 staples in her head and 50 stitches on her face and arm, including having her left ear reattached.When she got into Schmidt's car that night at the apartment complex off Maple Road where he lived, Schmidt wore gloves and had covered the interior of his car and its windows with towels and sheets, leading authorities to believe he had planned to beat his victim, if not kill her.
He told her the inside of his car had gotten wet. At one point while she was in the car, he leaned over to kiss her and told her to close her eyes in preparation for her Sweetest Day gift.
It's lucky for her he had such a weenie arm.
Schmidt gave the court no explanation for the attack.
Another snap from what I call the 1970 Piedmont Park Motor Oil concert.
STP was good for freebies back then; I know we had a sticker.
Wail on, Skydog!
UPDATE:
A terrific link from YO. Click the video when you get there.
There's so many different things I like about this ad about a bully's comeuppance. The popped ball is a nice touch:
Also: Mr. Cracker gets creative with a stop-motion hoedown.
UPDATE:
Updated to add that the wonderful music in the clip is fiddler G.B. Grayson's 1927 recording of "Omie Wise."
Where was this in the 70's? Some of that era's super-stoned out-of-tune stage acts could have used it. Hopefully they'll take it a step further and bring us player-guitars like there are player-pianos. It would make air guitar that much more magical:
Musicians of the world are getting a new kind of artistic freedom with technology that eliminates the challenging chore of tuning.Robotics technology developed by German company Tronical Gmbh in partnership with Gibson Guitar Corp. enables Gibson's newest Les Paul model to tune itself in about two seconds.
For users who purchase the add-on technology, the guitar recognizes pitch. Then, its processor directs motors on its six tuning pegs to tighten or loosen the strings accordingly. Tronical has offered its "Powertune System" online and through retailers in Germany since March, according to the company's Web site.
The Gibson Les Paul guitar model with Blue Silverburst finish goes on sale globally Dec. 7.
Nashville, Tenn., guitar maker Gibson and Tronical said Powertune is the world's first self-tuning technology, and Gibson says it is particularly useful for beginners, who tend to find tuning a headache.
Musician Ichiro Tanaka, who tuned and played a sample guitar at Gibson's Tokyo office Monday, said the technology is handy for professionals too. If they use special tuning for just part of a concert, as he often does, it means they don't have to lug around an extra guitar with the second tuning ready.
"It's more than just convenience," said Tanaka, of Japan. "It's a feature I really appreciate."
The Les Paul Silverburst model is to cost about $2,780 in Japan and $2,499 in the U.S., with self-tuning offered for $900 extra.
Powertune is also listed online for 899 euros, about $600, and Tronical says it can be installed on many different models of electric guitars without leaving a mark.
Gibson guitars with the technology come preset with six types of tuning to play different kinds of music. They also can remember a player's additional original tuning styles, by listening with a microphone to the sounds of the strings.
To set the instrument to a particular tuning, the user pulls a knob, turns it to the desired style, indicated with a blue light, and then pushes the knob back in. An electric signal travels up the strings to the motors on the tuning pegs. The system is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
Gibson hopes to sell 4,000 of the first limited-edition "robot guitars" worldwide, with 10 percent of those sales expected in Japan, said Yasuhiko Iwanade, president of Gibson Guitar Corp. Japan.
"Robots are very popular in Japan. So this is something that matches the developments here these days. It's a technology that Japanese can understand," he said.
Gibson has a history of innovating with guitars that fits well with robotics technology, Iwanade said.
Sid Vicious could have used a bass like this.
