http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1725298,00.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/03/25/severe.flooding.ap/index.html

There’s a tiny town in Arkansas called Des Arc. It sits on the Des Arc Bayou (Cajun-speak for river) which is an offshoot on the White River. It’s one of those tiny, rural, poor cities that you can find all over the state.

Before I was born, my grandparents bought a small mobile home and rented a lot in an RV park in Des Arc for something like $7 a month. The White River, as any good ole Arkansas boy knows, has some excellent fishing; Des Arc Bayou offers good fishing and access to the larger river. The RV park had a boat ramp, not the kind you find at a marina, just the simple kind that’s nice for old metal fishing boats. When I was about 9, my grandfather let me drive the boat. I almost ran it aground. I was never given another chance to captain after that.

Near the boat ramp was a primitive little building where boaters could clean fish and such. My grandfather made me watch once, to toughen me up. I fainted. He caught so much shit from my mom and grandmother over that.

My grandfather was deathly afraid of snakes. They’ve never bothered me that much, but I admit that there’s something eerie about seeing a snake swimming on top of the water.

Even though the lot was rented, after years and years go by, I guess you feel like you own the place. My grandparents added on to the mobile home, giving it a large room that had a living room with a fold-out couch and a queen sized bed. Counting the original bedroom and the bunk beds, the place could sleep 10: 6 adults and 4 kids. It was certainly ’rustic’ but a lot of fun in the summer time. And it taught me at a young age about how much Cajun influence is in Arkansas history.

I was the only girl of the grandkids, but I tried my best to be one of the boys. The owner of the RV park, now long deceased, was named Steve. He reminded me of Fidel Castro, he always wore a military cap, army pants, shirt and jacket, even when the temperature was well over 100, and always had a cigar in his mouth. He was rather filthy even when the temperature wasn’t so miserable, but he always wanted to hug me when he saw me. Even when I little I realized that as unpleasant as it was for me, it made my mom cringe worse.

The RV park was the kind of filthy place all mothers hate and kids can’t help but want to explore. There were always a few dozen stray cats roaming about. There was a fire pit behind the trailer where my grandparents burned their trash. It wasn’t like the city, there wasn’t any trash service or dumpsters, so you had to leave with whatever trash you brought, like a campground, or burn it. I could watch the trash burns for hours, it always fascinated me (as fire seems to fascinate all kids). It is amazing what will burn if you leave it in a hot enough fire long enough. Up until his health failed, my grandfather would burn his trash at home in Sherwood, even though they had trash service and it was probably illegal. I’m sure there are chemicals released into the atmosphere that could kill us all, but there was always something satisfying about burning up your trash, not leaving any waste behind.

My grandfather taught all the grandkids to shoot a BB gun at the RV park, even me, although I think my mother and grandmother objected to ’the girl’ shooting. Studying the damage done to a tin can gave you a sense of appreciation that even a BB could be fairly dangerous. I never had enough upper body strength when I was young to pump up the gun much, I always had to have one of the older boys do it for me.

I remember many summers spent watching the Miss America Pageant or The Wizard of Oz on the old black and white TV there. We played cards and checkers a lot. At night it was quite enough to scare any city kid senseless.

My grandparents built a screened-in porch onto the front of the trailer. When my grandfather wanted something, he figured out how to build it. He wasn’t trained in building; he worked on the railroad his whole life. But it never stopped him from planning out how to build what he wanted. He would’ve never thought of hiring someone else to do it. They had a very nice screened-in patio on their back porch in Sherwood. He could’ve easily gone into business making those for people.

The screened in porch had space for stowing all the fishing gear, and a camper’s table and stove for cooking catfish. I’ve always loved catfish, even if they are some dirty little fish. The old folks always thought to cook stuff outside that smelled much, so you didn’t have to live with it in the house. Of course, cooking smelly things has a way of attracting all kinds of animals. I never recall seeing anything bigger than a raccoon or possum, but I always knew there were bigger critters roaming about at night.

As I grew up, the place lost some of its charm. I would be bored there in the summers. There was no place to get fast food, no WalMart nearby (although my grandmother knew the nearest ones in any given direction and the driving time). The bunk beds were eventually off limits because they were unsteady, and the mattresses housed who knows how many spiders and mice. The fold-out couch became nest to more than a few mice as well. Steve passed away, and the new owner wanted my grandfather to sign a lease and pay a fair market value. My grandfather told him to go to hell. For years he refused to pay more than the original agreed upon price, and the owner struggled with what to do about him. Finally my grandfather just decided to give the place up, after my grandmother had passed away and he was no longer capable of maintaining it. I went with him on his last trip out there, got the old dishes, the ashtray that looked like a stripper, the card games and the art from the walls. One huge sofa-sized painting was from JC Penny’s, and the price sticker on the back read $5.47 or something like that, back in the day when prices didn’t all end with 9s. There were two smaller paintings that had frames made out of molded plaster – I’ve never seen anything like them anywhere else. They were also from Penny’s I think. One of the frames had the beginnings of a dirt dobber nest attached (a.k.a. mud dauber, a wasp that makes its nest from mud). The other plaster frame was so old that the corner crumbled immediately when I took it off the wall.

I remember when I was really little, maybe 1^st or 2^nd grade (maybe 30 years ago, 1978 or so?) the Bayou flooded. Old folks knew how to handle rising rivers; rivers have risen since the beginning of time. They went out to the trailer and somehow used ropes to suspend the furniture off the ground – everything up off the floor. The water did get up into the trailer that year, but it didn’t damage any of the furnishings. I’ve tried for years to visualize it and calculate how high the water had to be; it must’ve been about 15 feet higher than the usual Bayou level. Hard to imagine.

The old folks didn’t call FEMA, they just went back after the water receded and cleaned up. The next time I was at the trailer it looked like it always had. Hard to imagine the amount of work required to clean up after a full-fledged flood, after several feet of river water have been in the house. But they didn’t condemn houses back in the day. I realize now that surely there had to be black mold and who knows what else growing in the walls, but I have always been impressed at the level of commitment the old timers had, the ability to just clean up and move on instead of throwing in the towel.

That same year, there was a flash flood in my neighborhood. Within a few hours, flood waters were starting to seep in the front door of the elementary school, and the normal walkway was covered by more than a foot of water. My parents were working and my grandfather picked us up from school. He had to carry me to the car. That school burned down years ago, and they built a new one that looked like a prison, but I had to admit that at least they made the front entrance less susceptible to flooding.

From all the news stories I’ve seen, the Bayou has to be at about the same levels it was back then. There are pictures I’ve seen of a flagpole with only the top few feet visible. Countless have lost their homes and maybe everything they own. Too many people still don’t know that their homeowners policy doesn’t cover flooding, or they don’t realize it could happen.

The Ninja and I live on a hill, and he asked about flooding once and we walked outside and I pointed out which houses would have to be completely underwater before the water would reach our front door.

As far as I know, the RV park owner left the little trailer alone, basically let the elements and the critters take it over these past several years. No one will be there to clean it up when the water recedes. I assume they’ll tear it down once the water levels return to normal.

It’s a little sad to think the trailer’s days have finally come to end. It saw a lot of happiness over the years. It’s sad to think that most people, myself included, would have no idea of even where to start to get their furnishings suspended off the ground once a flood was imminent. We’ve lost a lot of that over the years, the determination to get in there and figure things out for ourselves, build what we want, rely on ourselves instead of contractors and government agencies. It’s a very different world than the one the little trailer was born into. Not better or worse, just different.

The flood of 1927 saw 7 inches of rain fall in Pulaski County in just a few hours, and devastated the state:

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2202

The September 1927 National Geographic said that the streets of Arkansas City (Desha County) were dry and dusty at noon, but by 2:00 p.m., "mules were drowning on Main Street faster than people could unhitch them from wagons." Water poured in and had nowhere to go. Homes and stores stood for months in six to thirty feet of murky water.

The Red Cross had segregated tent cities for flood refugees.

Mortgage foreclosures rose 71% from last year:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/06/real_estate/defaults_continue_climb/index.htm?postversion=2008030614

The average American now owes more on his home than he has in equity, for the first time since 1945 (for a $100,000 mortgage, the owner owes more than $50,000 and has less than $50,000 in equity). People owe more than the house is worth in some cases because they refinanced for an amount greater than the house appraised at, to 'pay off' credit cards (which often didn't get paid off):

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/06/real_estate/home_equity.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008030612

Credit card companies are bracing for a record number of defaults.

CNN reports today that job loss for February was the worst in 5 years. The unemployment rate doesn't look bad, but it's because fewer people are employed (I'm not entirely sure I now know how the unemployment rate is calculated):

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/07/news/economy/jobs_february/index.htm?cnn=yes

I saw a news story on some of the less expected side effects of the financial crunch people are finding themselves in. As insurance deductibles become higher and HSAs become more common, people are less likely to get certain tests, like the prostate exam and mammograms. People who have insurance aren't able to afford 'routine' tests.

We were once the shining example of health care to the world. We had revolutionary procedures for detecting cancer early, providing for early treatment and a greater chance that the cancer could be caught and doctors could prevent the spreading of the cancer. And now…

People are forgoing recommended follow-up visits after surgeries, again because they can't afford the expense.

I saw on 60 Minutes that Remote Area Medical, a group founded to bring doctors and health care to impoverished countries is now having to help uninsured and underinsured Americans:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/28/60minutes/main3889496.shtml

(if you only read one link, read this whole story, it is really eye-opening)

How the mighty have fallen. We were the wealthiest country in the world, and we have tried to help people in other countries, and now the greatest need is here. These people (whole sought care in the 60 Minutes story) aren't by definition 'poor': they have jobs, they work, they pay for rent, utilities, they aren't receiving any Federal or State aid. They just can't afford to go to the doctor because they don't have the disposable income to even meet $500 deductibles (sheeesh, mine is $2,500). They can't afford glasses. They can't afford to have infected teeth pulled. They can't afford 'routine' screenings.

These are working people, proud people who haven't gone looking for a handout. They've done without rather than go to the emergency room and then not pay the hospital. The impact that ripples through our society from this is astounding: people who don't get routine care are more likely to have sever health issues later, which they won't be able to pay for, which will have to come out of some government program; there will be more people who are unable to work because medical problems have become severe, and the government will support them; more people get sick and miss work, hurting their company's bottom line and the economy because people can't afford to go to the doctor when they begin to get sick, then can't afford to miss work so they go to work and make others sick…

I remember years ago, when I first got good insurance through work, many of the older guys (my industry is just primarily male) were proud to say they had never taken a sick day. Fewer and fewer people can say that now. Fewer people can stay that healthy.

In Congress, the House Committee on Government and Oversight reform has met twice in the last 3 months to examine how, as mortgage lenders reported record losses, their top executives were making so much money:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/07/news/newsmakers/ceo_pay/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/06/news/exec_comp/index.htm

I have mixed feelings on this…I think in general the free market works with minimal interference from government, but apparently we still have an Enron-like situation where executives can accept huge raised as their companies fail.

Banks are borrowing money from the government so they can continue to lend money:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/06/news/exec_comp/index.htm

Banks aren't getting their money back on loans because of the financial crunch and record number of foreclosures, and the government believes the answer is…to lend people more money?

I took economics for several semesters, but it's been years ago. I think I still have the books around here somewhere. Which is good, because I just don't understand this. I understand that the government wants to keep people spending so that the economy doesn't collapse, but when those people are spending themselves into greater debt and are likely to default on that debt later, how can that be good? People are still spending on credit, hoping that their salary will increase in the near future, hoping their personal situation gets better…but spending on hopes that aren't really founded on any hard information doesn't seem like sound financial planning.

Personal bankruptcies are the highest they've been since 2005:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/04/pf/personal_bankruptcy.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008030417

In 2005, Congress enacted tougher standards for bankruptcy, to reduce the number of filings. Which apparently lasted a little over 2 years. I don't think that was the plan.

Student loans are feeling the credit crunch:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/business/28loans.html

As some lenders suspend student loan programs, funding college is going to become harder and more expensive. Which may be a good thing. Already we have many people who are struggling to make their student loan payments. Quite simply, some people financed an education that hasn't led to the salary that can support paying the student loans: the education cost more than it has been worth so far. So maybe we do need to curb student loans to reassess why this is happening. Are we graduating  too many CPAs and attorneys, flooding the market? Lenders may need to begin to look at the program/degree before issuing loans, and stop lending so much to people wanting to enter fields that just can't pay that much. For instance, if somebody wants to take out $100,000 in student loans to study social work, can being a social worker pay enough to really pay off those student loans?

My mother and I were talking about the economy and she was saying how she wished I would hurry and get my MBA finished. I told her now is not the time to take on more debt, and I really don't have reason to believe that being more educated would open up a greater earning potential. I can't say that getting my MBA would be worth it financially right now, so I can't afford to take on the debt.

MSN reports that middle class earners may never have enough to retire, if things don't change:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/HomeMortgageSavings/RetirementFuggedaboudit.aspx?GT1=33002

Current financial problems are compounding the fear that as baby boomers retire, Social Security will fail:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/RetirementCrisisFromBadToWorse.aspx

Simply put, the boomers were the first generation that (on a widespread basis) put retirement money primarily into speculative investments (which then tanked) instead of plain old savings and safer investments. In the pursuit of retiring rich, they have jeopardized their retirements and possibly put the burden onto younger generations. Generations which are already having to raid their 401k to finance the current cost of living:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/InvestForRetirement/WorkersStepUpRaidsOn401ks.aspx

The CNN Politics homepage, while highlighting the CEO scandal, doesn't reflect that Americans say their top concern is the economy right now:
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/

Instead it has to waste a silly amount of space explaining the archaic system we have to determine each party's nomination for president. It must sound like such a silly bureaucracy to foreigners. I have to admit I feel a little ripped off by my grade school for teaching that nonsense about how anyone can be president and each person's vote counts the same and the people elect the president…gross oversimplification.

What CNN Politics is missing is more debate on how to fix this economic mess we're in. I know personally when I hear the candidates talking, it seems to be about the war, and Income Tax is a distant second. And both of those ARE important issues, but it seems they are ALL giving the economy a lower place than polls say it matters to Americans. I have no confidence right now that any of them can fix this.

Or maybe I'm just grumpy and agitated because the weatherman said we'd get 5 – 10 inches of snow, and all we've had is a dusting…

AND the black belt testing for tonight has been cancelled, so I have to wait a bit longer to go for my first degree...

It snowed, a tiny tiny tiny bit. But I'm still thankful for it.

I have a picture on my desk at home of the Ninja in the snow...he was 3 years old. Of course he doesn't remember it. He's seen flurries come down since then, but literally not enough for a snowball.

So I was pretty thrilled this morning when I finally realized it was snowing outside.

His school was in session. That's just not right, so I kept him home and we had a snowball fight and cocoa afterwards, because that's what Norman Rockwell would've done.

It was very nice.

He had a good day yesterday at school and at ATA class.

I worked out twice yesterday, getting ready for my black  belt testing Friday night. I feel fairly confident. I know my form, I'm just trying to perfect every move, land my stances precisely.

The only thing I have been a tad worried about is one of the board breaks I have to do: jump side-kick. I worked with Master one day last week on it for what seemed like hours (but was probably closer to 15 minutes), and managed to kick both his hands (repeatedly), almost kick him in the face, and finally break the board the first time after about 20 tries. Master is patient. And apparently has been kicked in the hands much harder than I did.

I've tried to practice a lot, but other things have been competing for my attention lately. I asked Sir last night, toward the end of my class, if I could try one board break at the end of class.

And I broke it on the first try.

Confetti and balloons might as well have fallen from the ceiling. I was stoked.

I think I have 3 tries to break it at testing, and if I can't in 3 tries, I would have to test again in 7 weeks. But I definitely got a shot of confidence from last night.

I mentioned it to Ninja on the way home. In a very grown up voice, he said, 'I'm happy for you.'

My mother considers me her best friend.

I love my mom a lot. I would do anything for her. But she isn't my best friend and she never will be.

The Ninja is my life, but he will never be my best friend.

I grew up where there weren't a lot of boundaries between kids and adults. Kids were told all kinds of things that weren't 'age appropriate'. And, call me a coward if you want, but I think there are certain things you never want to hear your mother say, certain topics you don't even want to approach.

I would never tell my mother certain topics are off limits, because I know she needs somebody to talk to, but I could go my whole life without ever knowing some things.

Best friends can have few boundaries. Parents and children may not have a lot of boundaries, but they're different boundaries.

In my case, there just aren't any.

My mom has been really sick, I suspect with the flu. She won't go to the doctor. She's a nurse, but she doesn't trust doctors. Or maybe I should say, she's a nurse, so she doesn't trust doctors.

We haven't heard anything more from Sibling. I know she's really upset about that. I'm really upset too. I know the fact that my grandfather's estate isn't settled is weighing heavily on her; it's been two years and her redneck brother is giving her all kinds of grief.

Those things are largely out of her control. And I know not having control drives her crazy.

Her husband is a different story. He has been neglecting his health to the point that it's interfering in his ability to work, and he's talking about retiring early.  There are retirement-income issues I don't fully understand, but basically he has asked her to sign away spousal rights if he should die: she wouldn't get anything. This has something to do with him being able to draw some money now. So he's basically willing to gamble he won't live long, won't need money saved for old age, and he'd rather have his money now than leave it for my mother.

She told me about this and I listened... I just can't imagine being married 23 years and somebody asking me to sign away my spousal rights. Hell, she's entitled to them!

I didn't offer advice, but I think she knows what it would be. I wouldn't tolerate this. The last I heard, she hadn't done anything about his request yet.

Because he has been irrational and paranoid for several years now, he's been sleeping with weapons (big knife, gun or both) under his pillow. He has weapons stashed around the house, like under furniture cushions, like he's some frikkin' drug dealer waiting to get broke-in on, or Vivica A. Fox in 'Kill Bill 1' with a gun in the cereal box. He made thinly veiled threats to my mom, he's tried to intimidate her.

I would be so gone.

I know sometimes we can't know what we'd do in somebody else's shoes, but I've been there and I can say, with evidence to back it up, I WOULD BE GONE.

If she was a girlfriend and not my mom, I would beg her to leave, I would call a friend's parents and arrange an intervention, I would do whatever I could to get her away from a guys who has a loose grasp on reality. But this is my mom, I can't tell my mom what to do. She's still my mom.

She's stayed with me at different times, sometimes for weeks, and she has left a few things here. A coffee pot (I can't stand the stuff). Cleaning solutions (mine apparently are sub-par).

And just recently I discovered, in a drawer in my spare room, that she'd taken pictures of the weapons under the pillow and stashed about, and left them here. Like she was leaving an evidence trail.

I just can't fathom... when you're thinking about having to leave evidence behind, it is way past time to think about leaving. It's over.

She's had problems with him not paying income tax and her getting in trouble over it. It's been one thing after another for a while now.

I can't tell her what to do. I know it stresses her out, but this is one area of her life where she HAS control. She can leave. She can file for divorce.

I consider myself slow to jump to conclusions. Years ago, I walked outside one morning to go to work, and my car wasn't in the driveway. I stood there and scratched my head and looked up an down the street for a few minutes, finally walked back inside and called the police, and said, um, my car is gone...I think somebody stole my car.

Other people may have immediately screamed, run inside, and called the cops. My brain just has to work through the possible implications, not just assume the most likely.

So my mother told me today (she's still sick) a story that I can't even bring myself to repeat here, but I can't come to any other conclusion than her husband has slept with somebody else. Don't know if it's an affair, a one-time thing.... but there is no getting around what the evidence shows. I haven't been able to come up with any other possible explanation.

She's dumfounded and doesn't know what to do.

I just can't understand it taking a lot of thought.

There are times when you have to wonder if God has sent you a message, and a follow-up message, and dropped a billboard in your front yard and left you a voicemail and a receipt to go pick up a registered letter, trying to get you to see something.

I HATE that it has been one thing after another for her. But she has to wake up and do something about it. Nobody can put you through hell unless you aren't willing to walk away. I just wish she saw it the way I do.

Stephanie wrote a blog not too long ago, Where did the sex go?, about couples who come to a point where one wants sex and the other isn't interested.

Some men (I did NOT say all; I give my blog readers more credit than that) don't get how emotional sex is for a woman. If a man tells his partner 'I want sex', he will probably get sneered at or worse. Because in woman speak, that (sometimes) means 'I want to get off and don't particularly care about anything else'. There is a world of difference between 'I want sex' and 'I want you' or 'I want to please you'.

Maybe some men see this as splitting hairs, women making a huge silly ruckus when it all means the same thing to them. But it doesn't mean the same thing to her.

Some psychologists estimate that 20% of married couples are having sex 10 times a year or less, their definition of a sexless marriage:

http://www.oprah.com/relationships/slide/20060210/rel_20060210_284_201.jhtml

Sure, there can be medical or physical reasons for some, but I have to wonder if the vast majority of those couples just aren't communicating.

Some men will readily say 'I want sex', but balk when a woman says, 'I want communication' or the dreaded 'I want to talk'. They even get surly or angry, claim that it isn't fair that the wife gets to demand her needs be met before his.

This perplexes me.

The double standard of a man who thinks it's perfectly ok to say 'me want sex' and expect his wife to drop to her knees, but thinks her asking to get her needs met is unfair, just seems inescapable to me…are there really people who don't see that?

Secondly, bitterness never got any man any action. Period. EVER. It just doesn't work. I can't say for certain guilt never got any man any action, but I strongly suspect it to be true.

This has always been so puzzling to me…the same guy wouldn't be pissed at having to blow the duck call to shoot some ducks, now would he?? So why is he pissed about this? Men are supposed to be hunters…learn to use the right bait.

Stephanie wrote a blog Sunday called Never Leave Her Wanting More, about how important it is that men understand women are wired differently, that they take a lot longer to 'get there' and if the guy doesn't make sure she gets there first, well, she most probably won't get there at all and won't be interested the next time. And really, guys, who could blame her?

CNN recently ran a story about sexual incompatibility in married couples:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/03/sexless.marriage/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

They make a point that few couples discuss their expectations for after the marriage. Some people feel 'it's inevitable that passion will fade and sex just becomes less important', and others feel 'I believe it's possible for two people to be madly, passionately in love their whole lives'.

Those are very different expectations. I think they hit on something by phrasing it like that, instead of couples asking each other before the wedding 'how often do you think is the 'right' number of times for a couple to have sex in a week/month/year?' That question defines not just a number but a time in space: one person may give a 'right' number for an engaged couple but have a different 'right' number for a newly married couple and another number for a couple married 3 years and so on, while the other person may think that first number applies to all times. Discussing expectations over time rather than 'the magic number' is a much more productive endeavor.

This is also why I think (in general) that it is better for a couple to have sex before marriage, preferably for a while. Years. After the newness wears off, does one person lose interest? Is one person content to have a basically sexless relationship? It's much better to find these things out before the engagement ring is bought and not after all the wedding presents have been used and can't be returned. Because people can fake a lot of things, but typically only for a limited time.

The CNN article mentioned how people often select a spouse thinking 'she'd be a good mother' or 'he'd be a good provider' and discount that they will have sexual needs the rest of their lives.

If you don't determine how sexually compatible you are with someone over time, before the vows, then I think you're asking for trouble. As articles point out, plenty of people have resigned themselves to the fact that their partner is happy in a sexless relationship. They want to stay married, but with the temptations out there, many will fail to stay true to their partner, a partner who may think they're both happy in a sexless relationship.

I think it can be easy to miss how many women are content without sex. There are a lot who have frankly never derived much pleasure out of it, may feel guilty that they haven't or guilty asking for what they want or maybe have just never been able to shake the belief that sex, all sex, is dirty.

Men, have you ever considered that you experienced your first orgasm with little or perhaps no effort, and in the history of the world no woman ever experienced her first orgasm in that manner? A man's first experimentations with sex are typically linked to pleasure, and that isn't always true for women. Some women never experience sex as pleasurable.

Because women are fundamentally wired different (in general; I accept there are no absolutes).

I have accepted that I am not cut out for online dating services.

Here's me:

=      Friends/acquaintances/coworkers know guy (guy has some sort of paper trail that tells something about who he is, background, if he's legitimately not in a relationship, etc.)

=      Meet guy

=      Talk to guy

=      Become semi-interested in guy

=      Gradually get to know guy in non-date setting

=      Decide definitely more-likely-than-not interested in guy

=      Talk with guy on phone, get to know him even better

=      Go on date with guy

=      Talk more with guy

=      Go on another date with guy

=      Decide very interested in guy

Elapsed time: possibly months

Here's online dating services:

=      Get 'wink' from guy

=      Email 'hi' to guy

=      Guy emails back what attracted him to profile

=      Exchange 3 – 4 emails

=      Guy asks for phone number

=      Guy calls and asks for date

=      Get 'wink' from other guys

=      Email 'hi' to other guys

=      Exchange 3 - 4 emails

Elapsed time: 15 minutes

There's lots of talking in my version, not so much in online dating services. With online dating services, you are seeing if you can get to know someone and are interested in a very short period of time, while also trying to get to know other people and decide if you're interested, who are all getting to know other people…

I'm not a 'phone' kind of girl. I don't like trying to get to know someone over the phone. I want to get to know someone and then actually have something to talk about on the phone.

I'm just not a fast mover. I'm not easy to get to know. I realize this. But until somebody invents a pill to fix that, it is what it is. Deal with it.

Before I go on a date, I want to know a guy sufficiently that I'm pretty confident there isn't rope and duct tape and a big knife in his car. 'Date' = spending time together alone. Date isn't meeting in a public place, with a friend secretly tailing you to watch your back, for a time-limited 'coffee date' until you can determine if it's safe to be around this man more than 45 minutes.

Before I go out with someone, I want it to already be a guy I really want to spend time with getting to know better.

My version eliminates a lot of the awkwardness of first date conversation: so, are you from here? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Any kids? What was your name again? Wait, are you 'hottie99' or 'wantu2nt'?

I realize my feelings on this subject greatly limit my dating pool to guys I work with, guys I take taekwondo with, and guys who happen to be in my living room. I wish it didn't limit my dating pool to that, but it does.

There's a book, maybe called 'The Plan', about how to get snag a guy and get engaged within a year or something silly like that. It recommends asking friends, your dentist, the kid who sacks your groceries, EVERYBODY, to set you up with guys they know.

I have been set up with guys through well-meaning friends before. Their thought process goes something like: we like sweeti, and we like my cousin Bill, so sweeti should like Bill! And that is very nice but it doesn't take into account that sweeti isn't interested with going out with a man who is 56 years old, a huge Family Feud fan, and comfortably reside in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />mom's basement. I admit: I am rather particular. And probably a lot of my friends aren't really close enough to me to know what I'm looking for in a guy.

Co-worker and I were at lunch the other day and he motions to a guy who walks in the restaurant and says he imagines this guy is my type. He's tall, regular-weight-lifter built, stubble and long dark hair in a ponytail. Uh, no. Co-worker asks me why, and I told him I really prefer a more clean-cut look. Short hair. Facial hair is ok but it should look like a decision and not an oversight.

Co-worker asked me what my 'type' was, and I thought. And thought and thought. I never could come up with an answer. I tried to mentally think of all the guys we work with, actors, musicians, anybody I could reference, but I came up blank.

Oh, I didn't totally come up blank, but I wasn't going to admit that the only guy I could think of at the moment was Prince William. That kind of clean cut. Looks good in a suit or jeans or playing sports : versatile. But preferably not 12 years younger than me (or however many years younger than me he is). And preferably not royalty, because truthfully it seems like that would get annoying.

So you could say I came up blank as far as any kind of useful reference.

I don't think I have a type because when I think about the guys I have had the best relationships with, it wasn't guys that knocked me out of my shoes because they were tall, blond and standing on their yacht. It's guys that maybe I didn't really notice until I realized they were interested in me, and then spent time getting to know them and the more I got to know them, the more attracted I was to them, the total package, not just the wrapping.

Today I had lunch with Co-worker and 8 of his gaming buddies. And I realized (ok, I already knew), I have no game. Some women are just natural flirts and conversation comes very naturally to them. It doesn't come naturally for me. I listen, I ask a few questions, but no one has ever mistaken me for the Mistress of Small Talk.

I can talk for hours to somebody I'm close to. And I can talk for hours about America's failing infrastructure or mega-tsunamis or serial killers or firewall security. But small talk has always been very awkward for me.

There are women who, if they found themselves at lunch surrounded by 9 guys, would be the center of attention and would know every guy's name, job, relationship status and shirt size.

I am just not wired that way.

I admit I'm hard to get to know.

Bubbles and I have an old joke that if we were male, black, lived in Florida and were police officers, she'd be Will Smith. I would be Martin Lawrence. ('Bad Boys' movie reference, in case you aren't familiar) Will gets all the ladies, Martin gets all the punch lines.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Will Smith is someone like Scott Peterson, goes to jail for killing his wife and unborn child, and somehow he gets hundred of love letters from women, proposals…we wonder if the world has crossed over into some infinitely darker parallel universe…

Or we hear that a serial rapist weds a prison pen pal behind bars and will now get conjugal visits….

What would possess a woman to pursue a man she doesn't know, who has been publicly vilified, whose crimes have been detailed in the media and put before a jury? What attraction could there be?

Plenty, apparently.

Somewhere in the plethora of fact-based shows on Discovery, National Geographic, etc., I have caught several documentaries on prison romances. Real documentaries, with interviews of the love-struck, the incarcerated, and the over-educated elite pontificating on it all (not Jerry Springer 'I Got Pregnant in the Upstate Visiting Room').

Fascinating stuff, really.

Here's how it works, in case you don't have all this useless knowledge floating around in your head. There are multiple websites devoted to finding a prison pen pal. Typically it is women writing male inmates, although it can work the other way around. Incarceration gives you a lot of time on your hands, so having letters to read is obviously a bonus. Many prisoners will develop multiple pen pals, all of whom think they're the only one, and reuse letters written to one to send to the others, even copy letters other inmates have used.

He makes her feel special, no, more than special. She is the perfect woman, she is the only one who ever saw his redeeming traits, she is the only one to ever inspire him to be a better man, she is all he lives for. Well, her and the other 9 pen pals.

What woman doesn't want that kind of attention? The women who get in these relationships get showered with compliments and sweet talk and attention. And they are certain: he isn't just trying to get laid, he isn't doing this for the sex, he's really truly in love with me.

Women who fall for inmates literally come from all backgrounds, all races and religions, fat and thin, homely and hot, the educated, the professionals…

Why?

He listens to her.

Convicts have unraveled the mystery of women that plagues all men. They get how a woman is wired. She wants to be listened to. She wants to be special. She wants to be missed.

By not being in an actual relationship, she can idealize him in every way. He's never distant. He never has any flaws. And even better, she has no flaws. He never criticizes her. He makes her feel she's perfect, just exactly the way she is, in a way no free man can. They never hear him fart or complain dinner was cold: he becomes the perfect man.

He may or may not be in an 'actual' relationship, she doesn't know. He may over time develop a relationship with her, plans to marry her or live with her when he gets out. But for the most part, most of these guys are using these women as entertainment, manipulating them to get letters or money or nudie pics, posted on the wall for all to see.

She is using him too, though, as therapy. She can avoid all the little disappointments of being in a real relationship, of finding out that he isn't perfect, he isn't a knight in shining armor, he snores and his feet smell. She will never feel used for sex. Never feel unsatisfied. Never feel unsatisfying. Never worry about what the backs of her thighs look like when the lights are on. She believes she is the center of his universe.

Many women can marry inmates and remain in a sexless relationship for years. It meets all their needs, and it meets all of his needs he can get met under the circumstances. She will, in case after case after cases, describe him as perfect, even though he has admitted to her he killed someone, raped women…

In her mind he really is perfect, because he has made her the center of the universe, he listens to her, hangs on her every word…

I'm not implying that your average sane woman wants this. Not at all. There's a whole martyr thing going on, where she can feel she is the only one who will stand by him and he is the only one who can understand why she would. She feels needed. She has her freedom to come and go as she pleases, but doesn't worry he will find someone else because he has no freedom.

It was interesting to note that in these documentaries, some of these women who were absolutely content to be sexless the rest of their lives fell so madly for their pen pal that by the time they were married and allowed conjugal visits, that same woman was ready to rip his clothes off. Didn't matter what he looked like, he was an absolute stud to her.

Conclusions?

It's impossible to draw any universal conclusions.

Maybe if men put less emphasis on sex, they'd get more of it. Pressure is a real buzz-kill. If a woman feels cherished and listened to and like she has found her soulmate, there's a very good chance she will be hot for him.

While some guys use this knowledge to manipulate women, it's still valid knowledge. Knowing to use a hammer on a nail doesn't mean you're necessarily manipulating the nail, just using the right tool…

I think your average woman, at least in my age bracket, has seen plenty of guys manipulate women shamelessly for One Thing. They're heard guys say it's all they care about, they read their blogs that say, 'man, I just need to get laid'. And they are very wary of being used and discarded. They're very hesitant about getting involved too fast. And any pressure on her makes her more wary that his interest in her is One dimensional.

Women don't 'hold out' as manipulation or game playing. I think they wait because they want to be sure they aren't thinking this is love and he's thinking this is better than his hand. They are merely protecting themselves, not being teases or whatever. Most of the women I know want to be in sexually active, fulfilling relationships. But it has to be with someone who is going to be around for a while, someone they trust. Most women, by the time they've reached my age, have been played at some point. Most aren't bitter, I think. They're just cautious. You don't look both ways before crossing the street because you're bitter.

We still believe that there are more sincere guys than players.

But I think many of us have lost our confidence that you can tell the players from the sincere guys.

So women move a speed so slow that men can mistakenly think she isn't moving at all.

But give her a break already.

This has been the Monday misc. ramblings on sex.

I've been reading a lot on childhood developmental issues and diagnoses. When it comes to the Ninja, there are 4 things I can see that may be going on:

1.        immaturity

2.        ADHD

3.        Asperger's

4.        Non-Verbal Learning Disability (NLD, which means the child has a good grasp on language but not all the non-verbal aspects of communication like eye contact, when to change a subject, when someone is bored, etc.; they don't have a high social IQ)

He could have one of those or a combination of some number of them, which equals something like 29 possibilities.

Each of those 4 categories is made up of characteristics that overlap with the others.  None is diagnosed with a blood test or some other Y/N indicator.

I could go to the Dennis Developmental Center and spend some insane amount of money on 5+ hours testing that makes the Ninja feel like something is wrong with him…

But we did that already. We did that exactly two years ago. And we got a diagnosis of ADHD.

The same Dr. is over the testing that was over it two years ago. The Ninja doesn't really have any new symptoms, just new anecdotes describing those symptoms.

I don't see paying over $1000 for a Dr. to analyze new anecdotes.

After Ninja was ADHD diagnosed, they told us to go see a psychologist and gave us a referral. So we went and saw him. And he said yep, he's ADHD.

He gave him some additional tests and talked with him to see if he was depressed or anything. And after about 3 visits, we were done.

That was another $375.

All of this to tell me what I told the pediatrician: I think he's ADHD. And she said 'I think so too' and then had us do all this nonsense.

I'm leery when a doctor just confirms your self-diagnosis. Makes me wonder if the suggestion could've impacted the way they looked at the results and helped them to come to the same conclusion. But anyway, that's just my paranoia.

And the Ninja is really sensitive right now, he feels like he's so different from anybody else, I worry that a bunch of tests will impact his self-image.

And I'm a grown up, 'Head of Household' as the IRS likes to call me. I have the obligation to solve problems without causing other problems. I'm still paying the debts I incurred for medical expenses two years ago. I can't take on more debt for more testing, that just puts us in a tighter financial situation, and causes me more stress, and that isn't good for the Ninja.

So I came to the conclusion: there has to be a better way of going about this.

I'm not entirely sure what that means right now. There ARE alternatives to the Dennis Developmental Center and the same tests he's been through. Jenni sent me a list of resources (she is always SO sweet), and I had started looking at LR Family magazine…

Maybe instead of switching schools I can find an after-school program that would help him at least some afternoons each week, help build his self esteem and academic skills. And instead of sending him to a glorified babysitting service this summer, maybe I can find a better program that includes skill building but will still be interesting and fun to him.

I just know that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. If you continue to do what you've always done, you will continue to get what you've always got.

I wound up talking with another mom at ATA, and I had no idea her boy (Ninja's age) had some learning problems, Asperger's like symptoms, and they'd done testing through Access, and he attended the school there for a while but is now in public school and doing ok. It was also a little comforting personally that she said she started out trying to help him as a single mom, but now she's married and is finishing her master's degree.

And…geez this is hard to say…I think I've finally decided I need to put us on a gluten- and casein-free diet…no wheat or dairy. I know there is a ton of anecdotal evidence that it helps kids tremendously, that some are just way more sensitive to these things than others. Of course, Ninja and I are a unit, and if I put him on a restricted diet, I have to put myself on it as well.

I really like wheat and dairy products.

But more than that, it's intimidating. I feed Ninja a balanced diet but a LOT of it comes from pre-packaged foods, take-out – things that are convenient. It isn't impossible to keep using pre-packaged foods and take-out, but it will require more work, research, diligence…and more cooking.

Quite honestly, I don't cook a lot. We stay so busy, and it's just the two of us…I've really come to rely on convenience foods.

There's no doubt we'd be healthier for doing this, especially if we restrict high fructose corn syrup and dyes…of course, that means mom has to give up Diet Coke, which I have done before but it isn't easy…caffeine withdrawal can cause headaches initially…you have to be careful planning that.

Right now we have a packed kitchen, so we have to use up what we have before implementing this. That gives me a little time to do my homework…

And kiss wheat, dairy and Diet Coke goodbye.

I have always said I would do whatever I could to help Ninja. If there really is anything to this diet helping ADHD / Asperger's kids, then we need to check it out. It is a small sacrifice to make if it makes a difference in his life. If we can solve this with diet changes and maybe different after-school or summer care, and not even need additional medical services, that would be great.

Woodface made me realize I left off a vital part of me rant on the transition to high-def TV:

Here it is, income tax preparation time, and I am grinding my teeth over the fact that tax dollars are being used to issue refunds to high-def converters. With all of the economic problems we have, how can anybody justify this non-sense? I don't want my tax dollars going to high-def converters or anything of the sort. The government oversees the airwaves, but it should be in the loosest possible manner. With current technology in place, I don't even think we need the government to oversee obscenity on TV, or mandate how many hours should be dedicated to children's programming or educational programming. We have a robust free-market that should be left to govern these things, and it should govern high-def as well. Want a high-def TV? Fine, go buy one. Want your favorite station to broadcast in high-def? Fine, write them, start an online petition, whatever. But it should be decided by the market, not the government.

Woodface said (I hadn't yet heard) that you can get the government rebate for the high-def converter BEFORE purchasing the converter. If that is the case, I fear I'll grind my teeth into dust.

I haven't done the research on this in depth, but in general my belief on these things is that if you follow the money, you find out who really stands to benefit from this, and there are definitely people who will benefit. Financially. Greatly. Individuals and/or organizations with considerable resources put their considerable resources behind making sure this happened, and you can bet they'll make their money back. Have you heard anybody state how this is being done for the good of the average American? No. Because that isn't who is going to profit on it.

I also wanted to clarify something I said in yesterday's blog that gave Woodface a little heartburn.

I said I like and respected McCain, H. Clinton, Obama and Huckabee. I should have put at the end of that to a degree.

I have absolutely no confidence any of them will fix healthcare. In fact I'm fairly sure any of them will continue to destroy the American system of healthcare, eventually leaving us with a socialist healthcare system.

Politicians aren't just fixing the system so that people who are uninsured will be insured or will receive treatment they need. They are demolishing the old insurance system. I work for a very large corporation, we have many Fortune 500 clients, I make a professional's salary. But I have what is called a HAS Policy – Health Savings Account. I pay for the more expensive, higher coverage option, which still means insurance pays ZERO until I've spent $2,500 of 'qualified expenses' for a deductible, and then they pay like a typical insurance policy.

Of course, no one charges me 'qualified expenses', so I have to pay more than $2,500 to meet my deductible. $125 for a Dr. appt.? They may count $79 toward the deductible. $95 prescription? They may count $75.

I pay monthly for the benefit of this expense, and my company puts some money in this Health Savings Account, and I make pre-tax contributions to the account each month from my paychecks. Of course the company gives me nowhere near $2,500.

If I have a large medical expense early in the year, before the deductible is met, I could have to pay out-of-pocket more than $2,500 at one time. If I don't have the money, tough.

Some of the guys I work with have had pregnant wives. Say the wife gets pregnant in Aug., and they meet their deductible in Sept. Insurance will pay through Dec. 31, and then the new deductible kicks in, so they're having to pay lots of money out-of-pocket for the pregnancy. It doesn't matter that the incident is one that began in the previous year and received medical care in the previous year.

The Ninja had lots of problems in kindergarten, and I had to have testing done two years ago. It was around Feb., so my deductible hadn't been met. I didn't have the cash ($1,000 plus numerous Dr. visits), so I had to charge it, which I loathed doing. So now two years later, he is having a lot of problems in school, my deductible hasn't been met, and I'm still paying off the bills from two years ago. It's ridiculous.

So should the government pay for our healthcare. Hell no.

I've had good insurance for years, probably since the mid or early 90s, up until 2 years ago.

My company employee hundreds of people in a professional, salaried capacity. EVERYONE has complained about our awful insurance, to no avail.

From what I understand, the days of traditional insurance policies are numbered, and will be replaced by HSAs. Which will be replaced by socialist healthcare.

I have to admit: I'm not opposed to socialist healthcare as a matter of principal or politics, it's just a practical thing.

Doctors make good money, right? But doctors also pay a lot for their schooling, and spend many years on their education. In return for entering the job market later than some and taking on debt to pay for school, they are paid well. But any doctor you know well enough to talk finances with will tell you that the first several years they aren't rolling in the dough, they're struggling to pay student loans and get established, they have to pay insane amounts for insurance to practice, possibly invest in a practice…

They may get great credit to drive a nice car and buy a nice house, but it takes several years to get on their feet really, just like any other job.

The burden they run into that you don't see in other jobs is insurance. That's gone crazy for doctors because lawsuits have gone crazy. Have a baby born with Down's Syndrome? Sue the doctor.

I'm all in favor of holding doctors responsible for their mistakes, but healthcare is an art, not a science. If you take a drug, it comes with material explaining that a certain percent of people will have certain negative reactions. If you have a medical procedure, they explain to you a certain percentage of people have complications from the procedure. Babies are born with problems sometimes, and they tell you about the possibilities when you have prenatal care.

But now people see medical complications as an opportunity for a windfall. Instead of accepting that complications may arise because medicine is NOT a science, people now believe "it must be the doctor's fault".

The court system has run amuck with people getting windfalls when doctors didn't make mistakes.

So their insurance goes up.

Did you know we're already facing a shortage of doctors who deliver babies, because the insurance is so high no one wants to get into it?

So if we go to a socialist healthcare system, where the government pays for everything and dictates what doctors will be paid, they're going to dictate doctors get $50 for an office visit (for example, whether you're a new podiatrist or the most respected heart doctor in the country. This is going to take away all incentive for people to become doctors, or continue practicing. Then we'll have a Dr. shortage. Who will take on a six figure education debt if they can't reasonably expect to make the payments?

What we have is (mostly) a legal problem, not a medical problem. For years the system of private insurance offered through employers to fulltime employees, and government stepping in to cover those who couldn't get care or couldn't work.

Getting a fulltime job that included insurance was something to work towards, a goal.

We continue to take away any incentive for people to better themselves, and in some cases we penalize people for it (for instance, when someone gets a small raise at work and the higher tax bracket takes almost the entire raise). We are well on our way to a socialist state, where people count on the government to take care of them, cradle to grave.

'Why' is something I don't understand. Again, I'm sure it's a case of following the money trail. Someone will benefit from this (I would suspect insurance companies), and has put considerable resources behind making sure every politician thinks this is the only solution to the healthcare crisis.

I know there are issues I haven't touched on here. By tying insurance to employers, people have to change insurance every time they change jobs. If you lose your job, you can pay to continue your insurance policy for a period of time through the COBRA law, but only for a period of time. And the increasing tendency for insurance policies to exclude pre-existing conditions has to be dealt with somehow.

Employers will start to penny-pinch benefits when the economy is rough or the company has not performed as well as expected. Up until the past several years, that seemed to mean making employees pay for a greater percentage of their insurance premiums (or all of it). Now we're seeing more and more HSA accounts….

I mentioned how the Medicare Part D system is such a chaotic mess. I can't imagine it expanded to cover everyone in the U.S. I am afraid we will get to a point where you're going to have very little choice in doctors. Right now, even if you have insurance, it typically doesn't cover all doctors or all hospitals. I'm afraid the more the politicians mess with it, backed by insurance companies, the less choice we're going to have.

The idea of insurance isn't that complicated really. A group of people pay for policies that cost enough to cover each of them having average expenses, with the understanding that some will have above-average expenses and some will have lower than average expenses, and some thrown in as a buffer in case the group fares worse than the statistical average, and some thrown in for the company to make a profit. It should be easier today than ever for a company to calculate average expenses and write policies that cover it's customers without exposing it to undue risk.

A property insurance firm that only insures houses along the coast of Louisiana has done a poor job of spreading out their risk.

It just seems like there is a way for private insurance to work. Fix it and don't screw up everybody worse.

Beautiful Disaster asked me, 'so somebody can take a picture of my child, and edit the head onto a pornographic picture, and there's nothing I can do about it?'

Yes.

Actually, it's worse than that.

Right now, there is no law against anyone photographing your child. Without your permission. A registered pedophile can legally take pictures of children at the mall or a park or where ever.

AND they can post the pictures they've taken on their website that all their pedophile friends like to look at.

And you can't make them take it down. Often websites will force a person to take down pictures if they get complaints, but if you own the website you can do whatever you like.

Really.

Don't believe it? It was all over the news last year:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/153940/Pedophile_Hosts_Website_In_Seattle_Pictures_Of_Little_Girls_Posted_For_Men_To_View

Here is a very nice website (that has nothing to do with illicit pictures of children) that discusses the laws around using pictures, in this case for a church newsletter:

http://communication.puconline.org/index.php?option=com_na_content&task=view&id=4

You have very little control over your image or that of your children, including having your or your child's image manipulated. When you think about it, you see it all the time: people manipulate politicans' images to make them look like they're doing something stupid, or celebrity images to make them look like they're breaking parole or whatever.

THERE IS NO LAW AGAINST THIS. Doesn't matter if you're a celebrity or a regular guy or 4 years old.

Here's a website devoted to manipulating pictures for fun and the amusement of others, often using famous figures:

http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=18601&display=photoshop&page=1entries

See, here's the problem with having a bunch of old white guys in charge who say they've been 'internetting' or used 'the Google': they are SO out of touch with technology that they are not making laws fast enough to address the threats out there.

THEY DON'T GET IT.

I've struggled some with who I want to back in the presidental election. I consider myself an independant so I don't rule out either party. I heard someone the other day say McCain (and Huckabee) represent the Old Guard. And Hillary, as much as I respect her, does too (I actually respect and like McCain and Huckabee as well). Obama is really the only one from a different generation. And we have got to start electing people from a different generation to office, people who understand technology.

Side (but related) rant:

My mother and I were jointly on our soapboxes the other day about the current transition to digital TV and the rebates being offered if you buy a converter kit:

http://cfc.katv.com/externalwebsite.cfm?website=http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html

My step-dad is too cheap for cable, plain and simple. So they bought a converter for the main TV for $50, and can get a rebate coupon for $40. It took him most of an evening to set it up, and he isn't exactly technology illiterate: he has a laptop, he has a digital camera and knows how to use it, etc. At one point he told my mom they were going to have to call me.

The whole change makes me very angry. None of my grandparents are alive now, but none of them would've been able to do this when they were alive. Lots of older people wouldn't be able to. So if they don't have family or friends who will help, they are going to be cut off from TV next year.

A lot of elderly wouldn't even know how to get the refund information. They don't have the internet.

I hate to sound sexist, but a lot of single women have trouble hooking up electronics (not for some genetic reason, just because they weren't exposed to it like boys were when they were little; boys could take apart old radios to see what was inside, girls rarely did, which is why you now see more men than women who can build a PC or wire a new home entertainment system).

A lot of people in our country are poor, if not by the accepted income definition by the fact that they live paycheck to paycheck and have very little 'spare' money. Some people are scraping buy to pay for needed medications. Do you think they can plunk down $50 and then wait 6 - 8 weeks for their $40 refund?

I am concerned we're about to really create a class division: those that have access to TV at home, and those who don't.

I have cable on two TVs at home. But I also have a very old TV in the garage - I can watch the news while I lift weights. I'm not going to mess with a converter box, as seldom as I use it. I also have a nifty 5 inch portable TV in the kitchen (or in the office, or in the spare bedroom...) that is nice for watching the news while I fix dinner or do the dishes. I can bring it to work with me if something major is going on (like a hurricane) or if I bring Ninja to the office with me he can at least watch some cartoons. What I like is that it's portable. My mom has an identicle one and she loves hers to. It ceases to be portable if I have to hook up some converter to it. I'm not going to do that. So because a government agency has allowed this, I am going to lose the ability to use 2 TVs I bought and paid for (redundant, I know, but it feels justifiable to make the point).

That just isn't right. If the market demand is there and individual stations want to broadcast in high-def, great, but when you change the entire system...that's another thing.

Our governement last year decided to move up daylight savings time by 3 weeks or so. I have never really understood the reasons. But they decided this without understanding the implications: millions of computers and programs and DVD players and the like were made to factor in daylight-savings time in calculating the correct date/time. If you suddenly change the way we calculate the day daylight savings time falls on, it costs BILLIONS of dollars to fix these things. I work in technology, so I understand how bad it was. It was seriously almost as bad as Y2K, when programmers had to change the way dates were calculated to use a 4 digit year. But the jerks in power didn't understand the ramifications of doing this. It cost American businesses millions of dollars, money that could've been used to prevent layoffs or give workers raises. Money that could've been used to bolster our economy.

And don't get me started on the whole Medicare Part D mess. My grandfather was incapable of consuming the amount of information needed to make an informed choice about who to go with. My mother, who isn't stupid, spent weeks gathering informataion on different companies and reading and comparing. Medicare Part D is an enormous burden to the elderly, the illiterate or under-educated, people who can't easily do research via computer...it is a horrible program that places unfair demands on people who most need the services.

I'm not against anyone being able to edit photos. I really do like worth.com, they crack me up sometimes:

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=15350&display=photoshop

(I especially like the Watership Downs one and the teen pregnancy...and the Playboy...and the hangover...aw heck I liked 'em all, I just don't care for 'Precious Moments', sorry)

But in today's world, if somebody creates a fake MySpace page and posts altered photos of me on it, and my boss sees, I could lose my job. And obviously much much worse can happen when people are posting pictures of kids. These are complicated issues that are going to require complicated laws to address them. These issues require people who use the technology to make the laws. Someone who doesn't know what MySpace or YouTube or LinkedIn are is not going to be able to udnerstand the issues involved.

I have to confess, when I started what eventually became the 'illegal/free speech' blog, I was gathering websites requested by the Ninja. We have been discussing how what you see isn't always what is real or what you think it is. This stemmed from several lines of discussions: 1. commercials that show markers that blend to make metallic 3-D rainbows and can fly but are actually crap when you buy them, 2. pictures of strange things aren't always what you think they are; there are pictures that LOOK like a sea monster in Lock Ness that have been shown to be a bird from a different angle, although your eyes tell you it can't be, and people sometimes see lights in the sky and think 'aliens!' instead of 'I wonder what that is?'; 3. people can do brilliant things in movies and on TV to make it look like someone was shot or had their head cut off or blew up a building, but it is all special effects, no matter how real it looks.

This prompted discussion on how people have changed photos over the years for propaganda or just to make themselves look slimmer on match.com, and Ninja wanted to see as many examples as I could find.

I want him to learn you need to question things, that the first conclusion isn't always the right one. And not everything can can be explained. And buff guys on the cover of Men's Fitness or GQ are every bit as air-brushed as the actresses on the cover of Cosmo or dozens of other magazines. They don't look like that, nobody does, so don't put pressure on yourself to live up to a made-up standard.

We live in interesting times. The 'fair use' and 'copyright' laws are similarly out-dated. If you take pictures and post them to Flickr or MySpace, somebody can take those pictures and even use them in advertisements...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/08/AR2008010804626.html

Maybe they're breaking the law, maybe not. It's all a bit unclear. So you'll have to sue to find out if you can make someone stop using one of your images.

Even your dog isn't safe.

'Fair use' laws haven't caught up with music and sampling. Technically, as I understand it, sampling (for use in rap songs) is illegal. But few people prosecute, because it does promote the original song. Some of the biggest names in rap aren't putting their muscle behind changing the laws, though, because while they like to sample, they don't want others sampling their songs.

We've had legal cases that question how similar a song, novel or movie has to be to another before it's a rip-off. Where does research end and plagerism start? Especially on the web, these things are becoming more complicated. Are your blogs copyrighted if you don't state so?

We have to start electing leaders from a younger generation to tackle these challenges. The days of having 70 year old presidents need to be behind us. It's going to take a younger, more recently educated group of people to address today's issues. Heck, I didn't study computers or use them in jr. high and high school. I took a typing course right after I got out of high school. There are people much more savvy than me on these issues (and no, not all of them younger).

I don't mean to be an 'age-ist'. I'm not saying there are no people in their 50s, 60s and beyond that understand the capabilities of today's technologies (Obama will turn 47 in Aug.; McCain will turn 72 this year, H. Clinton will turn 61, and Huckabee will be 51; interesting to note Obama, McCain and Huckabee are all born in Aug. ... hmmmm....). But in general younger people will understand these things better.

Which correlates to: YOUNGER PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD TO NOT VOTE. We can't wait for the older generation to elect those from our generation, we are going to have to make that happen ourselves. I don't want to sound like I'm putting down any age group, just saying it is time for ours to step up and take on a greater role in America.

I'm sweetigrrl and I approve of this message.

Have you seen the photo, of the truck that went off the road and somehow came to a stop mere feet from a cliff – an enormous drop-off that most certainly would have killed the driver?

http://www.thatsnotnews.com/news/white_ute_inches_from_disaster

I saw it, sent to me in an email, and thought like a lot of people that it couldn't be real. Absolutely not. Just not possible for a car to crash through the railing on the right, somehow do a magic flip over the culvert, land on all 4 wheels feet from disaster, and then rescue workers stand on the cliff-side of the truck, inches from falling to their death.

No way. Just like the video clip that purports to show a woman diving from a boat, and right into the mouth of a shark, which swallows her whole, cartoon-style.

Except that the shark clip is digitally created, and the crash photos are…real. Really.

Keep that in mind for a minute.

The Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that electronic images (photographs and video) that appear to depict child pornography, but have been digitally altered or created (the face of a child taken from one picture and grafted onto a lurid photo so that the image appears to be of a child), are NOT illegal, they are protected 'free speech'. (see below for synopsis of law)

How scary is that?

I understand the legal argument – what actual crime did they commit?

But come on, the creation of these fake images just fuels the demand for the real thing.

AND these fake images put the burden on prosecutors: now they have to prove every child pornography image isn't digitally created or altered and is a real crime.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/25/digital.evidence.ap/index.html

MILLIONS of dollars is spent having to prove this before a case goes to trial, and then the prosecutor may only charge the person for some images if they weren't able to verify them all – meaning they could get a lighter sentence.

And people have to do the verifying, they have to immerse themselves in this evil and abuse in order to assure the images stand up in court.

To me, that's even worse than the millions of dollars being wasted. That's somebody's sanity you're messing with when we need greater and greater numbers of analysts willing to spend their lives verifying photos of horrific acts.

Interestingly, the UK has stricter laws than we do in the states on images altered to appear to be minors (see example sited below).

What technology has created is unfortunately a society where many of us know you can't trust your own eyes. We know pictures can be manipulated and still look very real. So, when we're called to jury duty and the defense attorney tells us we can't possible be sure 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that those pictures are real and not digitally created by his client…

You know what I'd do?

I'd throw the freaking book at him.

It's the power of jury nullification. It's a moral responsibility. Until the law catches up with technology, people will have to step up and assure trials conclude with a fair and just verdict.

Is that the American way? That depends on what you mean. Judges don't care for it much, but America has a long history of jury nullification.

Would a verdict based on that stand? Probably not. But maybe it does, maybe it forces some judge to look at the law and decide it has not been interpreted properly in relation to new technologies. Maybe it gets enough attention that lawmakers are forced to address it.

Various Resources:

Some of the more notorious and scandalous altered photos, some of which substantially predate Photoshop:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/digitalcameras/multimedia/2007/03/wiredphotos54

Photo editing is a legitimate service for some, such as this service that takes photos of inmates and their loved ones and alters the background from a prison to a less embarrassing location, so family members can display pictures at work or in the home or next to the kid's bed without the bleak reminder of prison:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/digitalcameras/news/2005/10/69035

Adobe is trying to develop ways to detect photo editing:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/digitalcameras/news/2007/03/72883

Is it ok to take out something that doesn't seem to alter the photo's main image, like a stray background pair of legs?

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/04/toledo01.html

In an effort to be politically correct, some feel its ok to edit out a gun…or even an arm…

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47120

A more exhausted collection of doctored images:

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/

A few especially interesting notes from this site:

April 2002: The 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) extended the existing federal criminal laws against child pornography to include certain types of "virtual porn". In 2002, hearing Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the United States Supreme Court found that portions of the CPPA, being overly broad and restrictive, violated First Amendment rights. The Court ruled that images containing an actual minor or portions of a minor are not protected, while computer-generated images depicting a fictitious minor are constitutionally protected.

August 2005: A magistrate in Sydney, Australia threw out a speeding case after the police said it had no evidence that an image from an automatic speed camera had not been doctored. This case revolved around the integrity of MD5, a digital signature algorithm, intended to prove that pictures have not been doctored after their recording. It is believed that this ruling may allow any driver caught by a speed camera to mount the same defense.

August 2006: An Easton, Middlesbrough (UK) man, Stafford Sven Tudor-Miles, scanned photographs of adult porn stars into his computer and digitally altered them so that the women appeared to be of girls under the age of 18. The 38-year-old fine art student was charged with possessing indecent pseudo-images of children. His barrister argued that the pictures were of adults and, therefore, no offense had been committed. Under the Protection of Children Act 1978, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, a pseudophotograph of a child is defined as an image, whether made by computer graphics or otherwise, which appears to be that of a child. Possession or creation of such an image is, therefore, illegal. Tudor-Miles pleaded guilty to five counts of attempting to make indecent pseudo-photographs of children, one charge of possessing indecent pseudo-photographs and one of breaching a sex offenders order. Tudor-Miles will be sentenced on September 8.

Another legit use of altered photography, helping to track down fugitives who may have altered their appearance:

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/fisheraltered.htm

And of course age-progression photos are useful in finding children that have been abducted:

http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/ServiceServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=174

www.snopes.com has created an entire site for 'fauxtography', where you can verify the authenticity of many commonly-emailed pics/videos.

The Ninja has been having an unusually good week, which has been a great relief to me. He really needed a good week.

When I picked him up from after-school care yesterday, he introduced me to a little fellow I hadn't met before, who had shown him how to crack level 3 in Star Wars, The Complete Saga on Nintendo. While Ninja got his coat and backpack, his new friend told me all about having a Wii at home and I told him how much I wanted one of those.

The after-school teacher told me that they'd really become buddies this week, which is great. Anytime the Ninja makes a new friend, that's great. Just a few close friends can really help a guy deal with the people who tease him.

His new buddy is a grade younger. I'd really like him to get a good friend in his class, but making a friend anywhere is a good step. I think I used to work with the new buddy's mom…if I recall right. I may ask Ninja if he'd like to invite the new friend to buddy night next month at taekwondo class.

One of the books I just bought on Amazon was (for kids) How to Be a Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them (Dino Life Guides for Families). The Dino Life Guides include how to deal with divorce and how to deal with death (or at least how dinosaurs deal with divorce and death, which I really thought would involve more cannibalism). I read through it immediately yesterday, and it was a really good book. I was impressed. After I read it with Ninja, I may see if he would like me to schedule a time to come to his class and read it (parents do that sometimes). But first he and I have to finish reading Snoopy and the Red Baron.  J  It has French names and a few words all through it (Snoopy was shot down in France by the Red Baron), and Ninja was completely awed by my ability to read it and sound French.  I told him I did take French in high school. And I watched Tish Adams on the Adams Family.  J  I hate to admit she's my motherhood role-model, but nobody can read The Cat in the Hat like Tish.

I was browsing the paper and I happened to see the Ninja's teacher and her husband have filed for divorce – or at least it was someone with her name, which isn't too common. I know she's been absent several times over the past week. I really hate to hear that for anyone, because I know how terrible it is, but it also may mean that some of her observations about Ninja lately have been colored by other stresses.

I sat down with Ninja's report card and his interim report and did all sorts of statistical analysis. I am such a geek. I think having some numbers to study made me feel better about how he's doing in school. The 1^st quarter, he had 3 As and 3 Bs, and the 2^nd quarter he had 3 As, 2 Bs and 1 C, and on the interim he has 2 As, 3 Bs and 1 C. So yes, his grades have dipped a bit, but the C on his interim report was borderline: if he hadn't missed one assignment, he would've had a B. He isn't doing terrible, we just want to work with him more so he doesn't drop anymore.

Sir Jr. at ATA talked with the Ninja after taekwondo class the other night. I don't know how old he is, but he looks young, early-twenties. I think Ninja identified with him as less of an adult and more of a cool guy, if that makes sense. Master and Sir are huge influences on him, but having somebody he thinks isn't quite as far removed from childhood might help.

Sir Jr. definitely had advice I wouldn't have come up with. He told Ninja if somebody tries to insult him, smile nicely and walk away. He said it's guaranteed to make them mad because they didn't upset you. Ninja laughed manically, he thought that was an awesome scheme. He also told Ninja he never acts hurts when he's sparring, even if something did hurt, and just keeps smiling at his opponent, because it will make the other guys think he's invincible and freak him out. Ninja loved this tactic as well. He also told Ninja he played with YuGiOh cards until he was 18 years old, so he knew about being teased for liking something other kids thought was immature. Ninja really came out of the conversation beaming, which was a very very good sign.

After studying lots of books about friendship and teasing in grade school, and social awkwardness, I really had mixed feelings. Some books actually say that some kids are just born with social ease, and they fit in and everybody likes them, and they will be a success throughout life, and some just aren't born with it, and that social identities are pretty much set in the first grade.

How horrifying is that? That your social status in first grade will determine your social standing throughout life?! It was depressing to read, even though I don't buy it.

Other books were far more encouraging, saying you can teach children social skills, and oh, while you're doing it, parents, you might learn some things too. I like that thought. One of the books I ultimately purchased talked about all the non-verbal stuff that influences how easy it will be for a kid to make friends, like the volume he talks in, whether he interrupts or acts like he's paying attention when spoken to, his ability to understand conversational rhythm, such as when it's time for a change of subject or not, if his posture was relaxed and inviting, whether he makes eye contact…

And I could see where Ninja has trouble with almost ALL those things. He's a very sweet, friendly kid, but it isn't coming through because of the non-verbal signals he's sending without meaning to.

Some of the books were just way too anal, even for me. They had charts for you to document progress daily, charts for measurable goals and rewards for meeting those goals…geez, I don't want him to feel like he's selling AmWay, I just want to help him fit in.

Have you seen the movie 'About a Boy'? It's about, well, a lot of things, but one of the central characters is a boy who has a single mom, who is depressed and trying to navigate relationships and generally preoccupied with how she doesn't fit in, so she never sees how much he doesn't fit in and how it hurts him, and how she could be helping him. He was the kid (and you remember him from school) who never dressed like everybody else, he looked dorky and had to wear an orange and blue crocheted coat to school and his mother made him take tuba lessons all through grade school and wouldn't let him play any kind of sports and made him wear that white stuff on his nose from April until Sept. like he was a lifeguard or something.

You can't guarantee your kid social success, but you can do things that make them less of a target. I was appalled that kids take $130 Nintendo games (plus the game cartridges) to school (in addition to iPods, personal DVD players, etc…there are 2^nd graders with nicer iPods than I have), BUT I wasn't going to make him seem babyish because his mom wouldn't allow him to do what everybody else was doing (not that I promote the jumping-off-of-a-bridge-because-everyone-else-did).

When he was in preschool and even daycare before that, Ninja was always dressed cool. Not expensive, just Spiderman t-shirts and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle light-up shoes; things that just looked like a cool dude's duds. I didn't want his teased about dressing like a dork.

Of course now he goes to a school with uniforms, so I guess the attacks have become much more personal.

Lately I have been in a period of very unusual happenings. I mentioned the phone call from rehab that was static (even when I returned the call). Earlier this week I got a text. I am not really into texting; just not a big texter. So getting a text was really a little unusual. It was from a local number I didn't recognize, and it said, 'God asked me how long I wanted to be with you, and I said how do I choose between always and forever? I love you.'

It was odd it was all typed out, obviously not a big texter. I studied the number a while and finally texted (a little fearfully) 'who are you?' They eventually texted back, 'sorry wrong number'.

And then yesterday I got another text, this one from another number, that said, 'hey got time to chat?' 'Who are you?' 'Wrng num.'

The Ninja had a good day yesterday. That's two in a row (and includes a school day) which has been pretty rare, so I've been very happy for him.

Last night he had a good class at ATA, which was great. I actually got to go to the coffee shop next door with Claire and swap pregnancy horror stories (not sure how that came up). It was a nice break.

The Ninja started to have a meltdown in my class (he pushed a button on the Nintendo and it didn't do what he thought it should do, or maybe it did what he thought it would do but he didn't mean to push it...not sure, but he was about to cry), right as we were taking a waterbreak, and I absolutely did not want to mess up a good day, so I bowed out and took him home early. I was really accomodating at dinner to try to end the night on a good note ('All you want for dinner is mashed potatos and macaroni and cheese? Um, if I can throw in a green thing, sure.') I normally advise him I am not a short-order cook and he isn't going to order dinner, he's going to eat what I fix, because that's how I grew up, except I was forced to eat WAY more peas than the Ninja.

We have a new Sir Jr. at the school, who is in training to be a full-fledged instructor under Sir, who is training to be a Certified Instructor or Head Instructor or Lead Instructor or something like that under Master.

Anyway, Sir Jr. called me today to ask why we bolted out of there last night, and I explained, and he asked if he could help, and I said I'd take all the help I could get. I told him some about the Ninja's problems at school with getting picked on, and he said the Ninja needed to have him and our other instructors to school for show-and-tell, to let the kids know the Ninja Is Not To Be Messed With.

I told him as much as I like the idea, the school isn't letting ATA do any more show-and-tells, I think because parents complained that their kids came home wanting to join.

We talked for a while, and he offered to talk with the Ninja and do whatever he can to help him. I told him Master had offered the same (he explained Master has been out the past week or so because he's had to cover teaching at other schools). I certainly appreciate as many of the men helping as I can get. And I want them to know school hasn't been great lately, the last thing he needs is to come to class at ATA and stay in trouble.

Hopefully today will make 3 in a row.

Ninja had a good day yesterday, which was a very good thing. Good days have been in short supply lately. He was at ATA since school was closed.

I was talking with Ninja's dad a week or so ago, and we were discussing maturity, how Ninja tends to form friendships with younger kids. He's always liked younger kids, little kids; always wanted siblings. I noticed he did figure out early that you could dictate what you were going to play to a younger child much easier than a peer.

On the topic of immaturity, the Ex asked if I'd seen the show Mr. Men (I hadn't, but knew Ninja had seen it at dad's house and couldn't stop raving about it). Ninja had checked the TV schedule and told me Mr. Men comes on at 9:30a.m. or something like that, and I was puzzled and asked him if it was a show for little kids: they don't show stuff for school-age kids when they're at school (generally). He assured me it wasn't a little kid's show.

Ex said it definitely WAS a little kid's show, that the characters were drawn in the simplest way, had names like Mr. Greedy and Mr. Happy, and dealt with the simplest issues of be nice, don't be greedy, etc. Ninja went on at length about two particularly funny parts, one where somebody put cheese in their sock, and one where someone had a carrot stuck in their ear.

I saw a commercial for it last night and I was floored at how little-kiddish it was.

http://mrsneeze.com/mrmen/meetmrmen.html

I don't know exactly what to think. I don't know how to discourage his interest in Mr. Men without making him feel bad, but I don't want him talking away at how funny it is at school and getting teased.

Humor can miss the mark when you get it second-hand. I could see the cheese-in-the-shoe joke as potentially coming from a 3 Stooges show, and I think every adult male I know would sit with rapt attention watching it. But today's kids are different.

I checked Amazon.com, and the suggested reading level for a Mr. Men book is 4 – 8 yrs. old.

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Birthday-Men-Little-Miss/dp/0843121300/ref=pd_sim_b_title_1

Some of the kids in his class are already reading chapter books. I can't imagine Mr. Men as not being harassment-worthy to a second grader.

Sigh.

The last thing I want is for him to feel like I'm judging him negatively.

But I remember enough about being a kid to recall there was a time when having a Holly Hobby sleeping bag at a slumber party would get your ass kicked.

Not that I had one. I hated Holly Hobby for some reason. Too goody-goody. She had to have a dark side.

But I digress.

It scares me how hard second grade is for the Ninja, because I know it only gets harder.

Jenni commented on the Ninja being pretty smart to see he had a bathroom stall dilemma and tease out a solution to assure no one ever accidentally walked in on him again. Which is true. I'd guess that 99.9% of people would quickly come to the conclusion 'there is no way to prevent someone from accidentally walking in on you' and leave it at that. And .099% would decide they could hold it until they got home. It is very good logic from that standpoint, how many inventions have come from one person deciding 'I'm not just going to resign myself to the fact that this is how things are, I'm going to change how things are'?

We need people like that.

We just tend (as a society) to beat people down who are like that in school.

I need logic skills like the Ninja has to come up with a creative solution for him to feel better about school.

I was at ATA the other night, had just sparred with the Doc (who's over 6 foot tall) and another man who is a 2^nd degree black belt.

Tough girl.

And then I see the spider on the floor.

Geeeeez I hate spiders.

I have no shoes on.

This is bad. Very bad.

I call Sir over, and try to say quietly, 'kill that or I will leave'.

Of course everyone else does hear, since it's a small room, and looks over to see if I'm joking.

Sir looks at me like he's not sure if I'm serious. 'I will leave,' I tell him. Of course, I never took my eyes off the spider.

Sir rolls his eyes, gets a tissue and squishes it and flushes it (which is the only proven method to be certain one is dead or at least gone).

He looks at me in disbelief. 'It was a grasshopper,' he tries to tell me.

Uh, yeah, an eight-legged grasshopper that moves in a creepy spider way.

'Don't care.'

You probably don't know his name. I didn't. But you've certainly seen pictures of his house.

Ronald 'Butch' DeFeo Jr. was 23 years old when in 1974 he killed his parents, two sisters and two brothers, all shot while in their beds. He's never really offered a motive. By all accounts, his dad was abusive. He now claims he killed his dad after a joke got out of hand, and then had to kill his mom as she went for a weapon, and then his oldest sister (18 years old) killed the boys (ages 12 and 9) so they wouldn't have to know, and to get rid of witnesses, and killed her sister (age 13) out of jealousy, and then DeFeo finally turned the gun on her.

DeFeo now says his sister had been saying how much she'd like to kill their father, and in some attempt to call her bluff or make her realize she didn't mean it, DeFeo got the gun and went into the parents' bedroom. But the father roused, and scared of what he'd do to him, DeFeo shot him. His mother awoke and went for the gun kept next to the bed, and so he shot her. Afterwards, he claims he yelled at his sister about 'look what you made me do'. He says he left the house for a while, and when he returned he discovered his sister had murdered the 3 youngest siblings, and so he killed her in anger.

The story has changed over the years. At first DeFeo claimed his family was the victim of a mob hit, but that story quickly fell apart. He confessed to killing all 6 family members, later said he killed his parents but two accomplices and his sister killed the kids, maybe they were all high, and now says it was just he and his sister…

He seems to just discount previous versions of the story he's told. He insists he never killed the 3 youngest children, although he did confess it before he was tried for the murders.

He is an amazing psychiatric specimen: apparently most people who slay their entire family reflect on it over the years, and their story gradually comes to resemble the truth more and more, as they regret their crime.

But 34 years after the murders, DeFeo is still changing his story.

It isn't that DeFeo doesn't show remorse, it's seeing in his face that he has never considered it that is really frightening. He really doesn't see anything wrong with what he's done. When asked if he regrets anything, he regrets that he wound up in prison, and that is all. He is without question a psychopath. Apparently at least once he's tried to fake insanity in order to escape punishment for his crimes. He was only angry at his sister for killing the kids, he says, because that would surely mean jail; he believed people would understand the parents had it coming. He is completely blithe about the family's deaths.

For the cold-blooded killings, he received a sentence of 25-years-to-life. He is not in a 'death-penalty' state.

After the murders, the Luntz family bought the DeFeo house…and moved out before making the first mortgage payment, famously, after only 28 days.

Their story was told in the movie 'The Amityville Horror'.

http://www.amityvillemurders.com/murders.html

Fantastic stories were told about he house having belonged to a former witch, about it being built over an old cemetery, about it being built on a site that used to be an American Indian asylum, where the sick and frail were callously left to die in the elements…

None of that has ever proven true.

http://www.amityvillemurders.com/facts.html

None of the residents of the house since then have claimed anything supernatural.

One even sued the former residents (the Luntzs) and the author (Anson) who he claimed concocted a wild tale to capitalize on the murders, writing a novel and then claiming it was a true story.

I've seen the crime-scene photos. It is eerie how much the house resembles the sets of the original movie: the parents' bedroom, the children's bedrooms with their kitschy 70's wallpaper, the stairs, the foyer…

The house even had the famed red room under the stairs, in the basement, which was purported in the movie to be the gateway to hell.

The red room doesn't look as menacing when you see the peeling paint in the old photos.

Still, one of the subsequent residents covered the red room during a remodel.

A front door really was ripped off its hinges, but it wasn't a heavy wooden door blown out from inside the house, as in the movie, it was a screen door that was ripped off in a storm.

The boathouse, the sleepy town on the water's edge, it all looks exactly as it did in the 1979 movie.

DeFeo, now in his 50s, looks a bit like Charles Manson, even sounds a bit like him. His resemblance to James Brolin, the actor who played George Luntz in the '79 movie, is a bit creepy (more apparent in recent photos and even more so in interviews). And Luntz supposedly had an eerie resemblance to the man who murdered his family in the house previously: DeFeo.

In the movie, Brolin walks into a bar and the bartender does a scared double-take, because he looks so much like the murderer, and talks about that night and him 'running in here', yelling. In 1974, DeFeo did in fact run into a bar yelling his parents had been murdered.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0078767/

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/amityville/1.html

Interestingly, Brolin said he became acquainted with the Luntzs, but still doubted their story. He has also said he didn't get a role for two years after the film because people identified him with the George Luntz character.

I remember being in grade school and reading about the fantastic claims surrounding the house (one benefit of having an older sibling is that you are exposed to all kinds of things that aren't age appropriate). I don't know if it was the book referenced in the websites above, or a cheap knockoff, trying to cash in on the morbid curiosity surrounding the house.

DeFeo has said that the crime scene photos establish there had to be more than one shooter, that one gunman couldn't have killed the whole family. His grandparents believe him and have spent considerable resources to investigate the claim the sister was involved. The crime scene photos show the strange way the bodies were all found: Mr. and Mrs. DeFeo face-down in their beds, shot from behind, the two brothers face down in their beds, shot from behind. It is easy at first to question how one shooter managed to catch all of the family members in bed, that no one got up and made it to the hall…

But one of the brothers had a physical injury and had to sleep on his back, so there is no question that the victims didn't sleep through the murders, but were awake and forced to lie in that position.

The youngest sister was shot in the face lying in bed, DeFeo says because his older sister was so jealous of the girl's attractiveness. I think the oldest sister was shot in the head, also lying in bed. Supposedly powder burns were found that lend credence to the story that the sister was responsible for some of the slayings.

As scary as the movie was (when I first saw it as a kid), I don't think it holds a candle to the real story, that a man, and possibly his sister, murdered their family one night in 1974, for no real reason other than they didn't attach any value to their lives. The casual manner of DeFeo, almost flippant, is scarier than some rage-induced hellish evil. It isn't rage, it's just a disregard for human life. DeFeo methodically gathered all of the spent cartridges from the crime scene in an effort to cover up his role in the crime, he unemotionally searched the gruesome, bloody rooms for shells. Because he didn't feel anything.

The real story would make a far less satisfying movie. We want motive, we want to know why, we need there to be a reason. The lack of that is very unsettling. So the real Horror has been replaced by a fictionalized version.

I have thought at times how calloused we have become as a society, that collectively we will gawk at the murder of an entire family over popcorn. At times society attaches little value to lives lost, it is just more fodder for our entertainment. Sometimes I wish for more innocent times, a time when people weren't so quick to cash in on others' tragedies and crimes: Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, countless others.

But the story of the Luntzs, the DeFeos, and that house didn't happen in 2008, it happened in the 70's.

It seems to me that people I know tend to view the English as more proper than us, quaint, surrounded by tradition and stiff upper lips. We think of Americans as being the vulgar, crude ones, the ones with the endless appetite for other people's misfortunes. We have CNN and the internet to keep us apprized of every move, every development, in a crime, be it celebrities or the police building a case against Scott Peterson for the murder of his wife Laci, or Drew Peterson's actions following the disappearance of his wife Stacy, or the arrest, release and rearrest of suspects in the Natalie Holloway disappearance. We devour every detail. Surely ours is the most blasé culture ever, unmoved by horrific crimes but ravenous for every detail of them?

But it was in England and in 1910 that another murder took place, with amazing similarities to the high profile crimes we have now, and held England, Canada and America rapt in amazement.

Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was originally from 'the states' but he and his wife relocated to a quaint London neighborhood with cobblestone streets. Crippen worked as a dentist and in several other capacities, but met with limited success. Crippen was downright mousy in comparison to his American bride. Mrs. Crippen was more flamboyant, fancying herself an opera singer, ever though few others seemed to think so. Still she persisted and became familiar with the theater and musical hall scenes.

Crippen had a secretary, the classic job for those willing to engage in extramarital affairs. Ethel le Neve may be the only femme-fatale ever named Ethel, though. Crippen told friends that the Mrs. had returned to the states, as she had previously done. He began to pawn her jewelry and furs. The he began to be seen about town regularly with le Neve, who was boldly wearing Mrs. Crippen's less-valuable jewelry. Months went by. He moved le Neve into his house. He told people Mrs. Crippen had fallen ill, very ill, in the states and wasn't expected to live. Finally, he told people she had passed away.

One Mr. Nash, a friend of Mrs. Crippen's, didn't buy the convenient timing of her death. While in America, he made inquiries and discovered she had not been in the states. Upon his return he went to Scotland Yard with his story.

Investigators visited the Dr's home, which seemed to be in order. He admitted he had lied about Mrs. Crippen's death, because she had run off with another man and he wanted to spare himself the humiliation of people knowing.

It sounded like a plausible story.

When investigators returned to ask more questions, though, they found the Dr. and le Neve had fled. Upon closer examination of the house, a loose brick was discovered in the basement, and a little digging unearthed the dismembered and incomplete remains of Mrs. Crippen.

The Dr. and le Neve traveled to Antwerp, and boarded a ship bound for Canada. Le Neve was disguised as a man, since their pictures were already being circulated in newspapers, and they presented themselves as father and son. The ship's captain was suspicious of their affection and le Neve unmanly appearance. Seeing a photograph of the two, he realized they were wanted for murder.

I don't know how long it took to get to Canada then, but it took a while. The captain radioed Scotland Yard. An investigator boarded a faster ship, so he would be waiting when the couple arrived in Canada. It was the first time radio played such a significant role in brining fugitives to justice.

The captain, knowing he had a good story and that the couple didn't know they'd been identified, began daily radioing a journalist, to give him the scoop on the couple's activities: they'd been seen sharing a very unmanly kiss, le Neve mustache seemed to be slipping and nothing seemed capable of disguising her breasts.

The public went nuts. People on two continents devoured the daily news on the failed doctor, the talentless singer and the promiscuous secretary. It is all anyone talks about. Will the inspector reach Canada first? Will they get away? Did Crippen act alone, or did le Neve assist in the crime? Will they both hang?

Crippen and le Neve don't have a clue what is going on.

The public was so engrossed in the mystery and scandal that jokes abounded. A popular song was rewritten with the lyrics: "Oh Miss Le Neve, oh Miss Le Neve, is it true that you are sittin' on the lap of Dr. Crippen, in your boy's clothes, on the Montrose, Miss La Neve?"

The investigator did make it to Canada first. The couple was arrested. It was determined le Neve didn't know of the murder. Crippen was tried, found guilty and later executed.

http://www.tba.org/Journal_Tbarchives/200611/TBJ-200611-hyoscine.html

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~crippen/stratfordtext.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030500901.html

http://nourishingobscurity.blogspot.com/2006/08/life-and-times-dr-hawley-harvey_06.html

It's so reminiscent of the murders OJ Simpson was charged with, isn't it? Murder becomes a joke, fuel for late-night comics and early-morning radio shows.

And this was 100 years ago?

Was there ever a kinder, gentler era, or have we always been capable of gleefully repurposing other people's horrors?

In the 1890s and 1900s, Lizzie Borden was immortalized in a jump-rope rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty whacks.

And when she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one.

(Then you start counting your jumps / axe blows. In case you never jumped rope to morbid songs before.)

Which brings to mind Ring Around the Rosies, which has been linked to the Black Death/the Plague (Bubonic plague) which killed something like 50 million in the 1340s, and thousands periodically thereafter.

It isn't about the plague, although given all of the above, it is certainly plausible:
http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

And I have read that period of time, the 1340s, marked a dramatic shift to the morbid in Europe, with art and literature reflecting a pessimism not previously seen. Perhaps explaining in part our callousness today.

(Bonus trivia: in Europe in 1200 – 1600s, the 'Great Vowel shift' took place, making the English speak not quite so Englishy)

In 50 years, will we have jump-rope rhymes for Dahmer and Bundy?

Let's hope not.

Oh, and a bizarre post-script I have to include: now some are saying Crippen was actually innocent. DNA says that the body under the basement floor wasn't Mrs. Crippen at all.

DNA has remained mum about whose mutilated and incomplete body was under the basement floor.

http://laurajames.typepad.com/clews/2007/10/crippen-innocen.html

Adding to the mystery: they now know the person was killed with poison. But people who study such things will tell you poison is chosen to murder to distance the murderer from the murderee, to avoid 'blood on the hands’, so to speak. But what could be bloodier than dismembering a corpse? It is practically unheard of for a person to be murdered by poison and then dismembered; it just doesn't fit the M.O.

In 100 years, will someone be saying DeFeo is innocent, that there is DNA evidence demonic forces were at work in that house?

Let's hope not.

It's the 600th blog post!!!

How time flies when you type fast.

Thanks for reading.

Ninja has been having a tough time, at school, at ATA…but mostly at school.

He has been in a lot of trouble at school lately, for talking usually, and at least once for yelling during classes.

Some of you may remember the frog story, the frog that caused my son to go Number 2 in the bathroom standing up for about a year and a half until I caught him. My son has unusual bathroom rituals. I try not to get involved.

Although I recall reading that Freud traced all sorts of problems back to toddler anxiety over Number 2, and worry profusely.

Anywho. Enter the belt story, a sequel to the frog story.

Apparently once a boy walked in on him while he was in a stall in the restroom. It's elementary school: there are no locks on the doors.

This bothered the Ninja. No, it might bother some people, but he became obsessed that it might happen again. Of course without actually telling anyone.

He devised a plan to be certain someone knew he was in the stall: he took his belt off every time he went to the bathroom, and laid it under the stall door, in plain sight. Sort of like Less Nessman making imaginary walls out of tape on WKRP in Cincinnati.

Eccentricities will get you all kinds of unwanted attention when you're a kid.

Apparently last week some kid got his belt, and they start playing keep away (or monkey-in-the-middle, depending where you're from) with it. Ninja yells at the top of his lungs; many teachers converge; incident is documented by the Vice Principal.

Apparently the belt routine, and the associated harassment, has been going on for some time. I know how long it takes him to get ready in the morning, so this equals months of very long bathroom breaks.

Teacher is very concerned that something more than ADHD and eccentricities is going on, and is encouraging me to pursue a battery of tests. My mother is stridently, acutely opposed to this, on the grounds that the Ninja will feel like something is wrong with him, like he's got some disability or something wrong in his head. And I agree with that, but I also don't want him thinking he's the class freak and the 'bad kid' who's always in trouble. The Ex is rather opposed to it, for that reason and the fact that the tests are fairly subjective (there isn't a simple blood or urine test for Asperger's), and the tests will cost $1200 out-of-pocket, because my insurance is so lousy, and he thinks it sounds more like a maturity problem anyway. And I agree with all that. But I'm still very conflicted.

The message from the school is: if he is diagnosed with something, we can cut him some slack, but right now we have to hold him to the same standard as everyone else. Double-edged sword. If he isn't diagnosed and this continues, he will be more and more singled out by classmates. If he is diagnosed with something and is treated 'special' and has special rules just for him, he will be more and more singled out by classmates.

And if its immaturity? There isn't a magic maturity pill. We could hold him back, and he would be devastated and feel terrible and embarrassed, or we could just wait for him to eventually catch up and hope it's sooner rather than later.

I'm very torn.

I increased his ADHD medicine without him knowing, and it has helped some in his school work, but not in his behavior.

When I try to discuss this with my mother, she lays it all squarely on me: if I didn't keep him out at night at ATA, if I spent more time working on school-work with him, if I was more involved in school, if I didn't have to send him to after-school care, he'd be doing fine.

But mainly if I didn't keep him out at night at ATA.

How ATA came to be the villain I don't know. It makes no sense.

But it's all my fault.

And I don't have my own cheer squad to tell me daily what a super-awesome-wonderful-terrific-super-fabulous-great-amazing-super mom I am.

Although I'd hire some if I had the money.

Side note: I wanted to explain: I don't really need constant reassurance. But when the criticism is frequent, an occasional cheer means a lot to me...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I could say it was my fault from a different perspective: the Ninja has been raised with only me in the house. No big brother to teach him not to cry in front of the guys. No dad to tell him not be so sensitive about everything. Just me saying 'poor baby'.

At ATA, Sir will occasionally say 'boys don't cry', which is literally nails-on-a-chalk-board to me. But I never correct him, because I think somebody has to teach him these things. I can't teach him how to handle 2^nd grade harassment. Boys handle it all different from girls. A girl can go to the teacher and say 'she hurt my feelings' and they'll all work it out, but if a boy does that, he's tattling or being a baby or any of a dozen other clichés.

Just in this past week, the Ninja told me about being called a triple loser, a tattletale, a crybaby, stupid, and having a kid make fun of his voice. A kid said he didn't know how to play any 'real' sports, discounting taekwondo (the Ninja is definitely challenged with gross motor skills and patience when it comes to sports). The other day they were supposed to bring a book to school, and his criteria for picking one was 'what will the other kids not make fun of?'

As much as we hear 'tell a teacher', I know it isn't the answer.

Since Ninja's best buddy moved away last summer, he hasn't replaced him with a best friend. He gets along with the Doc's son real well (who is the same age but they kept him back a year before starting school, and seems of the same maturity as the Ninja), and a pall who is a year younger, but that kids heaps verbal abuse on him as well.

In my little world, we don't name call, we aren't rude. And the Ninja is like that. But my little world is so far removed from reality. I've taught him compassion and empathy and manners and fairness and right and wrong, but I haven't taught him to stand up for himself, especially when out-numbered.

I worry a lot about these things. Obviously.

I didn't draw that unwanted attention is grade school, I was quiet and kept to myself, managed to make a couple of close friends. But by jr. high, I had tons of that unwanted attention, being singled out, being called names. And it sucked. My grades went down, I hated school. School was not a good place.

And I see Ninja drifting that way.

He needs a best friend, an ally. But I can't make one for him. He isn't close to any of the kids in his class.

It's enough to make me wish I could home-school him…protect him from everything and then have to deal with these issues when he's 19…yeah, great plan.

If I was at school more, maybe it would be a buffer, maybe it would deflect some of that negative attention. But I don't exactly have the schedule to be homeroom mom.

I've even considered changing schools and having him repeat 2^nd grade where nobody knows he was in 2^nd already. But he would know, and he wouldn't take it well. And he's smart, I'm afraid he'd do poorly because he was bored.

The Ex and I have made peace enough to discuss these things sometimes, but he is less equipped to deal with them than I am. He is so far removed from the daily business of raising a child. He has been nice in that he seems willing to defer to my judgment often…but when I don't know what to do, neither does he.

Ninja is smart, creative. And normally very happy.

So I'm going to talk with him pediatrician, tell her we don't want to consider the rigorous testing route until we've exhausted some other avenues. There are hoof-beats in the night, but before we assume horses, let's rule out zebra.

Master pulled me aside to talk Tues. night during Ninja's class. Ninja has been doing ok in class, until it's time to put on sparring gear, and then he switches to 33, like on an old record player: time just slows down for him. It can take him 20 minutes to do what other kids do in 4.

Master said he'd observed this, and was wondering if maybe there was some procrastination going on because he's scared to spar.

Geez, that's freakin' genius. I wish I'd thought of that. A few weeks ago.

We talked about how Ninja is a gentle soul, how some of the boys are just naturally aggressive, how Ninja is very afraid of getting hurt, to the point that getting hit and just being startled is enough to make him cry sometimes.

He talked about working through that with him, and I talked about trying to show him: mommy gets kicked in the head, and it might startle me but I don't get hurt really, and it's no big deal. He asked me about school and I just dumped the emotional purse out on the table (Allie Sheedy, the Breakfast Club), about how he's been getting called names, how his quirks draw attention, how his talking in class makes other kids mad, how easily he's hurt, how sensitive he is, and how sensitive I am and that's why he's learned to be sensitive, but he hasn't really had that counterbalance there to teach him how to deal with mean kids, how I am at a loss for how to teach him to deal with being a boy in 2^nd grade.

He was really nice to me (perhaps because I looked like I might start crying). He mentioned how nurturing I am and how proud I must be to have a kid that doesn't name-call and is polite and compassionate and sweet. And that almost made me cry. It was just nice to know somebody saw that, without me telling them. It was really nice to hear.

He said he really wanted me to keep him informed about what's going on with Ninja and school, etc., that he really wanted to help.

That night, Ninja came up with one of his gear complaints. Gear complaints usually involve some microscopic defect in the gear which human skin normally wouldn't detect but which is causing him unbearable pain.

Master got a razor blade out and sat down with him, and spent the next half hour shaving and carving his gear, perfecting it, listening intently to every flaw found. I really appreciated it. I know he's been dealing with kids a long time, he knows a thing or two about kids. But he's also very busy and runs 8 schools and teaches, and that he'd take that time out to focus on an over-sensitive kid with no criticism meant a lot to me.

Master asked me if the Ninja's dad was tall, if Ninja was tall for his age (3^rd time he's asked me that). He explained that height had its benefits in deflecting verbal abuse, which I agree with. Kids will mess with a smaller kid before they mess with a bigger one. Ninja is tall for his age, but the kids in his class are all older that he is; some of the boys were held back a year. One of the boys literally comes up to my nose, which makes him a solid 5 ft. tall (to Ninja's 4 ft. 1 inch). One of the girls looked like she could probably wear my most of my shirts and shoes. He isn't the littlest, but he isn't in the tallest half either.

Master told me later he had wanted to talk with me to apologize because he thinks Sir sometimes is a little heavy on the machismo. Sir comes from a very machismo-oriented culture. I told him I cringed every time he said 'boys don't cry' but I know there's a valuable lesson in there about not crying in front of kids who are going to make fun of you over things that aren't that major, a lesson I haven't been able to teach him. I logically know he has to be able to pick himself up and dust himself off, and he can't learn that if I'm always rushing to the rescue, but knowing something logically and behavior modification are two different things.

There's a term coined in the past few years, 'helicopter parents': parents who hover about their child and are over-involved, smotheringly-involved, and actually hamper the child's development.

Sometimes I think that's me. Not dating, I have ample time to stay focused on the Ninja, maybe to an unhealthy amount. I'm sure many parents hear their kid was called a name and simply respond 'just ignore it' and that's it, no obsessing or gnashing of teeth. Part of me knows I'm doing the right thing; I just worry I don't know where to draw the line. I wonder if Ninja's life wouldn't be more even-keeled if there was a man in our lives.