Oh, to describe the great surprise of routinely reading the letters to the editor column, only to find that one's own blood relation has struck enough of a chord to be published alongside the laurels, polemic and fact checking of one of the finer music & entertainment  periodicals on the newstand today (You too can include  Paste magazine among others, along with that rank and file).

Cowboys and Indians it ain't, boys and girls. Imagine now, the toy fabrications of the assault rifles in the grasp of the child sized hands replaced with fully functional,  very lethal, very real facsimilies as the now innocent are recruited to take up arms against not only Israel but also each other when maturity is inevitably reached.

Here in this land of privilege and comfort the options we have available are staggering. Some of us don't even have to be troubled with such burdens such as making informed decisions. Paid for. Done. 

The future facing many children living in this corner of the world, much like those pictured, howerver is very bleak, and with few alternatives. Most people would rather live in peace, but that can change on a dime, especially when a loved one gets picked off while playing soccer in the alleyways or blown to bits by stray mortar fire on the way back from the market.  

I know this may sound tangenital to the preceeding matters, but my only wish for everyone on this 28th birthday of mine is to step outside of themselves and observe how they conduct themselves. Check the narcicissm at the door, and that ego too. What gesture of kindess (small or large) have you performed today?

And I'm not speaking of friends and family either. No... What you need is a real challenge. They're all around. You don't know them, but they are there, plain to see... Strangers.

Now that you're outside of your comfort zone let's see what you are capable of... 

Not many people would envision goats as being potential heros or  an ambassadors of fire prevention, even; But armed with an indiscriminate palate, a tenacious appetite, and majestic goatee, we might just have a valid contender on our hands.

I'll let you decide for yourselves, but I believe a pretty strong case is made in this open letter to the LA DEPT of  RECREATION and PARKS petitioning them to consider pursut of this avenue in the wake of an increasingly all too regular wave of destructive fires in the bone dry brush covered northern hills of LA.

Particular note should be taken regarding the dubious distinction made of these goats in question being quite the "charming" beast. This is SoCal, after all; and considerable stock is placed in image, the ostentatious kind, to be more specific.

All of this taken into consideration, these goats have better be some gorgeous animals if they are to be valued at full appraisal.

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ganked from http://www.1947project.com/firegoat">www.1947project.com.

To:  City of LA/ L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks   

The citizens of Los Angeles are deeply concerned after serious wildfires in the Griffith Park and Hollywood Hills have destroyed vast swaths of urban wilderness and killed or displaced thousands of animals during their breeding season.

These fires feed upon unchecked dry undergrowth, and endanger lives, homes, historic monuments and our enjoyment of the city. It will take decades before Griffith Park is restored to its pre-fire condition.

We the undersigned demand that the City of Los Angeles and the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks respond to this continued threat by bringing in shepherds with herds of goats to graze on the dry hills, a plan previously implemented with great success by UC Berkeley in the aftermath of that community's devastating 1991 fire.

Goats are economical, ecological fire-fighting machines that produce fertilizer as they clear hills and canyons of weeds, poison oak and dry chaparral. Additionally, the animals are charming, newsworthy ambassadors for fire safety, a subject that needs to be more widely discussed.

We want to save our parks and mountains. We want goats!

Allow me to set the scene for everyone.

En-route to picking up my pre-work coffee at (insert anonymous global coffee chain) I was stopped at a light just short of the store, located across from Greenville's sprawling Pitt County Memorial Hospital. Whilst in this brief state of deferral, I had observed a man on the opposite end of the intersection, crossing with the aid of a walker, making considerable progress, no less. He was not, as would become increasingly clearer, going to reach the other end in time to beat the light.

Having crossed 3/4 of the intersection, the signal changes, granting permission for those on my side to proceed. Presumably, any driver with a modicum of sense would fall back and allow the man in question to complete his journey to across the boulevard, but the blow-hard to my right must not have recieved the memo (or rather regarded it with the cool disdain most self-absorbed twits typically come to be associated with).

My neighbor in the right lanes' pedal foot happens to be synchronized with the light. At the first sight of green incandescence, he guns it with hair-trigger abandon, only to jerk to a stop after only 20 yards upon reaching the human obstacle in the roadway. This of course prompted an appalling display of flailing limbs and foam flying from the mouth of the motorist, who had been unable to observe the pedestrian through the blinding fog of his own perfunctory myopia.

The intrepid footslogger, seemed unfazed by this infraction, and reached the opposite curb seconds later. After having being freed of this surely objectionable impediment, the impetuous motorist sped off into the distance to a nameless destination of clamorous, self-perceived importance.

The moral of this story is: DON'T BE A DICK!

Along w/ me, you too might hold some infantile belief of fat-bodied flying cherubs armed w/ arrows tipped with concentrated, brainless infatuation to deliver us from the drudgery and otherwise trite exsistence of singular being and into the supple realm of doe-eyed bliss. Suspend your disbelief; forestall your steady routine of self-flagellation for a moment and come celebrate such pureile notions of longing and desire with me while the the remainder of misguided others insipidly mire in interminable loverlorn delusion.

Smoking Popes - Rubella

Afghan Whigs - Can't Get Enough of Your Love (Barry White "Cover")

Descendents - I'm the One

Mazzy Star - Fade Into You

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