John & Belle Have A Blog

Little My

I've given Zoë her first art commission. I told her if she produced a set of 20 illustrations for Moominland Midwinter, I would buy the set. Er, take her to Toys R Us. Something. Is it wrong of me to do that? She's been practicing. Her's Little My, looking a bit uncharacteristically pensive - even Gaffsyish. So be it.

Hey, It's Friday: Friday Random Ten

Y'all know the rulez.
1. Dancing With Myself/Billy Idol (woo!)
2. Daylight/Bobby Womack (this is one of my favorite songs of all time)
3. Acts of Worship/Storm (this is off the Trance Atlantic 1 compilation, which is great but out of print, maybe...but you can buy it used. Contains Space Time Continuum's genuis "101 South of Heaven")
4. Solomon, Oratorio HWV 67: The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba/E. Power Biggs
5. Knockers/The Darkness (I love what you've done with your hair...)
6. Mexican Caravan/Butthole Surfers
7. Peter, Peter, Komm Zu Mir Zuruck!/Ute Lemper
8. Why Don't You Stay/Zodiacs
9. Beach Bunch/The High Llamas
10. Because You're Young/David Bowie
Bonus 11: Polka Dots and Moonbeams/Frank Sinatra (Frank's really poncing it up here, but I still love it.)

The Pool's In But The Patio Ain't Dry

The Rolling Stones album Tattoo You is so awesome. SO AWESOME! Sorry, I'm yelling. I've listenened to "Worried About You" 8 times today--and it's not enough. I'm going to listen to that again. Some Girls contains my single favorite later-period Stones song "Before They Make Me", but Tattoo You is the best later Stones album. It came out in 1981, too, making it strangely one of the best albums of that year even though all the other great albums released that year are punk rock (now I'm sure someone will come up with something else that I'll immediately recognize was great, like a funk or reggae album). We listened to this a lot when I was young. Casts off the disco affectation of Emotional Rescue, while retaining sinuous 70's funk underpinnings, and starts kicking your butt up and down the street with the power of rock, even when Mick Jagger is warbling all 5 minutes of the song in falsetto: suck it Prince! Also, I think Keith Richards was employing the newly developed "Raunch" pedal. (I don't think I've mentioned that you should listen to the song "Winter" off the less-than-stellar Goat's Head Soup, though I meant to. Searching for the putative post I found this old post which I quite like. I've had a blog for, like, a long time now. Odd to read stuff I'd completely forgotten about.)

What?

I find it really hard to believe that this man wasn't convicted.

A jury acquitted a convicted sex offender Monday of raping two teenage girls who police say escaped after they were left to die in an underground bunker he had built....

Authorities accused Hinson of snatching the 17-year-old girls from their bedroom last year and dragging them one at a time to the underground room, raping them and binding them with duct tape. Prosecutors said Hinson expected the girls to die because the room, under a tool shed, had no air supply.

He was charged with kidnapping, sex crimes and assault with intent to kill....

Hinson testified that the girls had consensual sex with him. He said they made up the story so they would be able to take drugs from the bunker, which he used to store marijuana....

Hinson had faced a mandatory life sentence without parole under the state's two-strikes law because of a past conviction for raping a 12-year-old girl in 1991.

The underground room was about the length and width of a mid-size car, with a ceiling about 4 1/2 feet high. Hinson testified Sunday that he had built the room behind the trailer where he lived.

Defense attorney Rick Hoefer spent much of his nearly two-hour closing argument Sunday picking apart what he called inconsistencies in the teens' testimony, including how long it took them to call 911 after their alleged escape and whether they saw Hinson with a gun.

Here's one of the accusers, speaking out after the verdict:

She told News 10 Hinson kidnapped her from her bed, tied her with duct tape, and raped her and her friend in Hinson's underground bunker.

"No girls are going to get up on the stand and lie to say a man raped them and bound them and put them down a hole and raped them and did all this disgusting stuff to them and threatened them, said he'll kill family and people they loved the most. Nobody's going to get up there and lie about that! Nobody!" she said. 

One juror said it did not make sense the girl would not wake up when he came into her room to kidnap her and her friend. But the girl says that's not her fault: "I can't help it I'm a hard sleeper; I sleep hard."

She also said she didn't scream when he came to kidnap her, "because he had a gun. He carried it everywhere he went." 

One juror said he did not believe the story being tied with duct tape, because he said it didn't have bite marks on it.

"The only duct tape bit off my hands was the duct tape around my wrist. That was the only part bit off," said the girl.

I am compelled to a certain admiration for the defense attorney, but that aside, this just seems like twelve kinds of wrong. You can read about the accused man's testimony here. If the girls had just been making up a story to cover up their stealing pot from him, then why did he agree that he had had sex with them? (Besides that he needed to account for DNA evidence, I mean.) What the victim said in the article seemed to imply that the jurors weren't informed of his previous rape conviction, can that be right? I don't really know what the rules are on that. In any case, that is one guilty-looking motherf&$%)#.

Happy Birthday Violet!

Violet turned three years old on Sunday! I can't believe my little baby is three. She claims that she's "a big girl now because she goes to school." Here are some pictures from her party. Since I'm still not up to much we didn't have lots of kids or games. On the other hand, I did make a Thomas the Tank Engine cake, molding the face out of marzipan myself. Thanks, powerful speed!

We also set up the huge Thomas set my brother so kindly gave Violet at Christmas (thereby cementing even further Violet's love for Uncle Ben). If we lived in a house with a basement it could be set up all the time, on some ping pong table. On the 19th floor...not so much.

I Blame The Patriarchy

This is one of the saddest things I've read in a long time, from an article about "honor" killings among Israeli Arabs:

Superintendent Ezra [the Jewish local police super] keeps a package of black body bags on the shelf behind his desk, below a tray for outgoing mail.

“They’re not there for nothing,” he said grimly.

“These are clever girls who write diaries and poems,” he said of those he has helped find refuge. “But once they are no longer minors, they often say they’re going back home. We say, ‘You’ll end up in one of those.’”

The clever girls who write diaries and poems, and are buried in an unmarked grave. I'm so sorry, sisters of mine.

In Siberia, Ben Waring Awesomes You

This is a picture of my brother, Space Lawyer extraordinaire, addressing some kids in Yasny. He's there working on a launch for Bigelow Aerospace. I've learned from his emails that the Russian steppe is very cold. Also, that stuff you heard about people drinking a lot of vodka over there? Totally on the level. About the kids, who were visiting the base, Ben says:

We were then asked a series of questions by the children. Some were quite easy to handle, such as "do you like children?" and "what is your favorite food?" Less easy to answer were questions such as "when was Washington, D.C. founded and how did it become the capital?" or "how high is the statue of liberty?" My favortie was "what is the average height of a skyscraper in New York City?" It seemed like that scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail: what is the average flightspeed of a sparrow?!?

While this picture was taken, Ben was teaching the local youngsters why English is awesome. Until Ben came to Yasny, they didn't even know the word awesome.

Noble Infancy

Me [talking about the Keroro video we're watching]: It says he's 'mobile infantry'.

Zoe [thoughtful]: What does 'noble infancy' mean?

In other news, the awesome powers of the Supersky Heroes have been recently matched against a sinister trio of supervillains: Rock, Paper and Scissors! [Rock can smash, Scissors can cut, and Paper can sneak into places and flatten herself against walls and stuff like that.] But Superzoë stops them, and saves a trio of girls - Fluff, Bunny and Rosita - who wandered into the wrong convention center. In the picture we see the villains before and after they get shattered, crumpled, or their blades broken off.

Ha Ha

OK, today I got a letter from the hospital where my GI specialist is, telling me that the expensive medicine I've been taking for the last 6 or so months is all being recalled because it can cause heart problems. Not actually worried about this, since the absolute risk is so low anyway, although it is a pain to have to round up all the meds I have and take them to the pharmacy for a refund. Still, I'm really starting to feel a bit put-upon. I want to complain to the management: at least 2 fewer health problems, please. Also, get well soon Woof.

Mystery Mini-Mangoes: The Tragic Dénouement

It turns out that "tastes like burning" is nature's way of telling you not to eat something. Now have hideous rashes all over so bad I'm back on the Predator. Ha ha ha. But they were so tasty!! Y'all can just go ahead and shoot me know.