Una mujer y sus dos hijos guardaron el cadáver de una anciana durante dos meses en el cuarto de baño de su vivienda, porque un consejero religioso les dijo de que resucitaría, informaron las autoridades del estado de Wisconsin (EE.UU.).

Hasta ahora se desconocen las causas de la muerte de la anciana de 90 años, identificada como Madgeline Alvina Middlesworth.

Agentes de la policía llegaron a la vivienda de la familia Lewis después de que la hermana de Middlesworth denunciara que hacía días que no sabía nada de ella.

Al principio, la mujer, identificada como Tammy Lewis, rehusó permitir la entrada de los agentes a su vivienda porque, según argumentó, debía consultar primero a su "asesor religioso".

Tras pasar a la casa, uno de los agentes abrió un armario, olió "material putrefacto" y advirtió de que había algo extraño en un cuarto que parecía ser un baño.

Lewis informó al agente de que se trataba de la anciana que había muerto hacía dos meses y que Dios le había dicho que resucitaría si rezaba mucho.

La casa también olía a incienso y madera quemada, y había reliquias por todas partes y se escuchaban himnos religiosos en un aparato radiofónico, señaló.

Según un portavoz policial del sheriff del Condado de Juneau, la dueña de la casa, de 35 años, aseguró que la anciana había muerto a comienzos de marzo cuando la ayudaba a ponerse su ropa interior.

El cadáver será sometido a una autopsia. "En este momento no sabemos cuál fue la causa de su muerte. Creemos que fue por causas naturales", dijo el portavoz policial.

Say, a doggie is nothin' if he don't have a bone
All doggie hold your bone (all doggie hold it)
A doggie is nothin' if he don't have a bone
All doggie hold your bone (all doggie hold it)

I'm not sure that one ever truly kicks back in a multi-dog household, although we do our best. From time to time it weighs on my mind that I don't keep the dogs in a typical way, with neither a quarter acre section on the far edge of the city nor a four hectare block largely leased for grazing to call my own. We don't walk the neighbourhood streets, except on carefully planned routes at certain times of day, for fear of the big dogs, off the leash, whose small-dog eating ways form part of the parcel of owner-status that you can find almost anywhere. (I have first-hand experience of this.) In many ways, the dogs live in a kind of exclusive brother-and-sisterhood of their own, fitting well with my own hermit's tendencies, and the señor's goodwill in being part of this.

They are nothing if not adaptable creatures, however: the house is their jungle gym. Even at rest they lie at multiple levels, on the floor, on chairs, on beds, along the backs of couches. Their movement about the house and section is similarly stratified, and involves leaping, scrabbling and rolling that would impress the most enthusiastic designer of obstacle courses. Within these self-generated strata are accommodated the laws of doggie behaviour; each route allows space for the obligatory bowing and scraping that must accompany a junior dog passing a senior one.

The pack itself incorporates both fixed and fluid roles. Arthur, now nearly eight, retains supremacy in all matters degustatory and manly, the most particular privilege being the right to anything edible that falls on the floor. Millie, who is four, tends senior in all other aspects: the rousing and quieting of the three junior dogs, the policing of boundaries, the settling of disagreements and the positioning of dogs proximate to people. Evie and Eddie vie close together for the via media and Fern makes her own, occasionally destructive, way. That Arthur and Eddie, two intact males, run together with little trouble, is down I think to a carefully organised household that protects Arthur's prerogatives, Millie's role in mediating contact between pups and sire and Eddie's conciliatory (or, in truth, soft) nature.

Occasionally I wish I could do more for them in the conventional dog-keeping way, and it was with this in mind that I was happy to take up the vet's suggestion of giving them brisket bones to help scrape tartar off their teeth. (This breed is susceptible to tooth and gum ailments.) This involved going to a butcher, a challenging experience for a vegetarian such as I, to be among all that meat. But the young Asian woman assisting and the butcher himself were helpful indeed—"dogs or soup?"—and I got my big bag of beef brisket bones for just two dollars. This morning I cleared out their pens of bed and breakfast, shut Arthur (who is penless) on the porch and gave each dog a bone to work. Ninety minutes of industrious chewing and scraping later, they were sated. Not much remained on the bones, even of gristle or fat.

Now they lie in the sun on their multiple levels, well content and not looking for further entertainments. The bases of each of their pens have been removed and cleaned, since though they might think it heaven to sleep in a bed smelling of meat, I suspect best practice cautions against it. I am burning incense to drive out the smell of raw meat and fat, although I imagine vacuuming will also help. Nonetheless, even if the smell were to linger, it pleases me profoundly to do something for them in accord with their doggie natures, something closer to the conventional image of dog ownership, which haunts me as an avatar from time to time in this modified environment.

Has a dog Buddha-nature?
This is the most serious question of all.
If you say yes or no,
You lose your own Buddha-nature.

(Mumon's commentary on the 無-koan)

What for us is contained within the discreet networks of plumbed rooms and stalls the dogs must do outside. With five, even dogs that are small, that which gets bagged and put out with the rubbish is considerable. This has weighed on my mind for some time: a biodegradable substance in a plastic bag, in another plastic bag, in landfill. This is without even mentioning the breath-holding necessary to avoid the general stinkiness and still the chance of finding something undesirable underfoot despite the daily discipline of cleaning the lawn and the paths.

A solution presented itself via a google search, which led me to this product. Not cheap for plastic, and various webpages offered do-it-yourself alternatives, but the principle in both cases is the same: a bucket containing an activating agent and water becomes the buried repository for waste, sitting beneath another sealed bucket with drainage holes out which the dissolved waste can be regularly flushed. The composting toilet came promptly by courier; digging the required hole was more of a challenge.

I had assumed that digging a hole would not be too taxing a job—after all, hadn't I spent my early sand-pitted years mastering such a task? Did I not, as recently as twelve years ago, dig with another friend at the beach a pit into which we put our third friend, thigh deep, then had to hastily conceive for her an exit strategy as the tide came in? Was not hole-digging merely the creation of 無?

Such ease was not to be. Many years of living largely in my head have atrophied my hole-diggin' skills. The sixty-centimetre diameter was the easy part; seventy centimetres' depth proved more elusive. In attempting to dig deeper, I dug wider. After about forty minutes I was hot and bothered and standing only up to my shins. Harvestdad—whom the record should show as a wiry retired gentleman of sixty-six years—eventually finished the job.

The instructions urged the buyer to fill the hole with stones or broken bricks, in a tone that suggested such items would be lying about the section. Standing on suburban topsoil, I was in no such situation and instead bought bags of tailings, three in total, from a garden centre. Each must have weighed about fifteen kilos. Moving them threw me back in mind to those back-care ads of the 1980s. "Bend your knees!" "Don't use your back like a crane!"

When the time came to fill the hole, the good señor and I poured the bags of stones into the void of my father's labours. They filled less than a third of the space. I bought four more bags at the garden centre, an early-morning run across town. This filled the hole perhaps half-full, high enough to sit the two buckets in their correct position. A third run was necessary to get the remainder of the stones, on which I completely exhausted the garden centre's previously substantial supply of bagged tailings, and had to shift classes of rock into the more expensive (but swankier looking) Teddington Chip. In all, fifteen bags of greywacke and quarry rock intermingled beneath the top layer of fine gravel. 無 expressed as rocks; dog toilet a-go-go!

Compared with the previous arrangement, this is a minor miracle. Waste gets scooped up from the lawn and tipped into the composting sludge, which has no odour. Permit me to re-emphasise this: ¡No Odour! Moreover, this is the end of the process, until all is flushed out (using two-bucketsful of water), now harmless, into the subsoil. No more breath-holding, no more plastic-bagging, no more rubbish bags of shame by the roadside. I feel as if I have got back my lawn. If you come to my house, you will be expected to admire this piece of the good life before anything else.

I'm Hardly Here At All

I'm not going to here attempt to link thematically what follows with what precedes it (although, really, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch: "golden lads and girls all must ..." and so on). I have been thinking about death a lot in the past two months, thoughts triggered not by the loss of anyone around me but by seeing this gallery, and this article which accompanies it. The photo gallery draws from an exhibition of hospice patients in Germany, photographed before and after their deaths by Walter Schels and interviewed by Beate Lakotta. These images haunted me, in the sense of being more than memorable: I could not shake them from my mind, seeing them—and continuing to see them—at all kinds of moments across waking and sleeping. More than this, they frightened me, and made me feel that my day-to-day life is full of hubris. The terminal illnesses to which these participants succumbed took them apart, piece by piece, and left them in many cases, shell-like, hollowed.

I cannot say why this series troubles me so. Both harvestmother's parents suffered chronically in the years before their death. In particular, I saw my grandmother debilitated much as the subjects of the exhibition were debilitated, and yet it did not distress me: she was as she was and I loved her. Perhaps it is the very artfulness of the images: shot in black-and-white, the subject's features, post-mortem, appearing in relief or in deep shadow (the article further relates how the shots were often hastily constructed). These people died with dignity, as my own grandparents did, and yet their deaths here recorded disturb me. I wonder if it is because the images solicit the viewer's identification: these people, hitherto unknown, are not they, the dying, but we, the dying. The young mother, forty-four at her death, appears before my eyes as I go to sleep.

I think, too, the resonance of this series of images for me, and the pity and terror they inspire, relates to the changes in my own life. The household-building I am enjoying with the señor changes the way I feel about living. Not only do I want to live for the sake of life, but for the sake of someone else, whom I also want to thrive for my sake. With attachment, as wise minds know, comes suffering, or at least the shadow of suffering, and as my stake in life increases the tragedy of its eventual loss increases too.

This brings me to a commonplace I have heard in many contexts: if one wants a spiritual practice, or perhaps intellectual practice, for those of us who tread uncomfortably around the notion of the spiritual, then one has to put it in place before one needs it. I'm not thinking of such an attitude as a protection agent against the mental and physical ravages of the chronic illnesses by which so many of us will be felled, but rather as a way of coping with these changes. I'm not sure that my grandmother's faith helped her as much in facing death as she thought it might, but it laid a ground of acceptance and hopefulness so that when she finally died it was with grace and peace. But what options for those of us who are not people of faith?

What turns over in my mind particularly is the need for some kind of meditative practice, some way of being, that can survive the loss of lightning-fast reason and those variants of rapier wit on which so many of us who make our living by thinking rely. If without my intellect I am nothing, and if demographics and statistics suggest that I may well spend some part of my life with diminished capacity, then I need something to take the place of that intellect if I don't want to fall apart before I fall apart. Even the last few days, mind flung wide by something as simple as a gastoenteritic ailment, have reminded me of the need for this.

What I am thinking of, then, is fragments of fragments*, of meditation. I kept a cobbled-together Buddhist practice in the last days of my thesis, some eight years ago now, but pulled back as I read more about theocracy and mysticism, saw neo-Orientalism in the liberal west's worship of the religion's eastern practitioners. To take part in Buddhism as a religion seemed to mean being perpetually a kind of cultural tourist, an awkward interloper, and to approach it religiously was also difficult thanks to my well-established aversion to religion anyway.

But meditation is a practice, a thing in itself as well part of religion and culture, and the quieting of the mind it brings, the clearing of focus and the shaking off of excesses of language, desire and attachment need not demand that I run flat-footed into others' culture or embrace the religious politics of different states and quasi-states. I've seen the folk Buddhism of ordinary people in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Kyoto and I've sat in Zen gardens in the latter two cities where the practice of the monks was communicated in the very shaping of the landscape. The good luck charms are indeed charming, but even these are underpinned by hard mental labour, and of that I'm not afraid.

So it's back to my small knowledge of Zen, back to slices of translations of selected sutras, back to Buddhism: Plain and Simple in which an unimpressed American practitioner admonishes his readers for their lack of fundamental awareness of themselves, of the world. This, then, to lay retrospectively a mind-clearing foundation under all my fancy thinking, so that when the day comes that the thinking itself is falling away, I have something clear-minded in all my befuddlement with which to content myself. It might be too late to seek that state of "complete detachment" that a Buddhist subject of Schels expresses as her deathly goal, but if it's to 無 I'm bound then there are things I can do to better fit that space.

Who owns that space?
Declare it if you dare tonight
Don't let the moment pass
Until another day

Bright lights dissolve
Like sugar deep inside you now
And still the rain keeps coming down
I'm hardly here at all

And everything's gone quiet now
I'm hardly here at all

("Edible Flowers", the Finn Brothers)

* Readers unsure how I feel about fragments may like to refer hither, thither, hither and, for some literary theory, thither.

In 1993, my wife Jenny and I bought a small, beautiful, mid-century modern architectural house in the hills of Silver Lake, an enclave of East Los Angeles. We became aware that the previous owners, Dr Herbert and Mrs Freda Alexander, had lived for the previous 15 years with an awful family secret: their daughter Phyllis, son-in-law Gene Chaikin and two teenage grandchildren had died with 914 other members of Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple movement in the infamous Jonestown mass-murder/suicides of 18 November 1978. In an orderly manner, the Jonestown community, which included 250 children, had ingested a cocktail consisting of fruit punch, cyanide and sedatives. Infants, children and others unwilling to drink the liquid had it forced down their throats by syringe. Our estate agent mentioned that a cache of correspondence might have been left somewhere in the house by the Alexanders; we looked but found nothing until, earlier this year, a handy- man emerged from the foundations with a battered vinyl briefcase. In the briefcase were letters written to her parents from Phyllis in Jonestown. These and documents I found in the FBI evidence files chart Phyllis Chaikin’s strange descent from contented middle-class family life to fanaticism and infanticide.

Phyllis Alexander was born in 1939, the same year her parents commissioned the house from the architect Harwell H. Harris. Herbert and Freda Alexander were socialist intellectuals, part of a Silver Lake clique that included members of the blacklisted ‘Hollywood Ten’. There is no indication that Phyllis’s childhood was anything but happy, and her letters to her parents are full of respect and affection. After attending the University of California and studying history under her father at Los Angeles City College, Phyllis married Eugene Chaikin, another ‘red diaper baby’ whose family had been under scrutiny by the FBI for suspected communist sympathies. Phyllis became a kindergarten teacher; Gene practised real estate law. They settled in the suburban San Fernando Valley and in 1961 their daughter Gail was born, their son David in 1963. By the time they met Jim Jones in 1972 they had been happily married for 12 years.

Lengthy...BUT worth the read...

The Spectator UK

In my own family I have been the Matriarch for many years, even over my own mother strangely enough.  I don't quite know how that has happened to be honest.  I just know what is.  They all look to me in each crisis for the strength and the guidance and wisdom. 

They all expect that I will always be the bigger person, and not ever have any human issues myself.  What a crock!  Not only do they look to me for wisdom and strength and ASK me my advice, but they also get aggravated by it.  They see me as interfering in their lives, looking down on them, and being critical of their personal choices. 

My thinking is, that I can't stand to sit back and watch a child stick its finger in the light socket over and over and over again.  I try to stay silent as long as possible, but there comes a time to step forward when asked and say hey, have you considered doing it this way?  Funny thing advice, people always ask for it, but never REALLY want it, nor do they take it.  They also have the guilt nagging them because they KNOW you are right, so they are even more aggravated with you when they fall flat on their faces for ignoring you.

My brothers have told me that they have an issue with me over this constantly.  I listened politely and openly to try and find the validity of their concerns.  Obviously if there is more than one saying it, it must have some basis of fact.  I accept that, and need to look at it.  I need to view my actions and revise my thought processes. 

All that being said however, I think it is incredibly interesting how I am told to forgive people for HUGE things against me, yet the same isn't expected of them towards me, even though my transgressions against them on scale are much much smaller.  I am ALWAYS supposed to be the bigger person, simply because I am me.  Who the heck ever made that rule I wonder?  I mean, did they take a vote out there, and decide that some of us have to ALWAYS be the fricking grown ups or what?

Its a terrible position to be in.  The one who always takes charge.  The one who steps up to the plate and puts up with the drama of everyone's life.  Someone HAS to do it though.  God charges us with this.  It isn't really something that is a conscious choice on anyone's part.  It is what it is. 

The thing I wonder though is why is it that people get upset at the people who do "Step Up" when they themselves are unwilling to do so?  Why is it that they get angry when decisions are made?  If you don't vote, don't bitch about the outcome! 

I also think it is interesting about communication. How many times I have personally tried to communicate what is going on with various things to find indifference and apathy, only later to be accused of trying to withhold information.  How does that exactly happen I wonder?  No one ever wants to seem to know the details, especially if they are painful.  Of course too you are charged with the responsibility of getting the information acurately reported to them.  You don't want to give wrong information, because then you are accused of exaggeration and hysteria.  So basically, you are damned if you do, damned if you don't!

At times, Id like to throw my hands up in the air and say "I quit".  I just want to live my own quiet little zen life and be done with it.  I have a happy life and a happy marriage.  I live responsibly and have responsible loving friends.  Do I really need all of the rest of this??  Sheesh.

Of course, it comes down to blood is thicker than water, and we all have a role to play in this life,  I guess.

It really makes me appreciate my husband more and more, and the happy stable life I have with him.

our intimate liquids on

display in clear plastic bags

and translucent cylinders?

Siphoned, plumbed, arranged around us?

.

With wild substances collected, measured and

hung within sight of an

adjustable bed?

.

Is this how we go? Yes.

With a constellation of words

floating lazily around the head.

No. With what has not been

said lingering, drifting.

Carnival goldfish dead

bobbing in a sandwich bag

of water.

It shows in the extended clip that Mark Whalberg really sucks at acting in this flick. I mean the delivery is reminiscent to a 7 year old acting in his firs commercial.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809921595/video/7827805

"Why are you giving me one piece of useless information at a time, you can't just leave us here!" Sir, we have lost contact...dum dum dum to everyone!

Lame

BTW the thing that is causing all this mass hysteria and weird things is ready for it...................

All the plants and green lovely trees on our earth, they are letting off some gas that is driving the humans crazy and making them injure or kill themselves! Good one M. Night! Good one!

You'll thank me later when you don't go see this movie!

That night when I was praying, I was telling God how sad I was for her. But then God gave me this image of her laughing, skipping, and playing in heaven. This made me smile. I realized she was much better off in heaven, free to be a little girl, happy, well, and energetic. So the next day at dinner I told the girls about this, and they both said, "And she has hair!" And I was like, "You're right! I'm sure she does have hair!" God had not shown me that part, but He showed it to my girls! How sweet!

One of the customers happened to be the artist who is responsible for all the meaningless paintings inside our coffeeshop. I couldn't help but notice the way she casually glossed over the bird incident. She closed herself off to it, preferring to ignore the violent nature of the universe. She even said something about the bird - I forgot what she said, but it was disrespectful. So I told her that if she were to paint things like birds braining themselves on coffeeshop windows, then maybe her art wouldn't suck so hard.

Title: The Fall Of Ideals
Artist: All That Remains
Genre: Metalcore, Deathcore
Tracks: 11
Runtime: 39 minutes

Initial Appeal:
With the song "Six" appearing on Guitar Hero II, All That Remains has enjoyed significant exposure and success. Initially, I expected the album to be quite technical (Of which it was) due to Oli Herbert (Lead Guitar) being a guitar instructor. I have had several recommendations to pick up the album, and upon finally caving in and doing so, I'm glad I got the album.

Filled within the 11 tracks is pure -core heaven. Great break-downs, great guitar solos, great riffs, and nice, interesting vocals. This album was definetly hyped up to the max, of which it delivered.

I'd give the Initial Appeal a 10/10.

Creativity:
Upon hearing "Six" in Guitar Hero II (Which basically turned me onto ATR), I liked their music. Upon downloading their album, I was quite intrigued by how different each track sounds. For a genre that gets over-done poorly day after day, they provide a new spin and take on it.

I'll analyze the guitar tracks first. To begin, Oli Herbert and Mike Martin are an amazing duo. Their harmonizing solos and killer riffs provide an amazing feeling of intensity (More on that later) that are mixed perfectly with the other tracks. Each track has a smooth, easy, and complex solo that blends very well with the rest of the song. Overall, their guitar work is quite impressive (With great tone), and I look forward to seeing what else Herbert and Martin do together.

With the guitars done, I'll go onto the bass tracks. They're quite hard to hear, which is a shame because Jeanne Sagan really seems to come up with some great bass grooves. However, when you can hear them, she dominates the track very well. They're clean, crisp, and bright.

Drums; Oh boy, where to begin. The drums are quite aggressive and fast. From 32nd note double bass and nice, jammy grooves, Jason Costa does quite the job in terms of changing things up and making his parts quite complex and fun to listen too. I often find myself playing air drums to his parts. A must learn for any aspiring drummer.

And onto vocals/lyrics. Phil Labonte is a classically trained vocalist (By none other than the Queen of Scream, Melissa Crosse) who just couldn't find the right act. After several stints with other major bands, he finally settled into Massachusetts-based All That Remains. His voice varies from harsh growls and guttural vocals to clean singing and piercing screams. Overall, his voice adds an edge to the music previously unknown. I often find myself shivering after hearing a great passage in a song.

Labonte's lyrics are very creative in terms of not sticking to the "Emo" stereotype, and often have to do with self-empowerment or dreams. If I had to guess, they're inspired personally by his experiences, which adds to the overall personality of the album. In a rather short summary, each song seems to be a strange metered poem. Quite interesting to read and interpret, if you're into that.

Overall, the creativity gets a 10/10. The tracks are mixed and mastered wonderfully, with each new song providing a new journey to an emotional mecca. Great tone, great drumming, great vocals, and great lyrics all lend to the powerful 10 this album gets in my book. A must for those seeking something new.

Re-playability:
So, with me gushing over this band's talent enough, let's analyze the music for a moment. I feel this album is really geared towards musicians more than just listeners. The solos may seem boring to those who don't comprehend the talent and dedication it takes to create such a complex arrangement. Because of the above stated fact, I'm docking points off the re-playability. Some people just don't like guitar/drum solos (As crazy as that sounds).

I'd give the re-playability factor a 8.5/10. Instrument solos dominate large portions of the album, and to those who like vocals/lyrics, it may not interest them as much.

Emotional Value:
From lyrics that suggest some hidden meaning underneath the inspirational messages, to guitar solos that have such angst and aggression, one would have to be dead inside not to pick up on the emotion poured into this album. Each track easily paints a picture in my mind of an event happening, which I love in albums.

With that being said, if growling and screaming isn't your thing, then you might not feel the anger that Labonte and his crew try to put forth. I suppose it's all relative to what your tastes really are.

I give the emotional value of this album a 6.5/10. To some, they can convey a feeling of hatred against the world, or insecurity amongst themselves, but to others, they might just be another pissed off group of adults.

Album Art/Video:
The cover art depicts a person smearing their blood onto a stone wall, which seems rather cliche, and, in my opinion, fails to portray "The fall of ideals". Perhaps they just wanted something generic for the cover, or maybe I'm just missing some subtle detail.

Overall, I'd give the cover art a 2.5/10. It doesn't portray any real meaning other than "looking cool". However, it is a little appealing on the eyes, so that's its saving factor.

Overall:
This album is well put together in my opinion. The tracks are tight and clean, and they make you want more. I would recommend this album to anyone interested in "heavier" music. Not much more to say than that. Definetly a must for musicians to listen to though.

Overall, I'd recommend buying this album if you play an instrument, or are into the -core scene. 8/10. Great songs, great work, but the album art bothers me a lot for some reason, and the fact that it's a rather short album makes me hesitant to spend the money required for buying it.

I've been hanging out with this one girl a bit. Not exactly every day or anything, but you know, from time to time. Anyway, the other day she told me she was dead. "In case you hadn't noticed" she said. I had, of course. You would too, if you got to know her. It's not like the dead look any different from the rest of us, but it's not that hard to tell either. She's never in a hurry, never worried at all. And she'll spend so much time just hanging out and talking, I knew she had to be dead. Fortunately her telling me didn't make it all weird, and we talked just long enough for me to be late to class. Hopefully she'll be around a while longer, but it's one of those things you don't really ask friends.

Barbarella is famous for a sequence in which Fonda undresses in zero gravity during the opening credits. It also stars Milo O'Shea as Durand-Durand ( Yes, the 80's band Duran-Duran got their name from this film) and John Phillip Law as the blind angel, Pygar.

Tall, blond stage and screen actor John Phillip Law has taken his Final Taxi at the age of 70.

Born in Los Angeles on September 7, 1937, Law was the son of Los Angeles County deputy sheriff John Law and actress Phyllis Sallee. He grew up on Hollywood studio back lots and was a second-generation graduate of Hollywood High. While at the University of Hawaii he took drama classes and decided to become an actor.

Moving to New York in the early 1960s, made his Broadway debut in Garson Kanin's "Come One Strong" with Van Johnson and Carroll Baker. He then appeared in the original New York production of "The Changeling" with Fay Dunaway at Lincoln Center. He stalked the stage in two productions of "Dracula," and won the hearts of children as The Aviator in "The Little Prince."

Going to Europe, Law worked in several Italian films, where director Norman Jewison spotted him. Law's star rose when Jewison cast him as young Soviet submariner Alexei Kolchin, who successfully romanced a teenage babysitter in 1966's "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming", a 1966 Cold War comedy set in New England.

The following year, the role earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer - Male. Also in 1967, he received fifth place in the Golden Laurel nominations for Male New Face. Law became a sex symbol in the 1960s. He was a VIP guest at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion and in Hollywood society.

In 1968,Law next gained fame as bronzed angel Pygar in "Barbarella", Roger Vadim's science-fiction fantasy starring Fonda, who was married to the director at the time. Wearing huge, feathery wings, Pygar protected Fonda's gun-toting, go-go-booted heroine in outer space.

His subsequent films included "Hurry Sundown" (1967), "The Sergeant" (1968 ) opposite Rod Steiger, and "The Red Baron" (1970). Law starred in the 1971 flop "The Love Machine" (based on Jacqueline Susann's pulp novel) as ruthless Robin Stone.

Law starred in more than 50 films produced in over 20 countries. He appeared in many action-adventure movies, including "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (1974), "The Cassandra Crossing" (1977) and "Tarzan the Ape Man" (1981). Other movies included "Danger Diabolik", "The Hawaiians" and "Death Rides A Horse."

Law appeared opposite numerous distinguished European and U.S. actors, including Alan Arkin, Claudia Cardinale, Bo Derek, Ava Gardner, Mel Gibson, Richard Harris, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, Sophia Loren, Groucho Marx, Sam Neil, Anthony Quinn, George Raft and Ugo Tognazzi. He worked for such noted producers and directors as Robert Wise, Otto Preminger, Carlo Ponti, Franco Rossi, Dino De Laurentiis, George Cosmatos and Dennis Hopper.

In television, guest-starred as Jim Grainger (Cricket's father) on the daytime TV drama "The Young and the Restless."

As his career began in the 1960s, Law lived in a 1924 Los Feliz mansion with brother Tom, a former road manager for Peter, Paul and Mary. The two brothers made the residence -- known as the Castle -- a gathering place for such up-and-coming pop singers and artists as Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and Tiny Tim. The experience was documented in the 1987 photo and text collection Flashing on the Sixties by Tom's former wife, Lisa Law.

In 1997, Law had a rare turn in cartoons in episodes of "Spider-Man: The Animated Series", guesting as the Cat/John Hardesky.

In 2001 he appeared in Roman Coppola's directorial debut "CQ", a homage to the Italian spy/sci-fi B-movies in which Law often starred during the 1960s

Of course some of you cynics out there would find profiting off a family tragedy disdainful and manipulative. And I would agree... though I think the thing that pardons Calvin Trillin (besides the fact that he's Calvin Trillin) is that after reading the book, you see that he has actually not profited at all--and he knows it.

The tenderness with which he recounts Alice Trillin really seeps off the page.  He really adores her.  And the heartbreak of losing her somehow breaks the readers hearts as well.  Whether it's sheer human sympathy for Mr. Trillin at his loss of an amazing woman, caretaker, and companion, or how it touches our own soft-and-squishy feelings for people in our own lives, or both--I'm not sure--it really proves that we are sentient beings after all. 

I'm tempted to say that he did all of that unintentionally.  That he simply needed to be poked for all his kindest words to spill out onto paper.  Though, I highly doubt that he'd only reserved 78 pages worth of words for Alice--especially if any of those words truly described his love for her.  I'm more likely to defend that the 78 pages were all he could eke out without her presence as an inspiration.  Though, they are a lovely set of pages written with humor and highest adoration of a man to his muse.

On a lighter note I've had time to think through yesterdays events (thanks Xanax).  I'm trying to be positive and realize that changes in my life are new beginnings and each will have their own trials and tribulations.  So today I have my game face one, bring it.

Bad command or filename.

Tomorrow fails to exist.

Sam Hunt pressed a button under his desk and opened a secret panel in the wall of his office. The compartment contained a thumbprint scanner and a numerical keypad and Sam tapped in the ten digit figure (Pi to the eighth digit) with his left hand while resting the thumb of his right on the mirrored plate. A larger panel slid open and he looked at the open pages of Roberts’ Treatise on Animated Figures under its halo of parchment-safe lighting.

A second ten digit code allowed him physical access and he donned a pair of white cotton gloves from his pocket. You could never be too careful with pages of this age; they were as likely to crumble under the slightest touch as reveal their centuries-old secrets.

It might have seemed a little odd for the director of a cutting-edge tech design company to be poring over a sixteenth century tome on the magical creatures often referred to as homunculi but Sam had found it invaluable in his private research. He’d purchased it from the antiquarian bookshop in the Shambles. Not personally, of course. He had met the owner before and would rather not have Harold Waterman be aware of his interest in such things. The tome had been purchased seven weeks ago by Steven Lowry, one of the department chiefs who lived alone since his divorce from a beautiful wife. Sam could attest to how pretty Pennie Lowry – now Pennie Black – was. He’d seen her often enough through the concealed cameras in her flat.

Sam cleared his projects table and laid the tome down. He wanted to check the sigils to be inscribed on a homunculus one last time before committing them to the acid etching bath. Scanning the pages – even with the very latest in billion pixel scanners, sometimes missed the nuances that a trained eye could spot. Using a jeweller’s lens, Sam checked the seven plates against their counterparts in the book.

All seven were perfect replicas of the illustrations, even down to the bloodletting pattern which he hoped wouldn’t be necessary but had a contingency plan just in case. He stacked the seven plates carefully at the back of the desk. There were only a few steps to go now. As soon as he had the activation sigil he’d be ready to produce the prototype and if that went well the Twilight 3000 would go into mass production. The ideal servant for the man who thought he had everything.

The flicker of movement distracted him. There were two men in Pennie Black’s apartment looking for something. Sam frowned. He didn’t recognise them, but was he supposed to recognise thugs? The man in the bar had been adamant that her place would be turned over and the missing pages of the book returned to him within twenty four hours, so he shouldn’t be surprised by their appearance now. He couldn’t help the feeling that there was something wrong. At the very least, he hadn’t expected them to ransack her place in broad daylight.

Sam watched the monitor, his finger still marking the place in the book. It wasn’t that he’d recognise the two thugs – even if he saw them in the street he couldn’t acknowledge them without letting slip he’d got the apartment wired – but he thought he’d hired a professional businessman to do the job. He wanted to scare the woman, not terrorise her. These looked like common criminals, an observation confirmed when he saw them casually smash a seventeenth century vase.

There was, he was dismayed to see, no detailed search of the premises to look for the missing page of the tome. It was a long shot that Steven had entrusted his ex-wife to keeping it but he’d had every inch of the department head’s house examined without its retrieval.

It was just as well Lowry had lived alone, no-one had queried his absence over the last few days. It had taken Sam six weeks to discover the crucial pages were missing and when he confronted Lowry about it the man had laughed in his face and held them for ransom.

He wasn’t laughing now. Now he was in laboratory five, helping Sam with his research. Sam smiled to himself and turned away from the monitor. Steven would be helping him very soon. According to Roberts’ Treatise, the construction of a homunculus required the use of a carefully prepared bone to tie the spirit of the victim into the artefact. In the book’s examples, the text referred to the finger bones of thieves, since these were, at the time, easy enough for the budding necromancer to obtain, but those were for homunculi no larger than a man’s fist. Anything larger would be difficult to conceal.

Sam had a different view. What could not be hidden in shadow was better concealed in light. The homunculi he was designing would be six to seven feet in height and hidden in plain view. Twilight Robotics would soon have a new – and very visible – product line.

All Sam needed were those missing pages.

He put the book away again, locking it into the hermetically sealed viewing box with more care than he took over a delicate piece of electronics. When it was safely under lock and key he stripped off the gloves and dropped them in the incinerator rubbish. He reached for the phone and dialled an internal number.

“Security.”

“Winston? It’s Sam, mate. Listen. Could you do me a favour?”

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Has Steven Lowry come in today? I need his help on a project.”

“He’s in the building, sir.” Sam could hear Winston flicking through the signing-in book. “He’s hasn’t left the building in days.”

“Are you sure?” Sam smiled. Blame it on Security -- it always worked. “Would you instigate a building search? It’s vital that I speak to him.”

“Will do, sir. His pass has got a GPS embedded in it.”

“Excellent. I’ll authorise any expenditure. Just send me the dockets.”

“Yes sir.” Winston’s voice changed to one of familiarity. “You still up for Friday night?”

“Friday? What’s Friday?”

“Only your stag do, Sam. You can’t have forgotten you’re marrying my sister.”

Sam forced out a laugh. “Of course not. Yeah. Friday’s good.” He put down the receiver. All was going to plan. If his contact had done his job, Steven Lowry’s pass

should be hidden in Pennie Lowry’s flat, implicating her in his disappearance.

Laboratory Five was a short elevator ride directly beneath his office. The dismembered remains of Steven Lowry lay in a pentagram etched in the floor of the area, the lines joining the points, and the protective circle, filled with a pink gel that was the product of Sam’s inventiveness; a mixture of blood, salt and holy water, bound together with the plasticising agent used to preserve dead tissue.

What little flesh remaining on the bones was being eaten away by a mass of maggots, each one, when Sam dared to look, with his own face. It was a cruel joke on the part of his servant, Keritel, who leered at him from the top of the skull, etching pen in hand.

“Isn’t it finished yet?” Sam scowled at the tiny demon from the safety outside the circle.

“Craftsman ship, mate.” Keritel licked the sharpened steel point and scored another line, nudging one of the maggots out of the way first.

“What?” Sam frowned. “What about it?”

“Craftsmanship. I’m a craftsman. You can’t rush a binding spell, mate. Rush a binding spell and it won’t last at all. Do it right and it’ll last millennia. I made one of these for Enoch, you know.

“Enoch? The comedian?”

“Don’t be facetious. Enoch was the grandson of Adam,” said Keritel. “I bound the spirit of Mahalaleel for him and it still exists to this day.”

“Really?” Sam sat on the floor at a safe distance from the circle. “How long ago was that?”

“In your time?” Keritel glanced up from his work. “Five thousand, three hundred and forty seven years. I could give you the days too, if you like.”

“No, that’s okay.” Sam watched a maggot break away from the mass and inch its way toward him like an upwardly-mobile Subutteo player. “Where is it now, this bound spirit?”

“Boston, in the New World.” Keritel smiled and rubbed at his etched lines with his finger. “There,” he said. “That’s Eringard, the seventeenth sigil, in place.”

“How many more?” asked Sam. The maggot was still coming. It was over half way but still a good three feet from the circle.

“Fourteen.” Keritel picked up a cloth and rubbed at the skull, then used his scribing tool to tidy up the sigil where the vertical line met the loop of the flourish. “Thirty one, see, the number of the ostraca of the Horn of God.”

“I see.” Sam nodded, not wishing to appear ignorant. There were limits to the data implant he’d found when he took the position of Director of Twilight. However much it advanced his IQ, it didn’t supply him with esoteric knowledge. He relied on books and this little fellow for that. “And how much longer will that take?”

“A day, maybe two.” Keritel laughed. “You wouldn’t want a rush job that only bound a spirit for a month or two, would you?”

“Yes.” The maggot had reached the perimeter of the pentacle now and reared up, as if seeking out the owner of its face. “A month or two would be just fine for the prototype. I need to know what he did with the missing pages. Then I can get on with the project.”

“Fair enough.” The demon picked up the skull, dusted off the remaining maggots, and curled his legs around it. “In that case it’ll be finished in the morning.”

“Excellent.” Sam watched as the maggot fell into the magic circle and vapourised. “I’ll return tomorrow then.”

He left the tiny demon assembling a range of miniature power tools and muttering ‘there’s just no respect for craftsmanship these days’ and crossed to the other side of the workroom, where a large furnace dominated the area. He fixed the etched plates in place and entered the adjustments into the master control unit. Once he had the skull prepared all he needed was the activation sigil and his creation would be ready.

“This time tomorrow,” he said, peering through the glass inspection panel. “This time tomorrow could see the dawn of a new era.”

“Hunt?” called the demon.

Sam hurried over but remembered to stop before her crossed the protective circle. “What is it?” he said. “Have you finished?”

“Not yet.” Keritel lifted up a pair of safety glasses. “I could hear you talking to yourself,” he said. “Did you know that was a sign of megalomania?”

“Is it?” Sam’s smile was as wide as those of the maggots. “Is it megalomania when you really are ruler of the world?”

“You’ll be giggling next,” warned Keritel. “You mark my words. I’d sign myself in at the Loony Tune hospital if I was you, before it starts. Otherwise you’ll start rubbing your hands together and then where will we be?”

“What do you care?” Sam said. “You get my soul either way.”

“It’s quality, innit?” The demon laid his miniature drill down. “Look at it from my point of view. Sane, homicidal scientist. Eternal torment and servitude to an imp, or insane homicidal scientist and I barely even get a credit for you.”

Sam scowled. “Just do your job, demon. Let me be the judge of my sanity.”

“You can’t though, can you? It’s not like you’re impartial, is it? You can keep declaring you’re sane while you wash your todger in sulphuric acid and you’ll have what you think is a very good reason for doing it.”

Sam laughed. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’m perfectly lucid. Now if you’ll excuse me…” he turned and headed back to the elevator without completing the sentence.

Keritel watched him step in and the doors close. He pressed the trigger on the drill, relieved that it started at once with a full battery charge. Trying to thread a power cable through a pentagram was a nightmare. He took his finger off the trigger again, allowing the drill to power down, as he looked thoughtfully at the lift.

Sam Hunt was sexually repressed.

CRINGE-WORTHY!

He just might have pulled it off were it not for some quick-thinking, do-gooder tree service guys who shut down the industrial-sized wood shipper just after suicide man dove in head first.

Yes, you read that right ... they shut it off just after he dove in head first.

::: don't think Band-Aid makes anything for that :::

As you guessed, the man suffered 'severe, life-threatening injuries to his head and torso' and is now an ICU patient at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

The local teevee station, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, says it doesn't normally report suicides, but since the incident took place in a public area they figured, 'aww shit, what the heck'.
As an added bonus, a hardware store’s surveillance camera may have captured the event on tape.

Any guesses on how long before the station has a second helping of 'aww shit, what the heck' and airs that mess?

The blood tests haven’t come back yet, but I guess I knew.  I knew it when I looked into my doctors eyes.  In fact, while not exactly a hypochondriac, I guess I knew it all along.

The prognosis was a little fuzzy.  It might be today, it might be awhile from now.  He was certain.

I am struck now with what to do.  Do I quit my job and live large for my remaining days?  Do I spend my time in the chapel hoping to improve my odds?  Maybe it’s time to make amends with all those I’ve harmed. 

I will probably plod along as I have for my first forty-three years.  I suppose I’ll take time to smell the roses, enjoy the sunsets, hug my loved ones.  I guess I don’t expect a dramatic change in lifestyle.

I’m told I am improve my condition by eating better, sleeping more, not letting the small things bother me.  I guess that would have been the same advice if I wasn’t dying but now that I know, I guess I’ll re-examine my lifestyle and potentially prolong the quantity and quality of life.

Don’t get all upset.  I am just one person.  People die every day.  Life will go own well with or without me.  I’ll keep my head up and try to appreciate the days I have available and I would implore you to do the same even though I’ve burdened you with my awful situation.

What would you do if you where given a lethal diagnosis?  What would you do if you were at the doctor this morning and he told you that you would probably die in around 35 or so years from now? 

Lots of familiar faces, cousins I have since worked out I have 11 or perhaps 12 on Dad's side of the family and I know the names of just 8 of them. One face I'd seen at another funeral some years back was today pointed out to me as being a cousin which I never realised before. It's kind of weird going to funerals with family who you know nothing about. I really only know four of them on a personal level, two because I was around them when there mother was sick and died when they where kids and the other two because they where especially close to my Nanna having had her living with her the past number of years, the rest are strangers many with kids of there own who are now teenagers. That was a bit freaky since I remember them when they where kids and my Nanna doting over her first Great-Grand Children and now they are young adults, I am beginning to feel old.

Fair play to Dad's sister she did a good job in organising and planning it and it went smooth, we left her house for a church service, then drove past the ground of Everton onto the crematorium for another service and the committal and then on to a pub which put on a buffet. Sadly the pub was not much cop if I am honest but apparently the one she wanted she couldn't get, the buffet was poor quality and if you where a veggie then you stood no chance. Instead I choose to just drink bottle of Smirnoff Ice until we left just before 12.30pm. We where home just after 1.30pm, no problems with traffic coming back. There really didn't seem much point in stopping, I have my reasons for this and besides Dad couldn't exactly drink with driving home.

I could say a lot more but let's not go there, families can be strange things at times and I have to admit I don't feel part of that family which is a shame because I would like to get to know them a lot better. I have a funny feeling it's going to be a very long time till we see each other again, if I ever do.

Open thread: fire away, and fall back.

As predicted, survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which ravaged lower Burma on May 2 and 3, are no longer surviving.

Not only in the worst-hit delta areas but also in places close to Rangoon people are suffering from illnesses brought on by dirty water, lack of food and exposure to the elements.

From Rule of Lords. Go, read more here: "Preventable Deaths, Global Consequences"

I can understand family treasures of sentimental value.  Things that should be passed down through generations.  But things of monetary value which will be consumed as such are completely different.  No one should automatically EXPECT anything. 

I have found the saddest situation in my own family.  Greed has raised its ugly head.  Honestly if you would have told me this would have happened, I would have called you a liar and laughed in your face.  Never in a million years would I have believed it possible. 

People feel OWED.  Owed for what I wonder?  No one but me has ever had to do any care for my mother.  They never supported her financially or emotionally.  Many many holidays she spent alone with my Auntie Lou because they did not make her a priority.  So, exactly why would they be owed anything?

My mother worked 12 hours a day for as long as I can remember doing retail sales to support us growing up. She was never extravagant in her spending and always saved for her retirement from day one.  She has what she has because of the sweat off her back to get it.  No one gave her a thing.  She did inherit a bit from her mother when she died, but that wasn't significant in the grand scale.  So this being the case, exactly why does she owe ANYONE a thing?  As far as I am concerned, she can burn it, donate it, flush it down the toilet, dance on it, whatever.  Its hers to do with as she sees fit.  She raised me, loved me, and gave generously to me during my life.  She owes me nothing more.

Saying that, I don't really get it when parents don't leave their children anything.  Especially if the children are good people and are living good, healthy, worthwhile lives.  My friend who is staying with me, her in-laws puzzle me to the extreme.  My friend and her husband are WONDERFUL people.  They have raised amazing children.  They have worked very hard in their lives.  Luck has not been on their side.  If I told you what I'm talking about, you would say "OK, you are right.. this is out of their control".  Anyway, both of her in-laws are ridiculously wealthy.  This is their only son.  My friends have ZERO greed in their hearts or souls.  They just aren't built that way.  But his parents treat them as though they are the money grabbing-est people on the planet and it totally affects their relationship.  My friend and her husband have said to his parents, "Please don't leave us anything so that we can just enjoy our relationship with you while you are here and not have you be worried that we are only after the money".  That is how bad it is. 

Why do people become this way?  Why does greed and projection of greed happen in families?  My God, how pathetic! 

At times through this experience, I have said to my mother "Look, I don't need anything, just leave it to everyone else".  It has become that ridiculous.  I have many of my great grandmother's treasures which are of family and sentimental value.  I am the guardian and custodian of these treasures for my niece Alex to have some day, to be passed to her children. 

I am so disappointed and heartbroken.  Not only am I dealing with the heartbreak of losing my mother, but Im having to place protections in her estate plan against greed.  It makes me sick to my stomach.  It strips my inner soul of its peace.  This last week has been the most horrible of my entire life with this stuff coming to light. 

I want to cry and cry over it, but I know that is fruitless.  I have something to mourn here.  The loss of my innocence in a way and my respect and bond to the person that has been greedy.  I feel as though I have lost that person too in my life over this.  How can I look them in the eye after what they have done?  After they said these things to my mother on her death bed?  Its too horrible to comprehend.

I know that this is yet another life lesson to me.  Another challenge that God has set for me to learn and grow from.  I know that this is supposed to make me stronger.  But right now, I just want to not be strong.  I want to curl up and die over it all.  Of course, I wont.  I will turn this all over to God and allow him to work it all out the way it is meant to.  I pray for healing and wisdom.  That is all I can do for now.

Greed is a terrible thing.  It strikes even the most unlikely of people.  It is a good reminder to guard yourself against its evil.  It is a demon that steals your soul.  It can steal your family from you.  How utterly sad.