Skeery Skeery Overboard?

yesterday, friends and i were preparing to go on a wild foods hunt- i have been looking up the uses of wild and edible herbals- when ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.

(imagine hearing the music of the ice cream truck and kids at the park while watching officers running around your neighborhood with guns- an eerie juxtaposition)

now, until this morning, i had no idea why there were policemen racking shotguns with handguns in hand, running round on foot telling everyone to get inside their houses...

josh, next door, was outside washing out paintbrushes at this time, when a woman and a young girl with a baby asked to cut through his yard... he saw the police running with guns out and began to run in the house when the officer called him to come to him and then told him to get in the house... soon, josh saw the woman being led away in handcuffs...

the neighbor across the street came out on her porch, saw an officer in the front yard, asked what was going on, and then the officer removed a shotgun from his car and racked it- she ran back in and then five minutes later took off in her car like she was on fire...

a kid and his father were collecting recyclables in the alley when i yelled to them to be careful because at least eight police officers were running with guns in hand- which is a dangerous scenario. he said he knew, they had already yelled at him, but thanks...

needless to say, everyone panicked, but mostly about all the armed men running with firearms in hand, and nobody understood what was happening... this was not being broadcast anywhere, information was unavailable...

then today- i see the news sentinel... it would appear that a man stabbed another man on ault street- during a domestic- and then was silly enough to call 911. the stabbing victim died.

and while i believe that the best intentions are meant by the kpd, i also think that they are subject to the panic and pack mentality that all human beings are subject to... and while i believe that a panicked man with a knife is dangerous, i believe that six or eight panicked men running with loaded shotguns and handguns is more dangerous...

also- if a single officer would have/could have stopped to speak with one of us- then josh would have known that the woman in his yard was somehow involved, we would have understood who we should be watching for, we could have protected ourselves...

but as it stood, we all stood in awe of the danger of running guns, fear of yells to "get in the house" and felt more threatened than protected... and statistically, you are more likely to be murdered by someone you know than a stranger, (e.g. the murder on ault of folks that knew each other), and that citizens need to feel empowered in order to want to help authorities rather than bullied- it just appeared that be poorly handled...

and maybe it's the fact that this is just east knoxville? (i, for one, love love love this neighborhood and have never been in danger) or maybe the officers were fearful of the knife? maybe they had seen a bystander threatened? i don't know. i just know that things could have been handled more smoothly and without scaring the bejeebus out of the neighborhood... and our kids.

it reminds me of the patriot act- a police state to protect us. but, i would rather feel free than protected. what happened at your house?

Solve This. Please?

Now. I think of gardening. I am even obsessively checking my seedlings and digging and weeding. It's my current religion. It's (dare I say it?) mindless. Mindless affection poured on the ground and mama pancha. I also lavish her with my angst of the day, but she doesn't seem to mind.

It reminds me of when people say, "Give it to Jesus." Since that never really worked for me, I give it to Earth.

And here's the question that I gave her today...

How does one give direction to a seventeen year old girl with the following skills:

1. a two year old child;
2. a ninth grade education;
3. a foster home which will terminate in October;
4. a mentally ill Father;
5. a Mother that lives with a pedophile;
6. ummm, that's it. and those are the good parts.

So?

I chose to take her to every military recruiter in town today. Seemed a good idea at the time. WRONG.

She took a practice military entrance exam and made a 7/100. Yes. A 7. (And she's more functional than most of my child clients...) She must score a 50 to be "accepted" to the Army, Navy, or Marines. It takes a 65 for the Air Force. The only way that they will accept someone with a GED is with fifteen college credit hours. Oh, and btw- no single parents.

The economy they all said. We can now have a "more professional military."

Job Corps split Tennessee, as you know. Murder was the cause.

DCS will stop paying for foster parenting in October. And GED classes.

Solve this. Please?

I have some other puzzles to put out there- so let's do our best to continue this conversation...

On a Collexeration of Sophisterated Reform Angst

Tweet Captures made my Health Care Reform much funnierer.

And Michelle Malkin looks so sweet! Clearly, she's campaigning for Repubs in November! And she wasn't even gonna do that before!








On the accuracy of polling and TAKE THAT and also VIRAL!














On the horrible horrible future fearful awful horrendous-osity of our hellboundedness!

















On porn bots being pissed and some histrionic mourning!








On why nobody follows my tweets anymore. I'm an idealist!

Palin/Cheney 2012!

palin for pres 2012!
teabaggers and birthers, handgun and crossbow hunters, canadian medicine seekers and fearmongers UNITE! please please put this FAIL ticket together...

i cannot think of a better FAIL than a Palin/Cheney nut ticket. my god- just the insinuations of keepamericasafe.org are enough to make one question the sanity of FORMER VP CHENEY HIMSELF!

even conservative republicans reject this insanity... proof that some propaganda doesn't work.




(btw- i dunno a single attorney, including myself, who has not represented a "bad guy..." *bad guys include pedophiles, rapists, child abusers, dead beat dads, murderers, robbers, addicts, and insurance companies...)

Get Dirty

my disappoint
ment
is
unfathomable
(and repeat Able).

not just repeat
Able
but
repeat
Ed.

i am temper
Ed. but there is
no conduction.

get dirty-
or get
out.

Gluttonous Galaxy

Why is the Milky Way, in the night sky, perpindicular to our skyline? Why are we not oriented with the galactic plane?

If you're like me, you have been lost for several years and completely missed that it may be because our solar system is currently crucified on the planes of TWO galaxies. Yep, TWO GALAXIES. (excuse my CAPS, but this is really really surprising for me).

So, see the Milky Way above? And what's that other ringy thing that I HAVE NEVER EVER SEEN BEFORE? Why, its another galaxy being eaten by ours, of course! It's the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy- gone undetected by us because its stars can only be seen with infra red sight... (does this mean that insects see this thing in the night sky??)




See that yellow dot in the crosshairs of the Milky Way spiral arm and the debris from the SagDEG? That's the "You Are Here" dot.

For all sorts of theories on this:

Go Here, Here, Here, Here, ad nauseum.

HOLY SHIT

Loop this; Ima drink wine and listen to him all night...

Once, years ago, some person told me that I reminded them of "Sovay." And hence, an Andrew Bird love was born...

Sovay

i was getting ready to be a threat
i was getting set for my accidental suicide
the kind where no one dies, no one looks too surprised
and then you, then you realize that you're riding on the para-success
of a heavy-handed metaphor
and a feeling like you've been here before

cause you've been here before, and you've been here before
then a word washed to shore
then a word washed to shore
then a word washed to shore

sovay, sovay, sovay
all along in the day

i was getting ready to consider my next plan of attack
i think i'm gonna sack the whole board of trustees
all those don quixotes in their b-17's
and i swear this time, yeah this time
they'll blow us back to the seventies
and this time
they're playin Ride of the Valkyries
with no semblance of grace or ease
and they're acting on vagaries, with their violent proclivities
and they're playing ride, playing ride
playing ride, ride, Ride of the Valkyries

sovay, sovay, sovay
all along the day

i was getting ready to threaten to be a threat
instead of thinking about my plan of attack, think about a sack
the whole board of trustees, all those don quixotes in their b-17's
and i swear this time it blows back to the 70's
and this time, they're playin Ride of the Valkyries
with no semblance of grace or ease
now they're acting on vagaries
with their violent proclivities

and they're playin ride
and they're playin ride
playin ride, playin ride, playin ride, playin ride
Ride of the Valkyries

sovay, sovay, sovay, sovay, so