michael scofield
does anyone else find it dusturbing that the guy who's bitch just hung himself's nickname is t-bag?
why do i watch this shit? especially with it's blatant plagiarism of a very, very good book?
1. it's about prison, no matter how unrealistic.
2. have you seen wentworth miller? my GOD.
so i can't seem to stop typing today. in between my 40,000 blog posts, i've also completed work for 3 clients, almost closed 2 contracts, discussed the trials and tribulations of a catholic-raised lesbian (who's parents are reacting beatifully to the news, thank Moses) been out for dinner, to the mega-giant-bookstore which morally i'm against but spiritually makes me shudder with pleasure, to the pie-oh-neer pub for monday night football (for mom & pops, not the footy 'cause kripes if there was something less intelligent to think about i'd be fucked to figure out what it was, with the exception of baseball, not that i can't recognize the strategic skill involved, but whatever - it's no noam chomsky essay and it certainly ain't gonna make the world turn in the right direction - but then again neither is this shit tv show) and back home to watch wentworth miller run around in a prison shower with no shirt on (the tattoos make him even hotter) and to protect my little caramel woof from the fright of of his most terrifying night of the year, all hallow's eve and it's orchestra of explosives.
speaking of halloween... the best costume i saw today was at the pioneer pub, a guy was dressed as a priest with a giant hard-on.
hope you all had a happy halloween n' shit, cheers *raises can-o-kokanee*
i am just from encino, why are you so mean-o
i forgot to mention, i watched a doc last night called JFK II - it ties the bush family to the assassination of kennedy... poorly, with virtually zero scientific merit, all hearsay and rumors and gossip. it was kinda boloney. even though i believe a lot of the things they claimed and a lot of the things they claimed are true, they have absolutely no idea how to present such things in an objective manner and thus, they have given this entire theory and body of evidence a clownish appearance. bad doc makers are ruining the world. they take these great ideas and amazing facts and present them in such a way that the severely, sick, twisted right wing psychos sit back and laugh and boom over their concrete robot assemblies, "they've got nothing!! mooowahahahaha!". fucking artsy doc makers - a buncha south park animating, aviator wearing abercrombie slave bitches to the extreme right, condoleezadubaydick pipe-puckered idiots.
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Currently listening:
Dirty
By Sonic Youth
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vrrrrrrooom
i wrote a letter to mike last night and decribed this weekend as:
"so beautifully melodramatic and emotional, it was like i was living in a made-for-tv flick on the vision network starring patty duke and della reese from douched by an angel."
yeah. i said it. douched. compliments to the goofy brain who thought that one up.
so i've got this post-hurricane, jelloey relief, clobberage out of my system. sort of. i'll always be relieved. but the sound of rushing adrenaliney-blood through my veins and my head and my heart has subsided just enough for me to hear the little motor in my gut that makes me think about all those people imprisoned and tortured all over the world.
anyway, nonsensical-chordo-spew aside, it's time to get dirty again, kids.
in the news today...
killers would rather die than face life in prison
set to be executed on Nov. 4, the pardons board said steckel has shown no real remorse or made efforts to rehabilitate himself.
*baffled, aquafina flavored water spraying out nose cough attack thingamajig*
why the fuck would he bother to rehabilitate himself? to please Jesus? to get a gold fucking star beside his name when they scratch it off the list of dudes on death row?? how often do people actually decide, facing imminent death & caged 23 hours per day in an 8 x 5 ft cell, "oh, hey, shit, maybe i should focus on my self-fucking-esteem and set some goddamned goals!"
*shakes head, wipes water off chin*
the 27-year-old traveled last week to the nation's capital of capital punishment in the hopes that her voice would help shame the unforgiving system that silenced her father in 1999, executing him for the murder nearly two decades earlier of an elderly woman. - yeah, even killers have families that love them.
someone sent me this: free john forte - 14 yrs in prison for something he didn't do... very interesting.
canadian time magazine this week did a story on canadians imprisoned outside of canada and they interviewed this one dude who did a bit in saudi arabia and was tortured. he wrote this book:
Confessions of an Innocent Man : Torture and Survival In a Saudi Prison
from what i know his story sounds almost as interesting as warren fellows' story, which is a great read:
4,000 Days : My Life and Survival in a Bangkok Prison
and i was just adding some shizz to my wish list, and it turns out, not at all surprisingly, that i really am obsessed... my wishlist
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Currently listening:
Live It Out
By Metric
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Labels: mike
surpresa!
uhh... some loot from cancun...
there's really not much that can be said at this point that'll add anything to this post.
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Currently listening:
Odditorium or Warlords of Mars
By The Dandy Warhols
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and they even brought me home a blanket
it was just like a scene from a movie. my brother and i walked into the domestic arrivals at yvr and stopped to figure out which luggage carousel we should go to. from behind us we hear a familiar, piercing whistle and, elated, turn to see my mom waving us down. already running, i start to cry and when we reach them i jump into my mom's arms and hear her crying and see my father behind us, crying. this is the third time in my 28 years of life that i have ever seen my father cry. it makes me cry more. everyone in the airport has stopped and is grinning and "awww"ing and some people's eyes even glistened. after a huge, relieving hug, i pull away from my mom and finally notice she's proudly sporting a tshirt that says:
"i survived hurricane wilma - hurrican-cun - october 2005"
i laugh as i turn to my dad for a giant sobbing embrace, he's bawling, i have never seen my dad full-on bawl.
i finally got my folks back and we took them home and they told us stories of wreckage and floods, lord of the flies-type heirarchies forming in shelters after 5 nights on flooded concrete beds, the incessant whistling winds, people losing sanity, massive resort pools swept out to sea, alligators and mexican kindness and dysentery, curfews and military, food rations, and the fear that they wouldn't get out before tropical storm beta hit mexico.
and they told us how worried they were about their american friends who seemed to have been forgotten by their government, as british, canadian, portuguese and aussie tourists left cancun in droves, a lot of americans watched and waited with fear and a growing impatience.
after we were all caught up, my mom pulled out a colorful mexican blanket. prior to them leaving my folks had asked what i wanted them to bring back, and i'm kind of a blanket hoarder, so i always ask for a mexican blanket. i didn't expect them to have had time to get any souvenirs for anyone, but there it was. "i hope this is alright," she said.
it's perfect mom, cause it came home with you.
worst editorial ever...
i came across this editorial in the LA times this morning: shut down death row - it's basically about stanley tookie williams, founder of the crips gang, convicted of four murders (and let's face it, he's had a hand in every murder since the gang began that was in any way related to it - if anyone is guilty of murder it is this man), four time nobel peace prize nominee, shamed sporter of san quentin blues and outspoken anti-gang activist. using this case as an example was ballsy. considering the amount of blood on tookie's hands, he'd make a damned good poster guy for why to support the death penalty. but the writer of the editorial walked bravely into the murky waters of denouncing the death penalty using this case as his reason anyway. you have to respect him for that at least.
but the closest this writer came to a decent argument against the death penalty was the title.
here's how you argue the death penalty:
Common reasons in support of capital punishment
The Bible - The Bible requires the death penalty for a wide variety of crimes, including sex before marriage, adultery, homosexual behavior, doing work on Saturday and murder. It even calls for some criminals (e.g. prostitutes who are the daughters of priests) to be tortured to death by being burned alive. Most Christians, with the exception of those in the Reconstructionist movement, feel that many of these grounds for the death penalty no longer apply to Christian societies. U.S. However, Bible passages are still used to promote the retention of capital punishment for murderers; some advocate that homosexuals also be executed.
aside from the obvious answer (we are not all Christians or Jews, and thus should not all have to live by Christian or Jewish rules) , there's also the whole 6th commandment thing, thou shalt not kill. this is not unlike most of the Bible, contradictory and skewed. now, before all the Christians reading this send me hate mail, i don't see this as a bad thing. it is the truth. but the beauty of religion is interpretation, and there are so many different interpretations of the Bible and the Torah and God knows, Islam & the Koran is more misunderstood than dubya's speeches. the bottom line is, it would be impossible to live 100% within the rules the Bible sets out for us, as a great majority of said rules, end up contradicting each other, thus cancelling each other out. there are much newer, more modern ways of applying Christian values to life and social issues. killing people for killing people (when most of the time we're not sure they killed people) is silly, cruel, unusual and inhuman.
not to mention the fact that at even the smallest anti-death penalty demonstrations, attendance is padded by Christian groups citing "Thou shalt not kill".
Justice/Vengeance - Many people feel that killing convicted murderers will satisfy their need for justice and/or vengeance. They feel that certain crimes are so heinous that executing the criminal is the only reasonable response.
one of the more known cases of death row exonerations is izzy zimmerman. he spent 24 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. while in prison, izzy was a feared man, both by prisoners and c.o.s alike. why? because he wanted to die. he wanted so badly to die that he didn't care what kind of trouble he got into, he didn't care about being thrown in the hole or being beaten half to death. life in prison was far worse than the escape of death to izzy.
"They couldn't understand. To them, death was the most horrible thing that could happen to a person. "But," Peewee muttered to himself, "Everybody is going to die. Nobody beats death. These 'Guardians' don't really know what it is to do twenty-five or thirty years, forty-five or fifty years in the can until you die."
from The Guardians; The True Story of the Saints of Dannemora as told to the authors by izzy zimmerman.
and more recently, reece hughs, a death row inmate in south carolina has requested to bypass all of his appeals and carry out the execution. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/12944391.htm,
so what? well, clearly these people want to die or prefer to die over life in prison. how is it revenge if you're giving them the one option out of two they themselves would have chosen?
Deterrence - Many people feel that the death penalty will deter criminals from killing. This does not seem to be confirmed by an analysis of the available data. However, it feels intuitively correct for many people.
the countries with the smallest per capita murder rates, do not have the death penalty.
greece - per capita murder rate 0/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1993
switzerland - per capita murder rate 0/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1942
ireland - per capita murder rate 0/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1990
norway - per capita murder rate 0.01/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1905
canada - per capita murder rate 0.01/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1976
united kingdom - per capita murder rate 0.01/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1973
united states - per capita murder rate 0.04/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty still in use.
jamaica - per capita murder rate 0.32/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty still in use.
Cost - Once a convicted murder is executed and buried, there are no further maintenance costs to the state.
- The investigation costs for death-sentence cases are about 3 times greater than for non-death cases.
- The trial costs for death cases are about 16 times greater than for non-death cases ($508,000 for death case; $32,000 for non-death case).
- The appeal costs for death cases are 21 times greater.
- Trials involving a death sentence average 34 days, including jury selection; non-death trials averaged about 9 days.
it is far more expensive to put a man to death than to incarcerate him for life.
countries that still have the death penalty:
Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, China (People's Republic), Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic), Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, North, Korea, South, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe
which two of these countries doesn't belong here...
of all the wealthy western "progressive" countries in the world, only japan and the US have the death penalty still. progress my asshole. seems to me the US has more in common with the third world than anything else. death penalty, dynasties, war after war after war, wars on the unarmed, wars on the innocent, wars on intangeable concepts, THE REFUSAL TO COMMIT TO THE METRIC SYSTEM. here is a country full of intelligent, beautiful people who mean well, with uber-wealth the likes of which the rest of the world has rarely seen and yet is found on so many lists consisting of only 3rd world countries.
we won't even touch the list of countries that still execute minors.
the death penalty serves no purpose. end it.
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Currently listening:
Aquemini
By OutKast
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declaring war on the fax machine @ blue bay getaway, cancun
ring, buzzzzzz, "hola?"
ring, buzzzzzz, "hola?"
ring, buzzzzzz, "hola?"
it's a fax, dammit!
trying to get my folks out of cancun has proven to be quite a task. canadian foreign affairs has virtually abandoned them, saying in not so many words "it's their own fault for staying in cancun in spite of a hurricane warning". now, although this does make sense, and when my folks told me they were going to stay in cancun and ride it out, i was kinda mad and confused 'cause it seemed about the least intelligent of all of their choices, but these are canadian citizens, citizens who pay taxes so that airlines can get government bankruptcy protection over and over and over and over - send one of those taxpayer-owned air canada boeing 747s! collect the canucks and bring 'em home! sounds kinda easy to me.
what the fuck do we pay taxes for anymore anyway? has anyone else noticed that every doctor practising within canadian borders seems to think that advil cures everything from rickets to criminal insanity? love those 30 second doc visits, might as well not even ask "what's the problem?" and just skip to the "take some advil and if it still hurts in 2 weeks come back and see me". hospitals are closing, eye care isnt covered anymore, some instances of mamography aren't covered anymore, there are still homeless, there is still a horrifying aids infection rate in vancouver, schools are closing and there are more students per teacher than ever. taxes are for what, exactly? paul martin's fois gras and ahi tuna carpaccio? gucci loafers? aqua di gio toiletries in the parliament building shitters? whatwhatwhatwhat do i give almost half my paycheck for if i can't even get my fucking parents home from mexico?
a strange sidenote: on a fax my mom sent to my brother and i today, she said "God bless both of you". my mother's not religious. i wonder if she found ol' Gee-Oh-Dee in the midst of this terrifying ordeal... i swear to... whoever, if i have to say grace @ xmas dinner...
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Currently listening:
Hearts of Oak
By Ted Leo & The Pharmacists 
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a great man once said...
"i am unsane". holy shit, he's in prison, too.
i am obsessed. maybe it'll lead to something. penal progress. d'ya think? at least i'm not obsessed with shoes or celebrity gossip. there's no way that'd lead to anything, except maybe dumbness and numbness and plastic knowledge with a snap-shut lid. although i do know that the actor who played lt. dan in forrest gump is named gary sinise and now he's on csi: boise or csi: yellowknife or something. gad, more criminology references. i don't even think about it anymore.
i've written two letters to michael, the criminal, the genius, the friend, in two days. the more i speak to him, the harder it is to go a day or two without it. one of the most interesting things is hearing him on the phone talking to other people in prison. it's a whole other language, ebonics mixed with midwest slang, a little anger, a little tension, a little fear. and then he turns back to the phone and laughs with me about the goofy decision my parents made to stay in cancun for the hurricane based on the advice of the hotel bar staff. it's kinda scary, i almost wait to hear the crunch of him getting clocked by some angry con or a powertripping C.O. turns out he's letting the guy have some of his mayonnaise. mayonnaise. i s'pose even the incarcerated have to deal with every day things.
i often think to ask him if he has a window in his cell and if he does, what does he see out of it? can he see the stars at night? but i always forget to ask. i remember after i've sealed the envelope and dropped in in the mailbox. so i have to start a new letter just to ask that question. and then i forget again. and so on.
before he went to prison, before he started doing heroin, we'd always stare at the night sky together. for hours. until the stars faded into the baby blue of the morning sky and we'd laugh for lack of sleep and sometimes crash listening to each other breathe. the sky seemed to be mackerel more often than not. odd. he'd whisper my name as i fell asleep. i still hear it.
once i'd already fallen asleep when he called. my roomate knocked on my door to wake me. i had an exam the next day. i wanted to sleep, i told her to take a message, silence from the other side of the door. shuffling feet. could i just pick it up for a second? i picked up the phone and heard my name whispered, then "click". it's how he said goodnight.
that was a long time ago. i was probably 23 or 24. i was a turd. i told him to fuck off when he got hooked on heroin. i shoulda stuck around. maybe things'd be different, huh?
ehh this is a fuckin bullshit post. my friends suffer and cause so much grief. i s'pose it's cause everyone does.
i couldn't possibly live without them.
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Currently listening:
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
By Neutral Milk Hotel
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Labels: mike
maybe i have my priorities backwards
marlin killed in spite of innocence
Jaime Elizalde - According to his clemency petition, no physical evidence was presented at trial linking Jaime Elizalde to the crime. The prosecution relied solely on the testimony of two eyewitnesses. One of these, in his original statements to police, denied that he knew anything about the murders, neither having seen them take place nor knowing who was responsible, but later stated at trial that he had seen Jaime Elizalde carry out the shootings ; the second eyewitness claimed to have observed the murderer for 15 seconds, in the dark, and only contacted the authorities to identify Elizalde as the murderer some months after the shootings.
Jaime Elizaldes clemency petition also alleges that his trial and state appeals lawyers failed to investigate his case adequately. As a result, important evidence, including eyewitness testimony, supporting claims that he was innocent, discovered by attorneys presenting appeals to the federal courts has never been considered on its merits because it should have been raised earlier in the legal process.
http://www.amnestyinternational.be/doc/article.php3?id_article=6071
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Currently listening:
Doolittle
By Pixies
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& i think to myself, what a wonderful world
today's adventures in bullshit - there have been over 150 death row exonerations since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. these are innocent men and women who have spent sometimes more than 20 years on death row. innocent people incarcerated, and the guilty parties still wander the world with their complete freedom and opportunity to commit heinous crimes over and over and over.
in 25 years of executions, 25 executions have been carried out in which significant doubts of the inmate's guilt have arisen after the execution.
since 1976, there have been 985 executions in the USA, 817 by lethal injection; 152 by electrocution, 11 by gas, 3 by hanging and 2 by firing squad.
firing squad...how archaicthe first recorded death row exoneration was a man who was a few days away from being put to death when they found the "murder victim" was still alive. never even attacked, the victim had simply left the state to start a new life.
and marlin gray is running outta time. an innocent man is about to be killed legally by the government. it ain't no OC episode, kids but it oughtta interest you nonetheless, what if it was you? do you know what your chances are of being incarcerated, innocent or not? one in every 37 U.S. adults was either imprisoned at the end of 2001 or had been incarcerated at one time.
don't let them kill 'im
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Currently listening:
Illinois
By Sufjan Stevens
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wilma's leftovers
not that i ever really had much respect for cnn and it's lack of objective journalistic skill, but this past weekend was revolting. glued to the shit channel like a fuckin' moron, all i hear all weekend is "thank goodness wilma is staying so long on the yucatan peninsula - it'll weaken it for florida". in spite of cnn's pure hatred of Mexicans, they fared pretty fuckin' ok - 8 dead in the worst storm in recorded history that stayed 400% longer than katrina did, during which 800 died. seems to me like mexico's got their shit together - the army was there before the storm hit and there are no political whining battles going on about "where it all went wrong". and my folks are ok, the locals going above and beyond to make sure they're as comfortable as they can be under the circumstances. but to cnn, all mexicans are good for is weakening hurricanes before they hit the florida keys.
oh, and they're also good for murdering. Killer denies guilt before his execution - rip luis ramirez, most likely innocent. see his homepage
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Currently listening:
Picaresque
By The Decemberists
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this is insane
my parents are in cancun.
they're being evacuated as i type to a school about 12 miles inland.
they're scared as hell. so'm i.
october the seventh
sometimes i feel panic when there's too much to do, too much on my plate. it can be all good, it can be somewhat bad, don't matter much. i just get panicked sometimes when i'm unsure if i have enough time to do all the things i need to do or should do. i get this racing heart fear and i can't sleep and lack of sleep only makes me crazier. for some reason mike is the only thought that ever calms me down when i'm in this state. since i first knew him, i have been calmed into a comfortable slumber by the thought of his laugh. thank fucking god for mike. i hope he gets to laugh in prison. i hope he gets his appeal, i hope he gets out sooner than later, i hope he has a chance to unleash his genius on the world, i hope he has the chance to fall in love again, i hope he has the chance to father a child and write a book and stand up for the things he believes in. i hope he realizes how unbelievably incredible he is, i hope he realizes how much the world needs him in it. i hope he realizes how terribly much i love him and how grateful i am for everything he's ever done for me from sitting on the phone for hours upon hours upon hours of expensive time just to make sure i was getting through some tough times ok, to sending me the most beautiful birthday card i have ever recieved, to teaching me about music, singing to me, reading to me, opening my eyes to things i never knew existed, making me laugh so hard, so often, and speaking to me in such beautiful, humorous, intelligent english and most of all for just loving me exactly as i am, for having a heart as unconditional as my dog's.
i wish on all of you a friendship as great as this.
Labels: mike
stationarystaticstateofstasis
three points:
1. judith miller. tsk tsk. after 12 weeks in prison protecting her source of info for a story she wrote for the new york times, she blabs. shut your fat mouth bitch! don't you realize what you've done?? we're 3000 times closer to being almost entirely under state control! yeah i'm a canuck but we have no frikken minds of our own and we'll follow suit in no time. ohhh... jack daniels how i'll miss you when i'm drinkin' victory gin.
2. the minuteman civil defense corps. oh jesus, why? a buncha guys on lawn chairs drinking pabst with loaded weapons peering into canada, looking for bin ladens. good luck. nice name btw. minuteman. heh. making up for your difficiencies in bed by waving around your big black guns that you've made damned sure don't shoot blanks? sucks to be you.
3. squish's birthday. ben drove the limo, red and black chucks, goofy hats, blindfolds, jack n' coke at chuck e. cheese, natasha's huge grin, abbey's tinyness, drummer john, knob, m3, carrie, karla, emma, heather, krusty, diane, christy chucking and cheesing, then the limo back to the superhouse where pictures of little riley made squish cry some and lots more people showed, messes were made, flowers given, hugs recieved, and a massive jug of white wine was consumed while we listened to bloc party and watched krusty rock out to banquet, jumping up and down on the leather couch.
i told squish i hope it'd be the strangest bday she ever had. it's gotta be close. if for no other reason, because emma has heard of sun kil moon, red house painters and pinback. oi.
aight. i've had about enough of this. i'm done.
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Currently listening:
echolocation
By Fruit Bats
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