Subverse Aphrodesia

On the front lines of the pinata explosion...

You think that looks scary...

I found this guy lurking around my back porch!

Photos of Andrew Zero's 4th birthday party and of a recent "A Greaser Flick" movie shoot have been posted to The Sultry Lava Lady's on-line photo album.

from a good one in The Onion...

"The Bush-Cheney 2004 camp recently began airing an anti-voter ad in 20 major urban areas nationwide.

"Are you going to vote for a candidate whose campaign promises would cost America $1.9 trillion over the next decade?" the ad asks. "Of course you aren't. You aren't going to vote at all. In the last election, half of you didn't even show up. So, on Nov. 2, just spend the day right there at your dead-end office job, talking to your coworkers about your new sweater and e-mailing your friends photos of your stupid 2-year-old daughter you shouldn't have had."

The ad concludes: "You make me sick."

Memorial for THE SLOGANATOR

(If you don't want Greenday playing loudly from your machine, turn down the volume before connecting to the Sloganator memorial.)

This year for Mother's Day, get her the Motelesque CD

Only $15.00, Plus $4.00 shipping (U.S. Only), it includes a 6 page Full Color Booklet featuring Exclusive Photos by shutterbug extraordinaire Chas Ray Krieder.

Samples from the Motel Fetish Soundtrach now playing in The Club Lounge...
1. il motel dolce
2. scartrack
3. les jeunes filles mechant
4. a certain under garment
5. steam of conscious
6. passion and torment
7. our mutual obsession
8. check out time
9. humid condition

"The Shawnee Institute LTD is a 501 (c) (3) educational foundation, located in the village of Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania (in the Pocono Mountain Region of Northeast PA).  The Institute researches environmental issues in the Shawnee on Delaware region and provides a broad range of educational classes and theater performances for the general public.  The Shawnee Institute is also a site provider for Elderhostel.  (They) are also presently involved in studying a probable greenway that would connect the McDade Trail to the restored rail station in Delaware Water Gap, PA.  Arts-oriented projects have included Shawnee Opera and Shawnee Shakespeare. These will be joined by the Fireside Reading Series, our first winter concert series, and our 1st annual Young Playwright’s Festival coming up in 2004."
-- shawneeinstitute.org

Grant Op spotted in Citzens from the Arts in PA newsletter...

The Jim Henson Foundation awards grants for the creation and development of innovative works of puppet theater. Project grants of $3000-5000 are awarded for the development of new works, and seed grants of $2000 are made for pieces in the earliest stages of development. For guidelines and applications visit www.hensonfoundation.org.  Letters of intent must be postmarked by June 1, 2004.

Well it is tax day...

Percentage of Americans who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of the 2003 tax cut: 88

* Average amount (in dollars) these Americans will save: 4.*

Need relevant statistics? The American Voice: A Pocket Guide to Issues and Allegations (as recommended by Utne Reader, "How to Win an Argument with a Conservative") claims to "get behind the sound bites and sloganeering to identify the real differences."

Citizens for Tax Justice. “Most Taxpayers Get Little Help From Latest Bush Tax Plan.” May 30, 2003.

TV Turn-off Week is coming...

What do you plan to do this April 19-25???

In a recent editorial, The Seattle Times writes...
"Scientists at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center and the University of Washington found every hour of TV toddlers watch per day increases by 10 percent the chance they will develop concentration problems and other symptoms of attention-deficit disorders by age 7...

...The findings suggest it's not enough for parents to monitor what kind of television their children watch. Quantity matters, too. Even so-called "educational" programs bombard children with rapidly changing images and events that are faster and more stimulating than real life. More research is needed, but growing evidence suggests developing brains are vulnerable to overstimulation."

Why does my horoscope keep sucking?

Today, for example we have this yahoo "quickie" --

"Hostages sympathize with captors. Ignore all the judgments. Survival can be fun.

Even if this crap really is in the stars, we don't want to read it.
So maybe I have felt like a hostage lately. Maybe my life has felt more like survival than anything in the vicinity of fun. I don't need a reminder. I'm living it. Just tell me that it's over .

I thought the whole idea was to make us feel good. To give feed us that false sense of optimism and hope. A fix that we'll keep turning to our horoscope for, in order to feel like we can face the day.

For those that don't believe that they destiny is mapped out in the distant universe ... pulling them and pushing them with various forces of celestial gravity, a horoscope is little more than entertainment.

So tell me then, Rob Brezsny, what is so entertaining about authorizing we Aries of the world to act like" the love child of comedians Chris Rock and Margaret Cho?"
That's just yucky.

"Expose hypocrisy," he says. "Lay yourself bare," he proposes. "Shock people"! "Risk being annoying"! "Be edgy and healing, disruptive and inspiring, half-crazy and profoundly real"?????????
Are you kidding me?
I've been doing these things and guess what? They ain't working, honey. Stop giving me dead end advice and start stroking my ego.

Don't tell me about all the sacrifices I'm going to have to make. And how it's going to be tough today but will all pay off in the long run.
I don't think I believe in the long run anymore.

Give me a starlight embrace. Tell me it's going to be OK. Stroke my cheek and tell me what a good girl I've been. How proud you are of me for not taking the low road and that I've been doing a good job at staying afloat in the quicksand.

Surely that's not too much to ask of someone who can read the heavens.

Welcome to "Ask the White House" -- an online interactive forum where you can submit questions to Administration officials and friends of the White House. Visit the "Ask the White House" archives to read other discussions with White House officials.

justin, from school writes:
when is the easter egg hunt?

Sara Armstrong answers:
Hi Justin
The Easter Egg Roll is scheduled for this Monday, April 12 from 8am until 2pm. Go here for all the information: www.whitehouse.gov/easter..

Sarah Armstrong
Director of the White House Vistors Office

Monica, from Las Vegas writes:
Does the White House staff dress up as easter bunnies? Happy Easter.

Sara Armstrong answers:
Hi Monica
Yes, we have several staff members who volunteer to play Easter Bunny for the day. The photo of me is with a volunteer who dressed up as a Peep. In addition to the official White House Bunny, we will also have the White House Easter Eggs (people dressing up as eggs), and you will see many children's favorite TV and book characters as well.

Gabrielle, from Chillicothe Missouri writes:
Who started the first Easter egg roll?

Sara Armstrong answers:
Rutherford B Hayes started the event in 1878. You should try the Easter Egg quiz at www.whitehouse.gov/easter to test your knowledge....

In The Crimes of Courtney Love: Grinning and Baring It," The Village Voice's Richard Goldstein compares Courtney to Janis -- "the same failure to distinguish between persona and self, the same refusal to draw a boundary between expressiveness and excess, the same insistence on showing pain" -- and suggests that "breast baring is an act of power."

I'm thinking,,, no.

Courtney flashing her breasts may be an act of defiance, but it's more likely a protest of powerlessness in being defined as a woman. She is not, like Sojourner Truth, flashing to prove "ain't I a woman." She's flashing because the world won't let her forget that she's a woman. And I'm guessing that she's more than just a little pissed off about all the rules she's supposed to follow because of it.

Male rock stars have been getting drunk and doing drugs for years. Who drags their children into the conversation? Surely, some of them have children. Legitmate and acknowledged or otherwise. But we don't care. It doesn't really matter, because we don't define men as fathers. We define them as men. Whether or not they've procreated is so far down the list its almost irrelevant. Until of course their kids are grown up to follow in their footsteps.

But Courtney's a mom. Everyone knows it. And how dare a mother behave like a rock star!

Here are my breasts. They have sustained and nurtured living beings. And for as much as society pretends to value that -- they're not going to respect me or even pay me a livable wage for it.

What was it that made Courtney famous in the first place? Her parenting skills? Go ahead and say she took advantage of Kurt -- I've come to expect it. Just remember lots of famous guys have wives that no one will ever hear about. It's been ten years since Kurt gave up and Courtney still can't escape his shadow. She never will.

No matter what she accomplishes or how incredible it might potentially be -- she will always be defined by her dead husband. She will always be assumed a leech. She will always be blamed for his death --a destroyer rather than a creator.

There is no power in her self-exposure. Only the desperate plea of someone who wants us to remember that she's just as human (not only woman) as the rest of us.

Wake up and smell the double standards, Goldstein.

In 1994, 800,000 people were systematically slaughtered during 100 days in the small African country of Rwanda, It was a state-sponsored genocide. The world failed to interviene.

Didn't hear about the Rwandan Crisis. You're not alone.

Singer/songwriter Tom Flannery writes,
"I mean…this was nineteen ninety fucking four! I was just getting the hang of email. And you’re telling me that one group is hacking nearly one million of their neighbors to death with machetes? And that they announced their intentions publicly before they started the killing? The had machete training out in the open in front of their soon-to-be victims? That priests and nuns assisted in the slaughter? You’re telling me that the UN sent an absurdly small “peace keeping” mission to Rwanda with instructions that they couldn’t lift a finger to prevent any killing…only “observe” it? That the UN force was so ill equipped that...forget about weapons, they were actually  running out of staples and fax paper? That the US did nothing to stop the killing because we had no financial stake in the country? Is that what you are telling me?"

Now on the 10th anniversary of this catostrophe (the killing began on April 6), Flannery and his singer/songwriter comerade Lorne Clarke have created a new free website containing essays, links to credible information and a suggested reading list, a few photos, and a CD-length collection of original songs (MP3 & Quicktime files). that deal with the subject.

A Rwandan Song Cycle is a joint Songaweek.com production.