FRESH BREAST MILK EXTINGUISHES FLAMING AMPUTEE VETERAN ON CONEY ISLAND BUS, PUNK YOUTHS TO BLAME

Hans Hoffman, Cascade, 1960

America, I kiss your fucking weird face.

A real-life supermom used a bottle of breast milk to douse an amputee yesterday after his wheelchair was set ablaze by punks on a Staten Island bus, cops said.

The nursing mother's fast actions helped save Vietnam vet Francis Abrams, 57, from becoming a human torch, and stopped the fire from engulfing the S-54 bus, police and the victim said.

"It was put out with breast milk," said a police source, who was awed by the bizarre incident that happened just after 11 a.m.

Abrams, who lost his left leg in Vietnam, said he was minding his own business as he rode the city bus to the Staten Island Mall to buy a video of "The Exorcist."

Just after he boarded the bus, three teens playing hooky from Tottenville High School pulled a cruel prank, cops said.

"They set my chair on fire," an angry Abrams said last night, refusing to allow photographers to take pictures of his face. "They thought it was a joke."

Cops said the teens used a cigarette lighter to ignite a plastic bag hanging from the back of Abrams' motorized wheelchair.

The flames quickly engulfed the bag, containing the Greek classics "Odyssey" and "Iliad."

As the fire spread to Abrams' jacket, he screamed: "Water!"

As her baby looked on, the new mom and a friend sprang into the action, dousing the fire with a freshly pumped bottle of breast milk and another bottle of water, authorities said.

The back of Abrams' wheelchair was slightly melted by the fire, but he was not harmed thanks to the nursing mother.

"I said, 'Thank you,'" Abrams said.

Asked about the fire being extinguished with breast milk, Abrams bristled, "I don't care. It doesn't bother me."

The Hot Snakes website -- now updated with a mighty pleasing Australian/European tour map. Great band, too! As Yan from Yan Can Cook might remark about a carmelized pork loin with ginger and watercress, "look how beautiful."

MEMORIALIZE EVERYTHING AND ENJOY A MEMORABLE WORLD

A bald eagle being force-fed through a feeding tube

My sister emailed me this article from the Daily Koz: One Hundred Names You Won't Hear This Memorial Day.

And here's some stats from this month's Harper's Index:

• Annual cost of all sixteen U.N. peacekeeping missions currently underway : $3,870,000,000
• Monthly cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq : $4,100,000,000
• Revenue from Iraqi oil sales that the CPA could not account for, according to a 2005 audit : $8,800,000,000
• Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on a single defector : 100
• Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents : 0
• Minimum number of newspapers in which Denmark posted ads this year seeking antiterrorist spies : 3
• Percentage of Iceland residents who took out an ad this winter apologizing for Icelandic support of the Iraq war : 1.5
• Number of books published last year in Iceland and the United States, respectively, per 100,000 residents : 212, 63
• Number of books registered at BookCrossing.com, so the books can be left in public places and found by others : 1,935,000
• Number of the books left behind that have been from the Left Behind series : 2,047
• Rank, on the Turkish bestseller list in March, of a thriller depicting a U.S. invasion of Turkey : 1
• Rank of Mein Kampf : 2
• Chance that a resident of the former East Germany wants the Berlin Wall back : 1 in 8
• Number of lines that Italy's largest cellular operator has set aside for government eavesdropping : 5,000
• Number of these that were in use in March : 5,000
• Chance that a Russian scientist says he or she would consider working for North Korea : 1 in 7
• Year by which every U.S. nuclear weapon will have reached the end of its original design life : 2014 (see page 56)
• Number of merit badges in Safety awarded to Boy Scouts since 2001 : 15,417
• Number in Shotgun Shooting : 65,249
• Percentage of the world's Anglican bishops that have condemned the U.S. Episcopal Church's ordination of a gay bishop : 34
• Number of U.S. Episcopal churches that are now affiliated with dioceses in Rwanda or Uganda : 38
• Number of federal benefits in the United States that are tied directly to marriage : 1,138
• Factor by which the average viral load in "socially inhibited" HIV+ men exceeds that in "outgoing" men, in a UCLA study : 8
• Average percentage by which the power of the male heart declines between the ages of 18 and 75 : 20
• Average percentage by which the female heart does : 0
• Ratio of women to men killed in last December's tsunami, in a survey of eight Indonesian villages : 3:1
• Number of times that major U.S. newspapers have used the term "feeding tube" since January : 647
• Number of times they had used the term in the previous five years : 483
• Years after Bob Marley's death that the BBC, in April, requested an interview with him : 24
• Average number of hours it takes to read a weekday Washington Post out loud : 28
• Projected year by which U.S. Treasury bonds will sink to junk status, on current fiscal policy : 2026 (see page 39)
• Amount for which George W. Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999 : $2,500
• Percentage of Americans who say that driving a fuel-efficient car is an act of patriotism : 66
• Percentage of NASCAR fans who say this : 67
• Portion of the world's motor vehicles that are in China : 1/17
• Portion of the world's annual traffic fatalities that are : 115
• Percentage change since 1994 in treatment for male infertility and erectile dysfunction in Shanghai : +l00
• Amount a Chinese online gamer made last year by selling a virtual sword he had borrowed from a friend : $850
• Months later that the friend retaliated by stabbing him to death with a real knife : 6

THE WILD & DOMESTICATED DESERT DOG THAT STANDS TO FACE THE SUNSET

Hike review: San Elijo Lagoon, Solana Beach, CA. 5/21/05.

Went out Saturday morning for a refreshing jaunt into coastal California with my friend Steven. The trail begins at a roadside clearing in Rancho Santa Fe and meanders westward to the Pacific Ocean through a muddy eucalyptus grove, parallel to a marsh, under Interstate 5, over some wooden planks, and across some concrete rocks, all the while passing toyon bushes, dry yellow grasses, mustard plants, reeds, sedges, those little rattler pod plants I can't identify, those strange brown bushes that grow plastic orange angel hair pasta on the top, a singular bristlecone pine living in thick beach sand, alligator lizards, bleached white egrets, heard-but-not-seen owls, and snail trails making a reflective silver garland on the bunches of miner's lettuce that sprange up from last month's rains, which we picked and took a few bites of.

Later on that day we had a BBQ at Steven's house, where we cooked us some marinated porkchops topped with a mango, onion, and jalapeno compote, mushrooms sauteed in butter, lemon, and lime, grilled green onions, and bell peppers -- both red and green. Also, beer.

MY ART SUPPLIER WROTE "RANDOM RULES"

I just found out that David Berman from the Silver Jews is mailing me one of the 15 rejected 12x12 cover art paintings that Steve Keene gave to him for The Arizona Record in 1993, exactly 15 minutes before both of them blasted into super-stardom. One of the many, many, many perks of being an obsessive net stalker to indie rock hot shots.

All I know about the painting is that it's a western scene, it will arrive to me in a cardboard tube, Berman himself posted notice of his sale on the Jews Bulletin Board, and I supplied the Drag City recording artist with $10 for shipping and handling.

THE ZOOMQUILT

Talking Trees by J. Lha

In the continuing effort to bring you only the finest in dreamlike, hallucinatory, psychedelic arts, specifically of the Flash movie variety that you can either pretend to be on LSD while you watch or simply be on LSD while you watch, here is a very interesting art project called THE ZOOMQUILT that some people (Austrians?) put together. You will see the result is a stitchless tunnel that unfolds like a Mobius Strip rollercoaster that you infinitely zoom into. 100% free, no obligation to buy. Comes with complimentary "cubist light-rail transit through spooky woods" theme.

LIST FEVER!

Recently Appointed US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton

Too much relevance and coherence and interestingnessity on HPBL lately. Mitigative measures required. E! TV and USA Today knows what a good idea would be. After all, it's SWEEPS WEEK. They know that a smart technique would be lists. So here are lists.

Grocery Items I Bought Tonight

• apples
• mangoes
• bok choy
• a white onion
• mushrooms
• smoked turkey sausage
• pork chorizo
• imitation crabmeat
• pulparindo
• mexican ice cream bars
• dole spring mix salad bags (3)
• corn tostada shells
• donuts
• frozen vegetable lasagna
• 2% milk
• frosted mini-wheats
• canned black olives
• pepperocinis
• orange juice
• 12 pack milwaukee-style beer
• small bag wasabi funyons (wasabi funyons!)

Names of The Two Felt Chicks and Small Plastic Frog and Plastic Octopus That Sit Atop My Bookcase

• Butter
• Rainbow
• Leopold
• Uno

Celebrities and/or Fictional Characters Recent Appointed US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton Kinda Looks Like

• Fred Goldman
• Rollie Fingers
• Ron Burgundy
• Bernie

DATURA SIGHTING!

Hark! For I have finally spied a datura meteloides, the plant about which I had been talking on Sunday's post. It was the subsequent Monday that I spied it. The datura was growing on a roadside embankment and creek bed near the confluence of Mt. Acadia Road and the private driveway leading to the Tecolote Canyon golf course in the Clairemont/Bay Park/Linda Vista neighborhood of San Diego. I was out doing GPS mapping for my internship with the Parks and Recreation Department and performed a classic double-take upon my spying it. "Eureka!" I exclaimed, and leaned in for an introductory whiff of the plant I have been hoping to stumble upon for years now. The flower's fragrance, unfortunately, was not the rotten and foul one I had been led to believe it posessed but instead was devoid of any scent characteristics at all.

That is, besides the sweet smell of victory, for I have finally spied the datura stramonium in its natural habitat. Trip report detailing the mystical psychoactive journey I embarked upon after injesting its roots forthcoming.


IN OTHER NEWS it's finals week and that's my excuse for not posting as frequently as usual. What's that? You hadn't even noticed? I'm making a big deal out of nothing? Yes, you're probably right. Finals week always makes me so paranoid.

LEARNIN' ABOUT THE TOLOACHE CULT OF NATIVE CALIFORNIANS AT HIGH PLAINS BUSINESS LOOP (HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY)

Kumeyaay people, native to San Diego county.

Ranging from just below the San Francisco Bay Area south to the Mexican border, the Toloache Cult was the least complex ritually and represented primarily a social commitment to disciplining and initiating the young. Its named is derived from the hallucinogenic drug, datura metaloides, called toloache by the Spanish. Datura was abundant throughout the region and, actually, it occurs widely in North America. Virtually every portion of the datura plant was hallucinogenic and it could be ingested by eating it, smoking it, or drinking a tea made from it. However, the plant's toxicity is so great, being a member of the Deadly Nightshade family, that great caution was required and the dose could be controlled more accurately by making a tea from the plant's roots.

The datura plant. Grows naturally along riverbanks in rural areas. Flowers produce a rotten, foul odor.

Shamans of this region used datura as their principal path into trance-like hallucinogenic experiences; hence, shamans developed considerable expertise in preparing dosages. When boys (or girls) were prepared for their initiation experiences, the shaman harvested datura roots and prepared teas that allowed for a wide variety of factors that could affect the hallucinogenic potency. Among these factors were the weight of the child, the size and location of the plant, and the particular micro-climate environment. The object, in any ingestion of datura, was to take enough to reach a definite state of hallucination while remaining on the safe side of comma or death.

The initiation as a whole was organized, as were all religious practices in California, by a collection of men close to the chief and recognized for their leadership. They were called paxa? in several of the tribes of Southern California. Like priests, they were specially charged with maintaining continuity from generation-to-generation by passing on the essential elements of culture to the young. However, in the Toloache Cult, this seems to have been the limit of their activities. Since the central emphasis of initiation was an introduction to the spirit world and, in some respects, a bonding with it, perhaps, even with a spirit host, or helper, the shaman's role as spiritual mediator was essential.

Generally, the initiation leaders identified the boys who had come of age and began a program of training that was progressively intense. At the culmination of this training, the boys were secluded and led through a number of initiating experiences, including tests of courage and endurance, culminating in the datura ingestion. The datura was usually administered after fasting and the boys were forced to dance until that passed out of consciousness. As they recovered physically, they passed through the hallucination on their way to re-awakening; both the shaman and the leaders acted as guides through this often terrifying passage. The hoped-for result was identification of a spirit-helper that was either obvious to the boy within the hallucination or that could be brought out by later interpretation when the conscious boy recounted the experience. For days afterward, the boys continued under the teaching of the leaders, becoming socialized into the tribelet under their new identities as men. Girls received a similar, though less taxing, initiation in most of these cultures.

HOW CAN SOMETHING SO OLD BE SO WRONG

The most merciful thing in the world is man's inability to correlate all of his mind's contents. But the sciences one day -- some say it is already upon us -- will eventually open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we will either go mad from the revelation or flee into blissful sleep, peace and safety of another new dark age. - H.P. Lovecraft


Kodak R3 facsimile map of Lake Carnegie in western Australia. From Library of Congress exhibition, "Earth as Art: A Landsat Perspective."

Evolution is going on trial in Kansas.

Eighty years after a famed courtroom battle in Tennessee pitted religious beliefs about the origins of life against the theories of British scientist Charles Darwin, Kansas is holding its own hearings on what school children should be taught about how life on Earth began.

The Kansas Board of Education has scheduled six days of courtroom-style hearings to begin on Thursday in the capitol Topeka. More than two dozen witnesses will give testimony and be subject to cross-examination, with the majority expected to argue against teaching evolution.

Many prominent U.S. scientific groups have denounced the debate as founded on fallacy and have promised to boycott the hearings, which opponents say are part of a larger nationwide effort by religious interests to gain control over government.

"I feel like I'm in a time warp here," said Topeka attorney Pedro Irigonegaray who has agreed to defend evolution as valid science. "To debate evolution is similar to debating whether the Earth is round. It is an absurd proposition."

Irigonegaray's opponent will be attorney John Calvert, managing director of the Intelligent Design Network, a Kansas organization that argues the Earth was created through intentional design rather than random organism evolution.

The group is one of many that have been formed over the last several years to challenge the validity of evolutionary concepts and seek to open the schoolroom door to ideas that humans and other living creatures are too intricately designed to have come about randomly.

While many call themselves creationists, who believe that God was the ultimate designer of all life, they are stopping short of saying creationism should be taught in schools.

"We're not against evolution," said Calvert. "But there is a lot of evidence that suggests that life is the product of intelligence. I think it is inappropriate for the state to prejudge the question whether we are the product of design or just an occurrence."

IOWAN WRITING STUDENTS LOVE AND RESPECT MR. FRANK CONROY

Eyeshot.net has published some letters to the late Iowa Writers Workshop Director Frank Conroy from his students. Here is one.

When my first story was up for workshop, Frank told me, in his sort of rascally, indignant way, that I was drunk on the English language. “Pour yourself another glass of champagne!” he crowed, tossing my story down on the table with a dramatic flourish. I don’t think I remember much else from that afternoon, just the unutterable humiliation of hearing my worst, most indulgent and convoluted sentences read aloud. Over the course of the hour, I sank lower and lower in my seat, shuddering as Frank lilted his way through a bevy of saccharine, overwrought phrases (crammed with words I once considered superlative—vespertine! crenellation!—words which now sounded unbelievably sloppy and inelegant). I was dismayed, inconsolable. Not because he was so cutting, but because he was so right. How could I have been so transparent? So publicly intoxicated? Here I was, at the most sophisticated school of writing in America, and I’d been exposed as nothing more than a blithering literary lush! I lay prostrate in bed for about a week afterwards, refusing to stir for even a round of beers at the Foxhead. Then, one morning, I snapped out of it. I threw off the covers, sat down at my desk, and started writing. The well of melancholia and self-pity had dried up, and in its place was nothing more than a fervent, consuming desire to work. I never wanted so much to be a better writer.

More enthusastic appreciations from young Iowans here.

KAREL APPEL "THE DISCOVERY"

Karel Appel, The Discovery, 1986, oil on canvas, 95 1/2 x 77 1/2 inches. Collection of the Arizona State University Art Museum.

R2D2'S INTERNAL PORNOGRAPHY

From the Dust Congress:

"Diminutive Star Wars actor Kenny Baker stopped complaining about his discomfort inside robot R2DT during filming for the sci-fi saga's final episode - because the film crew plastered its interior with pictures of naked models.

"The 70-year-old star dreaded filming the first five Star Wars films because the awkward metal outfit was unbearable, but his work on the sixth installment, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith was more tolerable because he shared the costume with pornographic images.

"He explains, 'The lads surprised me one day by sticking a load of Page Three pictures inside R2D2's head. I got inside and wondered what the heck was going on.'

"'I got cross-eyed looking at everything in front of me. But it was rather nice. It made it a lot more bearable.'"



Over the weekend, I spent some time volunteering at the Earth Day Fair at Balboa Park. I spent four hours on Sunday with Melissa at the I Love a Clean San Diego booth. The fair looked fun. The kids certainly seemed to enjoy it (sans distracting politicization), and there was no shortage of sights and sounds. In fact, several times I felt precariously near to becoming dangerously overstimulated.

But oh! The ugliness the wandering gang of Christian fundamentalists brought to the park. Let me tell you. Directly to the left of us ILACSDers lay the temporary headquarters for the local Islamic Peace Front -- something to that effect. They were Islam and represented themselves as such. Along comes a three-tiered gang of Christian derelects hoisting enormously-sized signs, some painted to cardboard, some affixed to wooden full-body suits, some towering tens of thousand feet into the air (with the pole secured in one man's crotch-area belt sling for extra support). Painted onto the signs were terrifying Pro-Jesus slogans. You know the type. "HEATHENS, CONVERT!" "JUDGEMENT IS NIGH!" "LIARS, SODOMITES, WITCHES, JEWISHES, EVOLUTIONISTS, BUREAUCRATS: TURN OR BURN!!!"

So the team of zealots spy the Muslims and lean in for an unwelcome fight. From the little I could overhear, their tactic was to strike at the Holy literature. Something about "no, no, the Koran is so full of lies it's ridiculous." One older Christian really got into it. All a-huffing and a-puffing and wild gesticulations, stamping his feet, arching his brow, stray flecks of spittle exploding from his mouth, big fat belly puffing out, big fat red face swelling under the warm California sun, armpit moisture rapidly accumulating on his white, long-sleeved cotton custom hot rod dertailers t-shirt. "You don't know what you're talking about!" "You're wrong!" "My religion is right and yours is wrong!! You should be my religion instead of being yours because mine is right!!!" I couldn't help but walk right up to the guy and offer him one of the brochures on where to take used motor oil for recycling. He wasn't interested.

Anyway, the planet survived, and these hot-headed clowns came within another few weeks of cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, I handed out free ILACSD license plate frames.