Today I saw a post on a friend's facebook feed regarding abuse and how it translates to the story of Cinderella. It's a wonderfully encapsulated feeling about the cycle of abuse, and in finding love in spite of that abuse (for reference, here ).

While I love that she clarifies what it is like to grow up abused and to deal with how to find love and in fact how to be a kind and caring person in spite of these things, the post is definitely directed at women/girls. This is totally appropriate, given that a disproportianate amount of abuse falls on girls and women (frequently abused girls become abused women, because that's how their relationships are modelled). I support her view of Cinderella as a story of how to overcome abuse.

That being said I can speak from a male child who suffered abuse. She is right on the money about how it warps you and can turn you cold inside. It makes you not trust love. It isn't that you can't love, and that you dont understand love. You do; it's an intrinsincly human trait. But it makes you distrust love. An abused person is almost always abused by someone close in the family (most often a parent), in other words someone they are taught from a very small age to love.

So when a parent tells you that they love you, and cherish you, and then they abuse you it sends a very mixed message. It says that love is pain, and that those that love you will always hurt you. Additionally (and this is more problematic in later life), it teaches the abused that to love is to hurt. It teaches the abused that you must hurt the ones you love, and that pain and love are intrinsicly tied together. It has taken me a long time and a lot of heartache to extricate those two and understand that things I learned as a small child are fundamentally wrong. It took having my own children and choosing the other path, the one where love is comfort, not pain.

One of the more uncomfortable moments for me was when I talked to my oldest about my abuse (only passingly, but I didn't shy away from it). I realized that the shame was not mine; I did nothing wrong and I knew I could (and should) speak honestly about it. I told my first grade aged daughter how her Grandma had hit me and yelled at me a lot when I was little. She wanted to know why, so I explained that she was very sad, scared and that her heart hurt, and that she didn't know how to deal with that. She understood as much as she could, knowing that sometimes when she is mad or frustrated she just wants to hit something or someone, but she kept asking 'but she loved you didn't she?'. I just replied that she did, but sometimes if you are hurt too much, inside, it just makes you a bit crazy, and not in a good way. (we sometimes tell her jokingly that you are crazy, to which she makes a silly face and clowns us extensively)

I only ask that you remember the little boys who are abused as well. Children are sacred, boy or girl. Don't let them suffer. And if you were abused, please for all that is good in this world, choose better, for all of us.

Ok so apparently the Lenovo USB Dock (M01060) has really hard to find drivers. Thank god I saved the original disk. This installs on windows 8 without issues.

Here is the link:
Lenovo USB Port Replicator M01060

So today I pull together an interesting little recipe. Please be warned, this may change a bit as I test it out. I used to live in Northern California, during the 90's. During that time there were a lot of smart-drink companies coming up. Of course we all know how epic Odwalla has become, how pervasive.

 In about 96' Odwalla almost got sunk by an ecoli outbreak, due to using some bad apple juice (it could have happened to anyone). (details ) Odwalla was just big enough at the time to be able to absorb the blow and come back from it; any smaller and they would have instantly folded. Personally I had been switching back and forth between their drinks (the Strawberry C-Monster is particularly tasty), and one of their competitors, the oddly named Mrs. Wiggle's Rocket Juice (man, what a mouthful). This was a brief boon for the small company, as they recieved a big bump in demand (myself included).

So recently I had a hankering for one of their drinks and I went to try to hunt them down. Turns out they appear to be out of business due to a sad series of personal misfortunes for the owners. It seems that the wife had been struggling with breast cancer since about '92, and eventually died in 2001 from it. The husband sold the company at some point in the late 90's, and it appears to have been folded up shortly thereafter. He remarried, but eventually committed suicide a few years later (2011). This of course puts quite a pall over the whole thing, what with the rather cheery and oddball name to his product line, of quite frankly very delicious (if odd) drinks.

 I'll try to concoct some of them from how I remember them tasting, so this may be a bit of a hit or miss situation.
First up : something they called GinGin Cooler
From the ingredients it contains: Water, Lemon Juice, Ginger extract, Honey, and Ginseng.

 So lets start with volume; we will do 1 gallon, which should result in 16 servings, or (as the original packaging) 8 bottles (16oz each)

•  13 1/2cups water (remember all the flavors here are VERY strong, so require dilution to not be overpowering) 
• 1/4 cup Ginger 'juice' or extract (instructions here: http://www.ehow.com/how_8101760_juice-ginger-root.html) 
• 3/4 cup of honey 
• 1 cup lemon juice 
• 2x 30mg bottle of panax ginseng (try to avoid alcohol based ones) this is usually available at asian groceries or online at amazon (http://www.amazon.com/PANAX-GINSENG-EXTRACT-BOTTLES-6000MG/dp/B000TK9PWU/ref=sr_1_4?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1428009881&sr=1-4&keywords=panax+ginseng)

Since honey doesn't mix well cold, I would recommend warming a cup or two of the water and diluting there, then adding to the mix. Mix all ingredients together and chill until 'pleasant'. This should get you a nice refreshingly cool drink, without carbonation or artificial sweeteners. It will have a bite and an earthiness however so it can be an acquired taste.

A note on substitutions: if you have to use dried ingredients for either the ginger or ginseng reduce them considerably and use a mixer (like a vitamix or something) to get the best dilution. You may have to try a few different ratios, but fresh vs dried is usually about 25%. Increase the water accordingly.

That which is conceived in shadow

It has been said that people do not do things they are proud of in the shadow of night. They do not take pride in those midnight-doings, those goings-on. One such example is the raids performed on the Occupy movements. In New York itself the raid was completed by turning off the lights in the park (literal darkness, as it was very early in the morning), rousting reporters out and telling them their press badges were useless (figurative shadow, the shadow of censorship). It is obvious that Bloomberg did not want it to be a public spectacle, that he didn't want clear, visible, visceral scenes displayed for all to see. It is clear he didn't want the press reporting on it, as bloggers are easier to discredit than Mother Jones (too bad for him their reporter managed to get some visibility to it all, live feed via twitter). It was also fairly obvious that his attempt failed utterly and painted him as exactly the kind of figure he has been made out to be, an almost comical call out to the be-monocled Robber Baron's of yesteryear. His perception of the common man through shades of disdain palpable to any who hear him speak; he cares not for someone who earns an hourly wage, he sees them as 'lesser'. As those who had serfs and slaves did before him saw the worker. As a plantation or sweatshop owner. Those that work for him fear him, for his whim can destroy their dreams almost instantly. But I digress, misdirected by my musings on the character (such as it is) of Mr. Bloomberg. I apologize. What I would like to touch on, in this rambling nighttime post, is the idea, the concept of things done in shadows. I demonstrated one (the police actions above). I feel there is another brewing, and this will be far more fearsome, far more zealous. You see, in forcing the Occupiers out of the squares they did something else. They forced them to organize, to plan. And now those plans, that organization is being done in shadow. They present their plans, they livestream much. But there will be a lot that is unspoken, unaired. A radio newsperson was told by a local (smaller) Occupy movement that the traditional media was not welcome anymore. This concerns me greatly. It means that we have achieved the next step. Some of these occupiers are fighting. It might be non-violent (likely at this stage). It might be more. It most certainly will be disruptive. Now before I get lit up like a Kerosene soaked christmas tree in a 4-pack a day smoker's house keep in mind: I generally agree with the Occupiers on both method and goals. I think they are our next, best, hope of a better tomorrow. However they have been backed into a corner. I have said this before in various places, but when a populist uprising occurs, (a real populist uprising that is) it happens because of scarcity of resources, specifically food. And if someone ELSE in the society has more than enough it never bodes well for them. Especially if that person has 300x (or more) resources than the common man. Mr. 1%, whatever happens now, you brought this on yourself. Greed and Idolatry are not only a sin, they are stupid in the extreme. Karma, bitches, is brewing. (Disclaimer: I have no plans and am not an active member in any General Assembly, or Occupy Protest, just simply an observer of trends. In other words, don't shoot the messenger)

The Police State - U$A

I know I don't blog very often; however I feel like I need to say this in something more than a short tweet comment. It requires a more verbose approach than the venue that twitter maintains.

First a little background; you have to understand my father was a police officer for most of my childhood, first in the Air Force as an SP (the Air Force equivalent to the MP's, the Security Police). This was because in the 70's when my father decided to try to be a cop in Michigan, they wouldn't let him because they had a vision restriction (he has glasses). The Air Force did not, so he enlisted. He served his term, as an SP guarding missile silos in the god-forsaken hinterlands of Wyoming. This resulted in him becoming a cop for the City of Cheyenne after he left the Air Force.

Now my dad and I are on relatively opposite ends of the spectrum politically, at least these days. He has broken for the Tea Party on most things; I am much more aligned with the 'shit's fucked up' avenue of the OWS guys. But there is one thing both groups agree on: Money has corrupted Politics, possibly irrevocably. This is why Ron Paul (as off the wall as he is on some issues) has not discredited the Occupy movement out of hand; he sees that they are a populist movement with some common goals. Some people are calling him opportunistic. That may be, (he is a politician after all) but I think he is probably more human and realistic than that. Disclaimer: Do NOT mistake my candor as a ringing endorsement of Ron Paul; I disagree with him fundamentally on quite a few things (like the Austrian School of economics, his desired withdrawal from NATO, and his stance on Women's right to choose. It will be a cold day in hell before I vote for him because of those deal breakers.

But that is all color and background for what my topic is today: Police militarization and their totally inappropriate response to these protests. They have been heavy handed, coordinated and disrespectful. These police departments feel justified and protected by the many years of being propped up by the DHS. The FBI has been weakened and disenfranchised by the DHS. Federal policing is supposed to be their exclusive territory (with the exception of escaped convicts, which weirdly is exclusively the purview of the Marshall's office I believe).

My father taught me that his belief was that a police officer was meant to Serve and Protect the public, regardless of how the officer felt about the individual in question. He was meant to use force only when it was necessary to protect them from themselves, or when they had demonstrated a 'clear intention of harming others'. It is clear to me that these police officers are not engaged in honest police work; they are scared men and women. I am sure that many of them are just like the people they are facing: scared of losing their jobs, their homes. Like everyone they are just doing what their bosses tell them because they are afraid. America is now in a culture of fear, and has been living there since, 9-11-01. Five days before my wedding. The maid of honor was on one of the first flights into my airport.

An interesting thing about fear though; it excuses all manner of behavior. It is the fundamental weapon in a propagandists war chest. It's also worth noting that Propaganda and Marketing are EXACTLY the same thing. They use the same methods, the same tools, the same psychologies.

Fear is what Hitler used to come to power. Fear is what Stalin used. Fear. Those are the obvious ones; how about some others shall we?

Nixon
Kennedy (The Russians will get to space FIRST!!!!)
The Boston Tea Party


Fear based marketing is commonplace as well; it is commonplace in Insurance commercials obviously, the Allstate 'Mayhem' series is a great example. However less obvious is stuff like Oil of Olay commercials. They play on your fear of aging, getting old, and dying.

Fear based propaganda/marketing (I will forever read them as the same thing), appeals to our hindbrain, skipping the logical part altogether. One of the problems with the Occupy movement is also one of it's beauties; it is attempting to appeal to your HUMAN brain, your thinking mind. Not the fear riddled, hiding in a cave animal instinct side. The one that lashes out at perceived interlopers.

I had a point, I really did. And to sum it up it is this: Police need to stop being afraid. We, as citizens look up to you to NOT be afraid. It is your job to not show fear, to be the best of us. I implore you as a Public Servant to do what you signed up to do, and to Protect and Serve ALL the citizens, regardless of race, creed, gender or religion. If your captain is telling you to do something out of fear, you need to tell him to stop being afraid. Tell him, these people are not a threat, they are CITIZENS.

Conservative Motivations

It's always disappointing to me to think that my friends who start 'liking' conservative websites might never bother to look at who actually owns the website. One such I just looked at is coming from a lawyer at a big hostile takeover Mergers and Acquisitions firm out of NY. The firm that invented the poison pill defense in fact. I would say lower taxes for the rich is quite personal for them, as well as loser corporate regulation. to whit:

Conservapedia.com whois info:

Registrant:
Andrew Schlafly

hmmm.. ok. wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Schlafly
Not bad... family man, all good.... wait who is this?? his employer??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachtell,_Lipton,_Rosen_%26_Katz

my my; talk about self-serving political stances...

total time for revelatory discovery of a person's political motivations: 10 minutes.
And yes I do in fact turn that mirror both directions. I spent substantially more time on George Soros and Julian Assange as their motivations are not nearly as linear (well Soros' isn't. Assange seems to be a narcissist/anarchist so that's easy)

Androoooooooooooid!!!!!!!!

Woot! the Devs have built a largely functional and FAST android port that works on my phone. It's like a breath of fresh air after being enslaved by windows mobile.