Somali wild ass born at Zoo

Yes, that is an actual headline from stltoday.com today.

"The St. Louis Zoo welcomed its first newborn Somali wild ass."

Whoohoo! I'm looking forward to a wild ass birthday party!

Word puzzles

These sentences are all grammatically correct. A friend of mine introduced me to the Buffalo buffalo one, and I found the rest in Wikipedia...

This sentence demonstrates lexical ambiguity. See if you can work it out before you read the Wikipedia article.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

This stream of words lacks punctuation. See if you can insert the correct punctuation to make sense of it.

James while Jon had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

And these are examples of Garden Path sentences:

"The old man the boat."

"The man who whistles tunes pianos."

"The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi."

Jason Bredle

I am exhibiting signs of early-onset Bredlemania, and I have Jason Bredle to thank for that. I have been practically glued to his work, what I can find of it on the Internet, ever since I discovered it on Friday.

I first learned of him while scanning through the online content of the Missouri Review. There are three of his poems posted there. His prosaic style and brilliant sense of humor captivated me. I immediately started scouring the Internet for more. Found his website, which pointed me to his blogs, which are hysterical, found Aurora Borealis Beard Fire Party, which made me laugh and enjoy the outstanding wordplays and rhythms, found The Crossfire, the Breathtaking Explosions, O, which is so complex, and so efficient in every line, that I haven't even found halfway of it yet, and then I found The Idiot's Guide to Faking Your Own Death and Moving to Mexico.

This last one is probably the most intense, although I am probably only saying that because I haven't fully parsed any of his works yet, but this one I am starting to crack the shell of, and it is everything you could hope a work of art is: it is moving, it is sad, it is funny, it is refreshing, it's challenging, it's musical, it's weird, it's exciting, it's devastating, it's demanding, it's actually easy to relate to. It's all of these things and more.

A work of art is best when it entices the audience to explore it, and as they explore it, they are rewarded at every layer with new insight, emotion, and a feeling of intellectual accomplishment.

Bredle opens the poem with an ostensibly humorous stanza, which disarmed me into thinking this would be a fun piece, like the ones I read in the Missouri Review.

Every few seconds I check the Bible
to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer
is always nothing. Sometimes

Note how the last word of the last line pulls you into the next stanza, while also providing a funny nonsequitur. There is plenty more to say about this stanza, like the surreal impression of someone checking the Bible every few seconds for anything, let alone the possibility of new information that wasn't already there, or the use of in media res, and there may be something going on with the s sound there, but I haven't figured it out yet, and the break on the second line is curious. Broken on the period, the rhythm is perhaps too conventional, makes the stanza soft, but...

My point is actually that even though I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of this poem, it is written so exquisitely, that I can't hold back from blogging about it already. It suddenly hit me today as I was re-reading it for the Nth time, o no, is he contemplating suicide? He has before? Is he grappling with his belief in God? Remembering someone who has died? Did they commit suicide? The language goes back and forth, creating paradoxes, I guess such is life, he is confused and, as the reader, I feel the confusion, and yet... The title of this poem is ...Faking Your Own Death... Is he joshing me? That would be kind of humiliating because I am really feeling empathetic for this author the more I am reading this, but perhaps the humiliation is intentional, like he feels it too. He can't believe his own thoughts, and feels astonished by them. He writes...

I've gone forever. I know! That's what I thought
too. This is the story, but in this language, this
is not the story. I am eating red ice,

harvesting a field of knives. I am speaking
the language in which heaven and earth mean
the same, in which sky and white mean the same.

Ah, I have a lot more reading to do on this poem before I feel comfortable with my understanding of it, but I can surely tell you that it is art of an exceptional quality.

I checked Left Bank Books, but they didn't have Bredle's book, Standing in Line for the Beast, so I had to order a copy. Should be here before the week is done.

Wondergrrrl

Jason Bredle is a clever man, and he's into Unicorns, and stuff. Wondergrrrl is one of his blogs. You will not regret reading every entry in it. I recommend you actually start at the beginning.

The Washing of the Hands

I used to wash my hands less, but now I wash them more. Life can be such a wondrous journey.

This is a photo of my actual hands being washed. I felt compelled to wash them after changing the cat's litter. I think it raises some interesting questions: Am I washing my hands, or are they washing each other? Do other people refill their Softsoap containers, or do they just buy new ones? How exactly did I take a picture of my own hands? Is this appropriate content for the Internet?

I look forward to your comments.

International Violence Against Women Act

As a follow up to yesterday's post, I would like to urge anyone who reads this to take a moment to support the passing of the International Violence Against Women Act. It is a senate bill that would help to promote the equality of women around the world.

Use the Amnesty USA website to send emails to your senators urging them to support it, if they're not already co-sponsors, and if they are co-sponsors, thanking them.

If you prefer a more personal approach, please do write your senators letters to the same effect. Either way, it is important that we spread the philosophy of human equality to all reaches of this planet, especially those horrific places where women are treated as less than human.

Guatemalan Women

There was a documentary on the Documentary Channel a few weeks ago called Killer's Paradise, and I strongly urge you to watch it. It is on again tomorrow night. It details the current situation in Guatemala regarding the killing of women. It is an atrocity of an unimaginable scale. The documentary is chilling.

3,000 women and girls have been killed in Guatemala since 2000. Nearly all of the murders go without an investigation, and for the ones that are investigated, the forensic and investigative methods employed are horrifically inept, and they often boil down to a pile of languishing paperwork. There have been 20 convictions from 2001 to 2006.

The police themselves have been implicated in several of the murders, rapes, and mutilations.

One story is told by a father whose daughter was kidnapped from in front of their house. The neighbors ran over to tell him what happened, and offered him their car to chase the kidnappers. He and his son tried to search for them, then went to the police station to report it and ask for assistance. He tells how he begged them to send out an APB, put up road blocks, anything, and they treated him with complete disdain. Then he and his son went back out looking for her. Hours later they came back to the police station and asked if there had been any news. The sergeant looked at him and said, "What missing girl? You have not filed a report."

No woman is safe in Guatemala. If a dead body is found, the woman is presumed to be a prostitute, and nothing is done. The injustice is so far beyond imagination, it is difficult to comprehend. The streets are crawling with rapists and murderers who openly admit what they have done. They practically brag about it.

The United States has sent forensics experts to Guatemala to train them on how to secure a crime scene and collect evidence, but nobody applies what they have learned, and the Guatemalan government does not provide funding for investigative resources.

The Senate has recently, on March 10th, passed a resolution expressing sympathy for the families of those who have been murdered, and to "encourage" and "urge" the Secretary of State, the President, and the Attorney General to assist the Guatemalan government in establishing law, order, and justice, with respect to these atrocities. We can all pray that it will help.

Some blogs on Amnesty USA have entries that tell more stories.

Miller, Vonn, Ligety Making it Happen

If you have not been paying attention the the Alpine Skiing World Cup, it is time to wake up and smell the victory! Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn, and Ted Ligety are three Americans who are tearing up the World Cup circuit, and showing the world what US racers are capable of.

Miller and Ligety both grew up with access to fairly large mountains, but Lindsey Vonn grew up racing at Buck Hill in Minnesota. It's a relatively small hill that has produced many great US females, including Kristina Koznick, and more recently, Sterling Grant.

I'm getting off track, but I mention Buck Hill because it is a small hill, like our own Hidden Valley. On Saturday, we had a former Hidden Valley skier, Robby Reid, come to visit us. He is now the conditioning coach for the Norwegian National Ski Team (maybe you've heard of them). One of the things he stressed with us was that most of the Norwegian racers come from around Oslo, where there is nothing but small hills, like Hidden Valley. You don't need a big hill to build great racers if you know how to use what you have. In fact, Aksel Lund Svindal came from a small town 25 km north of Oslo, and he won the overall World Cup title last year.

So I guess what I'm saying is big time skiers can come from small hills. People like Vonn and Svindal prove it. Watch out!

Anyway, getting back to topic, Miller and Vonn lead the men's and women's overall World Cup standings by relatively comfortable margins (about 160 each), and Ligety just took the red bib for GS (meaning he's #1 in Giant Slalom).

Julia Mancuso is 7th in the overall points standings for women, which is outstanding, and Resi Stiegler is 39th, even though she hasn't raced since getting injured in December. She had already collected 111 points in slalom by that point. Watch out for her next year!

Ligety is in a tight race with Raich and Moelgg for the GS title, but if he can pull it off, he will accomplish what he set his mind to do at the beginning of the season. He said he wanted to focus on winning the GS globe. Let's hear it for setting a goal and making it happen!

If Miller can wrap up this season with the overall title, it will be his second, pushing him up the list of overall globe winners to join Stephan Eberharter and Lasse Kjus, who also had two overall globes.

If Vonn can tie it up, she will be only the second US female to win the overall title. The first was Tamara McKinney in 1983. A notable difference is that Tamara won hers in the technical disciplines, slalom and giant slalom. Lindsey is a speed specialist, and in particular, she is the standard for women's downhill, utterly dominating that discipline with 755 points! The nearest competitor is Renate Goetschl with 448.

Lindsey's downhills this season go: 1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 5th, 1st, 2nd, 1st. Yeah, I call that utterly dominating. I'd like to also mention that she is totally hot.

Here come the Alpine World Championships!