Tuesday, April 19

Blind Justice

It will take a while to recover from today's court experience. Our daughter is trying to get full custody of her little girl because of daddy's Burning Man escapade. While Angel visited last time, he used his hot cigarette lighter on her leg to punish her for disobeying him.

The police and CPS were called after our granddaughter told the story about the burn on her leg. They took reports, we gave them pictures, they encouraged us to go to court over it. CPS later dropped the charges but didn't tell my daughter before the court date. The father refused to accept the sheriff's service papers saying he had moved out of the county.

The court mediator thought my daughter was stupid for bringing it up, saying if Liz brought another accusation as innocuous, she would give full custody to the father. The mediator believed the lies of the father and his parents, but not the testimony of Liz and her daughter.

So let me get this straight. It's okay to burn your kid if you want to. It's really no worse than spanking or having them take a time out. And lies are more believable than the truth.

Now you know what California courts think of justice.

Saturday, April 16

Saving the World



Paramount's latest adventure tease is Sahara, starring familiar faces in familiar places with familiar traces of Harrison Ford fantasy thrown in for good measure.

Saving the world isn't easy, you know. And doing it in the middle of the desert makes it that much more credible (or 'incredible' - as your opinion dictates). No one really cares about credibility. But we DO care about humor to soothe and defuse the most serious situations. This movie had some (humor), but not enough. It had some acting, too, but not enough.



Penelope Cruz was given a poorly written script and did even more poorly with it. Poor thing. The movie would have been better had her part not been created at all. (How's that for sentence structure? Reminds me of her lines). Like this screen shot I took, she added Gaussian Blur and little more. Too bad.

Overall, I'd rate this picture 'B' for entertaining, 'B' for music, 'B' for acting (except for previous exception), 'A' for hardly any bad language, 'C' for photography, 'D' for storyline, 'B' for special effects, and an 'A' for Matthew McConaughey's teeth whitener.

Sunday, April 3

It's All Relative



In the world of mosquito eaters English is not the first language, nor any language, for that matter. Eat-or-Be-Eaten is the only speech in this macro-environment --- a smallfry culture that has been imitated for ages by most people groups.

Yet the insect population is sinless --- another amazing and awesome reality of relativity.

Friday, April 1

This Brave New Cul-de-Sac


-----Koi, Luan, Andy, and Famata

We've lived here 17 years now. That's a pretty long time for current standards, I guess. The Union Pacific tracks on the west side and a world of faces on the other. Mexican, Vietnamese, West African, Filipino, Black, and the usual mix of German, Irish and English Americans like us --- all within a few houses. We certainly don't all speak the same languages and eat the same food. We don't have all of the same values. And we probably all smell differently.

But we DO care for one another, look out for each other, respect and help one another. We like to celebrate kids birthdays together. We like to talk to each other.

It's not perfect by any stretch. One fist fight a few years ago. One neighbor who doesn't want to be in the homeowner's association. Some loud parties. The usual stuff. Nothing that doesn't happen in monotone cul-de-sacs.

"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female, He created them." Genesis 1:27

Brown, black, yellow or white, we're all created in God's image. All the same underneath and inside out.