You see odd things at times and you shake your head and move on... but this?
I guess, if I weren't some old fuddy dud, that I'd see something here that is supposed to be beautiful.
I'm afraid I don't. Instead I see something here that is just freaking weird maybe even sick.
Sigh.
H/T tip to Doug Johnson over at Wizbang.
A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a "closed fracture" of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.
Yet the FBI is considering hate crime charges according to local reports:
WFTV has learned charges against George Zimmerman could be getting more serious.
State prosecutors said Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, profiled and stalked 17-year-old Trayvon Martin before killing him, so the FBI is now looking into charging him with a hate crime.
Zimmerman admitted to killing Martin in February during a confrontation. However, he claims the shooting was in self-defense. He's facing a second-degree murder charge, which carries a maximum possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. But if Zimmerman is charged and found guilty of a federal hate crime involving murder, he could face the death penalty.
FBI investigators are actively questioning witnesses in the retreat at the Twin Lakes neighborhood, seeking evidence for a possible federal hate crime charge.
This is the same FBI, part of Eric Holder's Justice Department need I remind you, who turned a blind eye to the in your face death threats made against Zimmerman and the bounty put on his head by the New Black Panther Party who are nothing if they're not about hatred.
Ridiculous.
The hate crime charges against Zimmerman are particularly ridiculous given what we found out about Zimmerman not three weeks ago:
He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.
More at that link in case you need a refresher.
And while we're talking about refreshers, here's what defines Secon Degree Murder in Florida:
The crime of Second Degree Murder occurs when a person commits either:
Murder with a Depraved Mind
Murder with a Depraved Mind occurs when a person is killed, without any premeditated design, by an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind showing no regard for human life.
The primary distinction between Premeditated First Degree Murder and Second Degree Murder with a Depraved Mind is that First Degree Murder requires a specific and premeditated intent to kill.
Accomplice Felony Murder
Accomplice Felony Second Degree Murder occurs when you are an accomplice to a person who kills another human being while engaged in the commission, or attempted commission, of the following statutorily enumerated felonies, regardless of whether they intended the death...
Here's hoping that politics, agendas, ideologies and the like take a back seat to the pursuit of justice and truth in this case.
And here's to God's continued presence in the lives of Trayvon Martin's loved ones.
Entlitlement, taken to new lows:
Free Botox and laser hair removal, free chemical peels and anti-cellulite treatments may at first seem shockingly frivolous in a country like Brazil – which, despite phenomenal economic growth in recent years that has lifted millions out of extreme poverty, still battles with diseases such as tuberculosis and dengue.
But the philosophy behind the more than 220 clinics across Brazil that treat people like Penha and thousands of maids, receptionists, waitresses and others is simple: Beauty is a right, and the poor deserve to be ravishing, too.
The Brazilian Society of Aesthetic Medicine’s Rio clinic has performed free procedures on more than 14,000 patients since its founding in 1997, said Dr. Nelson Rosas, who heads the Rio branch.
Good looks, doctors argue, are more than skin deep, and by treating what patients view as physical flaws doctors are often also healing their psyches.
“What’s a wrinkle? Something minor, right? Something with precious little importance,” Rosas said. “But when we treat the wrinkle, that unimportant little thing, we’re actually treating something very important: The patient’s self-esteem.”
The notion that beauty treatments can act in much the same way as psychoanalysis, helping free patients from crippling neuroses, was pioneered over thelpast decades by celebrated Brazilian plastic surgeon Ivo Pitanguy.
Nicknamed the “philosopher of plastic surgery” for his intellectual and psychoanalytical take on the vocation, 85-year-old Pitanguy is largely responsible for Brazil’s reputation as a world leader in the field and a top destination for cosmetic surgery tourism.
...
With more than 11.5 million operations a year, Brazil is the world’s second biggest consumer of plastic surgery after the United States, but here there’s none of the kind of stigma that still clings to the practice in the U.S.
Local celebrities appear on the cover of glossy magazines with titles like “Plastica e Beleza,” or “Plastic (Surgery) and Beauty,” and wax poetic about their latest face-lift, breast implant or round of Botox. Actors on the prime time soap operas that captivate the public here regularly get surgical makeovers, as do the characters they play as part of the soaps’ high-drama story lines.
Silicone, on prominent display at the beach here year-round, takes center stage during Carnival, when samba queens wearing only a sprinkling of sequins and feathers flaunt their pumped-up bustlines and gravity-defying rear ends at Rio’s extravagant Sambadrome parade. (Breast and buttock implants are among the most popular plastic surgeries here, along with liposuction, facelifts and procedures to flatten prominent ears).
The senate is currently debating whether the government’s national health service should fully cover breast reconstruction for cancer patients. The state-funded health service already pays for gastroplasties for the morbidly obese and some surgeries to repair serious deformities or injuries, including correcting cleft palates in children.
There's more at the link.
I thought I'd heard it all.
I had not.
For some. Welcome to the future?
With grand designs on minimizing their housing footprint, Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller have spent the last 10 months building the tiny home of their dreams.
"It's 19 feet long wall to wall,” Smith said. “The interior square-footage is about 125 square feet.”
The interior layout consists of a sitting area, kitchen and bathroom. A vaulted ceiling makes room for a sleeping loft that can accommodate a queen-size mattress.
...
Their design incorporates several sustainable elements, including: reclaimed windows, beetle-kill lumber, solar power and a composting toilet.
"It’s just a five-gallon bucket that you put peat moss and sawdust in,” Smith said. “You'd be surprised how well it works and how much it doesn't smell.”
Yes, I think I'd be greatly surprised.
The piece goes on to detail that the tiny house movement is growing.
Might be a good time to go into the five-gallon bucket manufacturing sector.
Or not.
Have you wondered why you don't hear Martin Luther King's speech much on the airwaves?
It is the time of year when students are taught about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech, so passionately delivered that his call for freedom changed U.S. history. Once heard, it is impossible to forget.
But many students won't get to hear it -- and most who do will hear only snippets, educators and historians said. And that, they said, is affecting the legacy of the preeminent civil rights leader, whose life will be honored tomorrow with an annual federal holiday.
"It lessens the historical saliency of King for younger kids," said Robert Brown, assistant dean of undergraduate education at Emory University in Atlanta who specializes in African American politics. "It is one thing to read King and another to see him. Hearing him is so much more powerful than reading it."
...
All of King's speeches and papers are owned by his family, which has gone to court several times since the 1990s to protect its copyright; King obtained rights to his most famous speech a month after he gave it. Now, those who want to hear or use the speech in its entirety must buy a copy sanctioned by the King family, which receives the proceeds.
...
Clayborne Carson, director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute and a history professor at Stanford University, said the institute "would like to make it as widely available as possible. However, I respect the King family's point of view that this is private property and there has to be a balancing of the public need versus the family need."
When King was killed, his family was left without much money. The family earns income from licensing his image and charging fees for the use of his speeches. Some of his papers are free for researchers to look through. The King family did not respond to queries for this article.
Joseph Beck, an attorney for the King family and an expert in intellectual property rights, said, "The King family has always supported providing access to the speech and to the video for educational purchases and encourages interested persons to contact the King Center in Atlanta." According to the family's Web site, videotapes and audiotapes of the speech can be purchased for $10, but one copy often is not enough for an entire school, and many schools don't know what materials are available.
Many schools use the text -- often taken in violation of the copyright from the Internet. The King family, however, wants teachers to use the speech and has not pursued legal action against educators, Carson said.
Critics of the King family's decision not to put the speech in the public domain say the poorest children are the most deprived.
I had no clue.
You?
Crossposted at Wizbang.
I've been watching the reaction to Steve Jobs death... and was a bit... unsettled... over it all... and then I found this from Robert:
I must phrase this carefully because I don't intend to be disrespectful: the global outpouring of grief for an inventor of consumer goods seems a little curious to me, maybe even a little unseemly.
I understand the world has lost a giant of innovation and a true marketing genius. My house is full of the gadgets his company creates and his vision was behind much of its achievements.
Still, to eulogize his passing as that of a Ghandi or a Mandela seems to me to be raising our addiction to consumerism to an actual religion. From tributes outside Apple stores to the expressions of anguish we see online, it appears we have lost the Prophet of Cool Stuff. Or was he the actual God of Cool Stuff?
Again, this is not to denigrate the accomplishments of this visionary techie, this reaction reflects more on us than it does on him but, seriously, it's a phone, people.
I rarely agree with Robert... in fact, I can't remember ever agreeing with the man... he's been on the blogroll for some time because he occasionally provides me with fodder to rail against.... but not this time.
Not this time at all.
And trust me when I tell you that I realize this will be a most unpopular perspective.
Rail against me in the comments.
Crossposted at Wizbang.
UPDATE: The Anchoress links... and adds:
True. I think one of the realities of New Media, though, is that all reactions seem like “outsized” reactions, simply because there is SO MUCH being shared, by SO MANY. In the 21st Century, perhaps, every “big” death gets the Princes Di treatment!
Recent Comments