He was driving.  She was riding shot gun.  Her friend was in her lap.  Her friend had broken up with her much older boyfriend and hadn't gotten to drive his swishy mid-engine sports car in a while.  She missed driving.  She missed shifting.  He said, "Okay, so shift."

So she did.  He didn't tell her when he was engaging the clutch.  She just shifted when she felt like it was time and it worked.  They were in perfect sync.  It made them all laugh.  Her friend was light in her lap and the laughter was living and breathing.  It made her feel less afraid.

Less stupid.

They drove the truck to the beach and got out.  She and her friend drew lines in the sands of low tide with their toes and he followed them.  Every twist and turn.  From her line to her friend's line.

The lines strayed into the water.  Seaweed was caught between toes.  Pant legs were wet.  Skirt hems were soaked and clingy.

Her friend stubbed her toe on something in the water.  He helped her hobble out of the water.

The laughter and running stopped.

She remembered the man who had once carried her out of water when she cut her toe.  He'd carried her up a hill over-the-threshold style.  A short, steep hill covered in soft pine needles.  He'd laughed at her because she didn't want to be carried.  Thought she would hurt him.  She was too heavy.  She could walk just fine.

"The cut needs to stay clean.  It's fine," he said and carried her.

And he made fun of her and she laughed.  And the laughter was living and breathing and it made her feel less stupid.

Less afraid.

Only he died young and now the laughter had stopped and her friend wasn't having fun anymore. 

It was time to go home.

And sometimes what we see from the backside isn't the same on the frontside.

Also, Justice's new trailer for their live DVD A Cross the Universe may not be funny, but the content of the video is definitely UNSAFE!

Hollywood starlet Anne Hathaway is set to star in Tim Burton's movie adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," entertainment industry press reported Tuesday.
 
Hathaway, who is generating early awards season buzz for her performance in "Rachel Getting Married," is to play the White Queen in Burton's retelling of the classic children's fantasy, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Burton movie regulars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter already have signed on for the Disney project, with "Pirates of the Caribbean" star Depp to play the Mad Hatter. Australian actress Mia Wasikowska is to play Alice. Hathaway, whose other film credits include "Get Smart" and "The Devil Wears Prada", will next be seen in horror thriller, "Passengers."

Anne Hathaway Bio and Photo Gallery

Chocolate: a favorite mistake guys make.  Sweet and indulgent, yes. And harmful to your date’s health, and habit-forming, and probably harvested by some 8-year-old slave with no shoes and healthy fear of whips and chains. What is wrong with you, you monster?

Flowers:on the one hand, everybody likes flowers, and there’s not much confusion about what they mean. On the other hand, it’s a little predictable, and girls tend to like a bad boy, not pansies. And unless you’re picking her up at her place, they’ll be kind of a burden for her to tote around all night. Also, consider the insect pests that may be lurking among the petals. For instance this fun fact, a botfly maggot(gotta love Google) will chew its way into a person’s body and gorge itself for weeks until it becomes so distended and bloated from its meals of human flesh that it pops out through the skin. Not the kind of impression you'll want to leave.

Alcohol: while it can be useful in getting her loose enough to give away some important characteristics  – (if she pops it open on the spot and starts drinking, run away, unless you are an alcoholic, in which case you've met your soul mate, congrats!) – it also says “I’m trying to lower your inhibitions so I can have my way with you.” Some women may be turned off by this approach.

Firearms:a thoughtful and practical gift, especially if you live close to say the greater Flint or Detroit area.  Unfortunately studies show that most shooting victims are shot by people they know. Don’t become a statistic.

A brand new car:for guys who like to come on strong, this could be just the thing. Be warned, though – if the evening goes poorly, etiquette dictates that it’s rude to ask for it back.  Unless you crossed your fingers. 

Photos:while some women may be enthralled by a male model, let's be honest, you are not one.  Do not whip out that shoddy photshop picture of you skiing with George Clooney.  Also photos of your wife and kids may also be a turn off so it's best to keep those to yourself champ. 

Paper clips:not recommended, unless you met through an online paper-clip-fetishist forum, or one of the many dating services that cater to office-supply enthusiasts.  Besides everyone knows if you're going to go with an office supply gift, "swingline stapler" is all that need be said.

ISTANBUL, October 10 (Compass Direct News) – An Egyptian Coptic Christian woman has been sentenced to three years in prison for failing to uphold her Islamic identity – an identity she didn’t know she had for over four decades.

Sisters Shadia and Bahia Nagy El-Sisi, both in their late 40s and residents of the small east Delta town Mit-Ghamr, were arrested and tried for claiming their official religious identity as Christian. Unknown to them, their religious identity officially changed 46 years ago due to their father’s brief conversion to Islam. Both are illiterate.

Shadia El-Sisi was tried for stating her religion as Christian on her marriage certificate and sentenced to three years in prison on Nov. 21, 2007. She was released two months later. Last Sept. 23 a judge also sentenced Bahia El-Sisi to three years in prison for “forging” her marriage certificate by stating her religion as Christian.

Their father, Nagy El-Sisi, converted to Islam in 1962 during a brief marital dispute in order to divorce his wife and potentially gain custody of his daughters, the sisters’ lawyer Peter Ramses told Compass.

Egyptian law is influenced by Islamic jurisprudence (sharia), which automatically awards child custody to whichever parent has the “superior” religion and dictates “no jurisdiction of a non-Muslim over a Muslim.”

If Bahia El-Sisi’s identity as a Muslim stands, then her religious status could potentially create a domino effect that would require her husband to convert to Islam or have their marriage nullified. Her children, too, would be registered as Muslims. Both women are married to Christians.

“All of their children and grandchildren would be registered as Muslims,” Ramses said. “[The ruling] would affect many people.”

Other sources said it is too soon to determine the fate of the sisters’ marriages and families, as neither of their cases have been finalized.

‘But I Am a Christian’

A few years after his conversion, Nagy El-Sisi returned to his family and Christianity. He sought the help of a Muslim employee in the Civil Registration Office, Ramadan Muhammad Hussein, who agreed to forge his Christian identification documents. Reversion back to Christianity for converts to Islam has been nearly impossible in Egyptian courts.

The daughters discovered they were still registered as Muslims when Hussein was arrested for forgery in 1996 and confessed he had helped El-Sisi obtain fake documents three decades earlier. El-Sisi was later arrested.

When the two daughters visited him in prison, they were detained and accused of forging their Christian identification documents, according to national weekly Watani. A criminal court gave them each a three-year prison sentence in absentia in 2000.

Shadia El-Sisi was arrested in August 2007, three days before her son’s wedding. Her first hearing was on Nov. 21, 2007 at the Shobra El-Khema criminal court; she asserted that she had no idea of her so-called conversion to Islam. Judge Hadar Tobla Hossan sentenced her to three years in prison.

Confronted with the sentence, Shadia El-Sisi kept repeating, “But I am a Christian. I am a Christian,” according to Watani.

She was in prison until Jan. 13, when Prosecutor-General Abdel Meged Mahmood retracted the sentence because she was unaware of her conversion by proxy and due to legal technicalities that voided incriminating evidence.

The advocacy group Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination also pressured the judiciary through a signature drive to release her from prison.

Bahia El-Sisi went into hiding following her sister’s imprisonment, but came out after news of her release. Legal experts believe that when Bahia El-Sisi’s case comes before the Supreme Court, her sentence will be retracted as her sister’s was, as their cases have no legal foundation.

Early in the morning of May 5, however, police arrested Bahia El-Sisi and held her in jail until her hearing on July 20, after which she was released pending the verdict.

On Sept. 23 she was sentenced to three years in prison for “forgery of an official document,” as her marriage license states her religion as “Christian.” Bahia El-Sisi was married years before learning of her father’s brief conversion.

Ramses will appeal to Egypt’s Supreme Court in next week. He said he worries the case could further erode the precarious situation of religious minorities in the Muslim-majority country of 79 million.

“How can the government say to [someone] who has lived 50 years in a Christian way that they must become a Muslim and their children must be Muslim and their whole family must all be Muslims?” he said. “This is very important for the freedom of religion.”

Egypt’s constitution guarantees freedom of belief and practice for the country’s Christian minority, which makes up 10 percent of the population. Islam, however, is the official state religion and heavily influences the government and court system.

The case is an example of the social pressure put on Egyptian non-Muslims to convert when one of their parents embraces Islam, despite the constitution guaranteeing equality, said Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of Watani.

“This is a sick environment that we struggle to change,” Sidhom stated. “According to what is taking place here freedom is protected and provided for Christians to convert to Islam while the opposite is not provided.”

Egyptian courts have continued to discriminate against Christians who have one Muslim parent, according to human rights reports, as the judiciary gives them no choice but to convert to Islam.

On Sept. 24 an Alexandria court awarded custody of 14-year-old Christian twins to their Muslim father even though the twins said they were Christians who wanted to stay with their mother. Egyptian civil law grants child custody to their mothers until the age of 15.  

Report from Compass Direct News

copyright 2008

by Tomek Kempski (TOJA) :

by Jasio Narczyk (JATO) :

make-up / hair / dress design i stylizacja : Paula Dzwigala
modelka : Magda AW-AGENCE
asysta : Maja Kotala, Jasio Narczyk (TOJA), Tomasz Kempski (TOJA).

zdjecia : Marcin Kempski

Yes, I've been bad about blogging; my real life has this nasty thing called school, which forces me to do homework rather than share delightful discoveries with you. I was pointed toward the * Deviance * shop for this beauty from Berry's Blog post on various sexy costumes; there are other colors available of this little spell, too, but they cost L$300. I'm also sporting one of the Halloween gifts from the +*+DEJAVU+*+ group and my mime skin was a previous freebie/dollarbie from the Topaz Square fair during the lat summer/early fall.

image credits :picturemakers2006

sindoor =vermillion

We haven't been friends so I tried to express some neutral attitude, smiling. As far as I knew she had been alone and her son turned only 14.

She told this to me she was now with a man, a very big love she'd been lacking.

'So we have just moved in and he brought to our place this daughter, a terrible girl.'

She said she's ashamed but the girl's hard to stand, such a horrible spoiled little monster.

'But then' - she remembered ' I could understand it, as her mum was a drunk and she died.'

So her newly-found love was quite in distress being married last month, turned a widower soon and a hot-blooded lover right now. It did seem a bit fast, but I don't like to ask extra questions, so I had to listen.

'I used to know his late wife, the mom of the girl. She has...had some problems, you see'

The woman continued unable to stop, although now I wanted her to.

'We had something on when she was still alive though it was very hard for us all. She would call me at night (and I don't know why but somehow she would say we were friends). And confessing to me, I don't know why to me, she would tell she suspected the man. And I would calm her down, ask to think of the child, throw away the nonsense and bottle. But those drunks they are ill and they are hard to cure and she just wouldn't give it a try. The situation got worse, she became paranoid, being sure he was having a lover, and one day took a car, followed him to his boat, and was drinking and being hysteric, lost her balance somehow, fell in water head down, being drunk immediately drowned'

I managed to answer, although can't recall words and I wanted badly to scream. And I hanged up the phone and I'm not calling back. But the story is anyway haunting. So I typed it all out without thinking about and the lines turned themselves into chants.

Once again, the same drawing... I like the long extremities, the slanted face and leg. She must be turning and twisting in her tomb. The elongated arms, the inclined face, the slanted leg with a boot... Yesterday I went to a scooters dealer and looked up the model I like. It was not available.

Today I killed like a thousand ants that looked like a black moving ball of dots on my porch. Am I a killer?

I am making a point of meditating early in the morning. It’s great! A killer that meditates.

I discovered book pages are a good substrate to sketch.

I bought $20 dollars of fruits yesterday and that’s what I had for dinner.

I think I eat to much. I don’t exercise at all. Need to improve on this.

Yesterday my nephew sent me pictures of me with his son, my godson.

I cleaned the porch and discovered the delight of having back and legs that respond to my wishes. Life couldn’t be great..

Unless you are a man of homosexual orientation, I don't think you should wear a women's shirt. Say what you will about it being fashionable: it still looks like he pulled that shirt out of her closet, not his own. I mean, he'd have a nice outfit going if he could find that perfect necklace.

Men: To be rad, do not wear women's shirts.

Why Men Rape : Interesting and Informative Article
"In the United States, a woman is sexually assaulted or raped every six minutes . 85% of victims know their attacker and 84% of rapes will go unreported."

You may find thousands of article on rape victims on the Internet, but have you ever thought why men rape? How does an affectionate lover evolve into a hyped scavenger who leaps out at every single prey? Is it to satisfy their sexual desire or is it to prove that thy can overpower anything weak? Read to know the psychology of a rapist. Unfold the mystery of 'why men rape' to prevent the the most sensual act against women?

Expert psychologists define rape as a form of assault where one individual forces another to have sexual intercourse against that person's will. Most experts believe the primary cause of rape is an aggressive desire to dominate the victim rather than an attempt to achieve sexual fulfillment. They consider rape an act of violence rather than principally a sexual encounter. Here are some of the reasons according to the experts,

Two present day sociobiologist's claim in their book that unsuccessful men use rape to gain sexual access to desirable mates. By making women pregnant, they proclaim to pass their genes on to the next generation. The above sentence may seem absurd as there are many inadequacies in this argument. For instance, if the primary concern of a rapist is to just procreate, then why do rapists attack the helpless elderly, menopausal women and innocent children? And has anybody thought about the number of murders made by the rapists as the dead bodies will never give birth. So one can conclude that these argument is baseless on many cases.

To get rid of frustration
Research states that some men do not ejaculate during rape. This proves that whatever is driving this section of men to rape is more than the sexual drive. In one of the interview by the rapists, they say that, "We rape women who need to be disciplined. They do not want to talk to most people. They think they know better than most of us ". Here the rapists were using sexual assault to punish women who were not being genuinely feminine in their thoughts and work. They vent out their anger and frustration on a situation. However one can neither identify sexual drive nor the act of procreating. Men rape because they believe they have the right to control and to punish women who do not obey their rules of behaviour.

Right to control
Rape is about power, not sex. A rapist uses actual force or violence or the threat of it to take control over another human being. Some reports state that rapists use drugs to descend a person's ability to fight back. It has become an expression of unequal power relations between men and women. Such unequal power relations are not the result of nature or evolution but societies. Society has always drawn a margin to the women community, if they seem crossing it they are subject to grand victimization.

Biological reasons
Biologically men rape because they are flooded with hormones, and are overwhelmed with sexual desire. These rapists are typically teenagers who engage in acquaintance rape or date rape Whatever may be the reason the prime concern of an individual is, can I change these facts as a historical report and recreate a better place to live in safe Rape takes place only when men learn to rape, and it can be eradicated simply by substituting new lessons. Enhance the essence of equal responsibilities, love relationships and the sense of being loved and to love. Understand him, to evolve him into a finer being.

Thank You for checking out my  work again on my first art blog. This is an image I call figurative fox..... look into the image.......

Now breathe................

Painted with coffee and water color

Hi guys,

I have been once again caught with blog neglect. And this time I seem to have stepped on too many toes in my previous posts. I have approved all comments received on TPM-The Pentecostal Mission . I am yet to reply to the thought-provoking comments of some of my readers. And I'm also guilty of not replying to a more than 1,000 word comment (which, incidentally is longer than the post).

It was also quite exhilarating to find Lindsay from White Washed Feminists and True Womanhood posting on my blog. I have for long been a regular reader of the two sites as they promote the concept of the independant, thinking Chrisitian woman. Though a self-declared atheist, I can so identify with these sites, because patriarchy in the church was something I opposed even when I didn't know the existence of such a word.

There have been many Christians sharing their personal insights into what comprises The Pentecostal Mission. I am yet to compose my thoughts and write a meaningful reply. Some testimonies are quite personal and with nothing but kindness towards me, so I'm a bit hesitant...I want to say what I want to in the nicest way possible without offending anyone.

I have also decided to post one post a day. Hopefully, I stick to my resolve :-)

What was sad to note was wordpress has temporarily suspended fellow-blogger's site oceanic11 for writing on the Leehman Brothers issue. He's still on my blogroll and I'm hoping the suspension is only temporary.

I am emotionally unable to to stop.

I am an addict.

Oh the high of instant gratification.

I could not pass up this purse! Is it nothing short of Fab?  And to boot is is not even leather (very animal friendly) & was less than twenty bucks. 

You ladies understand don't you? Shoes & Purses.... Never too many (it's not like there are at least a dozen in the closet already)

Don't you just love woman? I do!!!!!!! I FUCKING  love me SOME WOMAN!!!!! EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM FROM THEIR EYES, BODIES, SMILES, EVERYTHING. I FRICKEN LOVE ME SOME WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

SEE THE LIFESTYLE, LIVE THE LIFESTYLE