Common Reader's Journal

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Donating to Help the FLDS Families and Other Action
I just asked the internet authority on the subject (who is anti-polygamy and pro-state removal of children in real abusive situations, fyi) for suggestions on the best way to donate. The FLDS church has a legal fund, but they also have a lot of property. I think you, my lovely readers, are probably more interested in donating to families directly, and your $5 or $10 can really make a difference for the people who are driving all over for a chance to see their children. I will link to whatever she comes up with. Here is her post on helpful political action, especially useful for Texas residents.

I'm sorry to go all religious on you, but it seems to me that the FLDS families are suffering for all of us. Their refusal to fight with physical weapons is likely to lead to a real change in the way that CPS is allowed to act lawlessly and harm children with no oversight or accountability. If you're watching MSM coverage you may feel really helpless but I've been following this stuff for more than a decade, and this is the first time there has been national attention paid to these issues, the first time there have been coordinated letter-writing campaigns, the first time there has been regular, consistent mainstream coverage making clear what the conditions of group homes really are. The door has been blown open and people aren't going to forget. Things won't get better overnight and we are all in danger, more in danger from CPS lawlessness than from any of your or my favorite bogeymen: unvaccinated children, terrorists, bird flu, the Cascadian subduction event, or butt MRSA. If you didn't realize that you were in danger, it probably seems intolerable. But people survived child-snatching pirates along the Mediterranean coast; they survived a 50% child mortality rate; this is worse because we did it to ourselves, but it's possible to end it and make it a bad memory of a crazy time.

You May Enjoy
my delicious links

Do You Hear What Is Playing for You?

Whiny Europeans whine about not being magically rewarded with lavish lifestyles in return for exam results and years spent in school.

When I was in Spain, I used to come home at 4 or 5 am from partying with the West Africans because they were the only people in the whole country I could stand, and I'd be really hungry, and there was NOTHING TO EAT. I was not alone returning from debauchery; there were rivers, floods, oceans of people returning from the clubs, and no one to sell them bocados. How hard is it to make some sandwiches and stand on the corner and exchange them for currency? How hard is it to get a friend to stand watch if you're worried about the guardia shutting you down? Aha, see, if you're that clever, you sell drugs.

I understand things are different these days, but I bet it's all Chinese people selling stuff.

Oh And
We paid six figures in taxes last year, then 10k in AMT.

People Keep Interrupting Me
so I cant' write a post about it myself, but how come no one is writing about the mandated collection of newborn DNA? Federal law! Starts in 6 months! Experimentation can be done on DNA without consent! This is really icky!

What's the Train Situation Here?
The Amtrak site is impenetrable. Can I take the train to LA? I want to take the train to LA and get the baby baptized at Mr. Common Reader's father's parish. I am NOT flying and I swear if I have to get her baptized up here in heresy-land I will just go over to the other team. There are not enough Vietnamese and Philipino people up here to dilute the heresy. They say "She" for God up here! If I wanted to refer to God the Mother I would just be Aristasian!

Today
we paid off every cent of debt.

(ok, except for the NC house. But we could sell that tomorrow and be rightside up.)

Tourist Trap Review
The Seattle duckbus is extremely inferior to the Singapore duckbus.

favoooooooor
Nadie quiere ir conmigo al

CIRCUS

VASQUEZ

en Pullyaup. ¿POR QUE NO? NO ENTIENDO. HAY ANIMALES. HAY PERSONAS MUY CHICAS. (I don't know how to say midget.)

My Mother's Day Present

(that's the SF one, there weren't any good pics of the Seattle one)

GUESS WHAT
I'M GOING TO LEARN TO DRIVE

Piano Lesson
Mr. Common Reader: How can the piano teacher not know that song?
the Common Reader: I dunno! I keep intending to send him the muppet one, but I keep forgetting.
Mr CR: Dude, he's singing "taliban banana."

Co-Founder of Baskin-Robbins Has Gone to the 31 Flavors of His Reward
Irvine Robbins, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins whose penchant for creating unusual ice-cream flavors helped push post-World War II America far beyond its chocolate-vanilla-strawberry tastes, has died. He was 90.

Robbins, who opened his first ice-cream shop in 1945 in Glendale, died Monday of complications related to old age at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, said his daughter, Marsha Veit.

After piano lessons, we got ice cream at the Clement St Baskin-Robbins and dim sum across the street. When I was little I wanted to get a job at the Chestnut St one when I was a teenager, but it closed before I got big enough, and I got a job at a newsstand that sold porn instead. And so the world decays.

Unschooling
Mini-Common Reader can't read, and he bitches about it, but we point out to him that he's not really trying very hard and he agrees. He can tell you the components of human blood however, has a better grasp of immune system function than a lot of university-educated adults, understands the process of digestion well and the process of respiration sorta, and can name the organs involved in each. He asked for this for his birthday.

Beautiful Coloring Books
Gods and Heroes of Greek Mythology

The Thousand and One Nights

$1.99 downloads!

JETTE: Unlike the other candidates, she's already a bureaucrat!
Support Jette for the LJ Advisory Board.

Jette is the best possible candidate for so many reasons! Jette should be in charge! Only of livejournal though! If 20 people post in support of her from this link, I will tell the story about the snake and the stroller!