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Lust Thrust Thursdays: Two Poems by Lauren Yarnall

There’s a Korean legend where a girl drowns after her man leaves her
on a rock in the sea. The fish quit glittering. The village starves.
A man cums in the water— the fish come back. To please the dead
virgin girl, the island is adorned with wooden cocks.

There is some metaphor here.

(What do I know? I’m not Korean
or a virgin, & as much as I’d like

to have a cock in my mouth, I also want the glow of a drive-thru
shouting my seven-dollar shame, & I would like to eat it hot

still sitting in my car, Dolly Parton
begging through the speaker,

the lines of the parking lot around me
like parentheses that lost their grip, or your slack arms
when you sleep. What I’m doing

sending video after video
of cellular grit,

shoving some silicone wanna-be
into my lubed-up asshole. Who’s
a pretty bird? Who’s a pretty

bird? The trick is to act
like I want to be on an island of cock.

Your cock, specifically. Your specific cock.

The key is being a phone
sex operator with you
in the room.

I’d like a baker’s dozen
of your cock, steaming hot, please

& thank you.) That’s all I’ve got
to say about that.

You’re a real Neil Armstrong motherfucker aren’t you? That whole butchery,
all thumb and footprinting— you think you can just plant a flag in my pussy.

I cock pussy, aim it at your bloody head when those other boys beat you silly,
clutch the word in my knuckles like a roll of nickels, fisting pussy.

We called it privates in my house, like don’t share, like nothing’s pussy
when it’s all just pussy. O’Keefe’s husband ate her pussy, said she painted pussy.

Schoolboys sniffing fingers like, hey man you reek of pussy.
Real pussy? Call that currency, make us all just stink with money.

Your mother says on your way out you ripped her pussy,
as in she’s got a can’t-go-for-a-run-without-pissing pussy.

Nailing pussy, beating pussy, never catch you eating pussy,
and you’ve got the balls to say, Lauren, I know how to treat a pussy.

Lauren Yarnall is currently a 2nd MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Idaho, where she also works as the Managing Editor of Fugue. Her work has previously appeared in, Harpur PalatePermafrost MagazineSpillway MagazineNoble/Gas Quarterly and she has work forthcoming in Sugar House Review. Her Twitter handle is @YarnallLauren.

Gem Blackthorn is QMT's Sex Columnist, and the author/curator of Lust Thrust Thursdays. Send her your submissions and questions at sexsexsex [at]

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18 October 2003 @ 03:49 pm
I'm wet.
Almost everything that fits me is out in the balcony, hanging to dry. As I was arranging my laundry on the ropes, I noticed that my wardrobe is once more pleasantly dark. ::grin::
I also noticed that I need a couple more blouses and at least three shirts... I guess it's time to hit the shops again.
i'm feeling: need. coffee.

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How To Weatherproof A Rabbit Hutch

How to weatherproof a rabbit hutch featured image

Looking for tips to waterproof a rabbit hutch?

This post brings you some advice and guidance on doing exactly that.

Owning and raising rabbits can be a fun, exciting experience. But, with great fun comes great responsibilities. You are now responsible for caring and nurturing a small mammal. Have you thought about its safety during the worst of weather? As well as threats from predators?

Most people don’t take this into consideration. The weather plays a huge part in your fluffy friends well being. From high heats in the summer to the freezing weather in the winter, you need to be prepared to adapt your rabbit’s hutch for all weather.

Why Weatherproof Your Hutch?

Why weatherproof your hutch

Rabbits are highly adaptive creatures in their own environment. They spend a lot of their time in fields and valleys and are accustomed to a variety of different weather conditions. With that being said, when you take a rabbit out of their natural habitat you remove their ability to find shelter and have access to their burrow which keeps they can hide in when weather gets too intolerable.

A way to remedy their lack of ability to burrow and find shelter on their own is to make sure you weatherproof according to the weather. This includes insulating during colder weather to prevent freezing, shading during extreme heat to prevent heat exhaustion, and even sheltering from extreme winds that cause damage to your rabbit hutch. All of which have to be constantly considered when owning and caring for a rabbit

Risks of Not Weatherproofing

As we just explained above the importance of weather proofing your hutch, we will explain what the possible risks you may run into if you neglect to weatherproof your rabbit hutch. First and foremost if you do not weather proof your rabbit hutch you run the risk of your pet becoming very ill or even dying.

In the Cold

Extreme cold weather conditions can cause your rabbits body temperature to drop dangerously low risking your pets health or even causing your animal to freeze. This is due to the fact that rabbits, though accustom to cold temperatures, are usually able to create burrows to stay warm.

These burrows are underground and prevent the rabbit from freezing in the winter months. So since they are unable to burrow on their own, not weatherproofing will have a negative effect on your rabbit.

In the Heat

On the other side of the spectrum, extreme heat can also be detrimental to your pets health. As explained before, rabbits in the wild are able to roam free. This means that when it is extremely hot in the summer months they are able to wander around and seek out shade when they become too hot.

This is why it’s important to provide shade and other means of cooling in your hutch.

If you do not provide the essential shade to your hutch your rabbit may become overheated causing it to become over heated and become ill or even cause your rabbit to die.

In the Wet

Rain is another factor to consider. If you failed to weather proof your hutch against rain your hutch will become very wet. This can compromise the structure of your hutch. Rain and moisture can get trapped into the wood of your hutch. This can cause the wood to mould which can in turn cause your rabbits to get sick. Along with the mold, moisture will also break down the wood and cause your hutch to slowly fall apart.

Along with harming the over all structure if your hutch, rain can also have ill effects on your rabbit. The constant moisture in your hutch can cause skin issues for your rabbit. Also, the dampness can make it very hard for your rabbit to stay warm. Which in turn can cause your rabbit to become ill.

When Windy

Another weather element that most people don’t think about is wind. Though wind isn’t as detrimental to your pets health as much as other weather elements are, it can effect the over all structure.

Strong winds may cause a non weatherproofed hutch to tip over and break. Inturn if your hutch falls over it can harm your rabbit by squishing it under the broken hutch. This is why it is highly recommended that you do indeed weather proof your rabbit hutch or simply bring your rabbit indoors.

Weatherproofing Considerations

Now that you are thoroughly convinced of the importance of weatherproofing your rabbits hutch, what do you do now? Well, before you run out and do anything there are a few things you should consider before weatherproofing.

First and foremost your level of weatherproofing depends heavily on the kind of weather your location is subject to.

Do you have prolonged winters? Tons of wind? or are you in a more temperate climate with short, mild winters but more extreme summer heat? All of these factors must be considered before planning how to weatherproof.

One would not be expected to insulate and weatherproof the same in say southern California, where the weather is hotter and winters extremely mild, compared to Michigan, for example, where they have very harsh winters and extreme cold. Another thing to consider before weatherproofing your rabbit hutch is whether or not simply bringing your rabbits indoors during extreme weather would be an option.

Bringing your rabbit indoors is the best and most simple option as an alternative to weatherproofing your rabbit hutch. Understandably not everyone has this option. If it is an option for you, this would cut down greatly on the amount of preparation you make to weatherproof your rabbit hutch.

Useful Techniques

Once you have determined the amount of weather proofing that is needed for your specific climate, you are now ready to dive into the project of actually weatherproofing your rabbit hutch. Because every ones climate is different, we will outline here the main things to do to protect your hutch and your rabbit from inclimate weather.

Elevate it from the Ground

First and foremost, when building a hutch you should if at all possible keep it up off the ground. In winter months the ground freezes and when it rains it becomes wet and muddy. If your hutch is on the ground it will make it much more difficult to keep your rabbit dry and warm.

By simply building your hutch up on stilts you will eliminate this problem and find it much easier to regulate the temperature of your hutch. Also it is important that you build your hutch out of pressure treated wood. This will help seal out any moisture and prevent your hutch from breaking down over the years.

Slanted Roof

Also be sure to build your hutch with a slanted roof. This will help rain and snow drain off the room and away from your hutch keeping your rabbit’s home warm and dry.

Create Shade for the Hutch

If your location is subject to extreme heat, it would be advisable to create shade for your hutch. You can do this by simply building your hutch in a location where it is shaded most of the time. This would provide your rabbit with cool shade and you won’t have to worry about your rabbit overheating. Another way to combat the heat would be to to build a small den inside your rabbit hutch. This will provide your rabbit with and escape from the harsh elements. A small den will also mimic a burrow which is your rabbits natural home.

Extra Insulation

If you are in a location that is subject to snow and freezing temperatures, you will want to somehow insulate your rabbit hutch. You can do this several ways. One way is to cover the top of the cage with plastic. The plastic will act as a barrier to the outside elements. It keeps heat inside your hutch while blocking out the freezing temperatures.

Be sure NOT to secure the hutch completely with plastic. Plastic is not a breathable material and therefor if you completely secure the whole hutch with plastic you will also eliminate the ability for your rabbit to get fresh air and risk possible suffocation. also if the plastic is too close to the mesh you risk your rabbit eating it and becoming sick.

You can also put some more rabbit hay inside the hutch for extra warmth.

Wind Protection

To weatherproof against extreme winds is pretty simple. You can simply build your hutch up against a structure such as a shed, barn, or even your house. If you wish to further protect your rabbit hutch against wind, you can take it a step further and simply anchor your rabbit hutch to the building it is up against.

Rain, in our opinion, is the hardest to weatherproof against. rain gets into cracks and crevices and stays cold and damp for a long time. The best way to combat moisture and rain would be to make sure your roof is properly secure and leak free.

Building your rabbit hutch up off the ground is a great way to cut down on the moisture your rabbit hutch could be subject to.

In addition to this be sure to always change out your rabbits bedding frequently during rainy seasons. If you don’t change out your rabbits straw, it will become mouldy and damp and, as stated above, will cause health problems to your rabbit.

Another way to way to easily weatherproof your rabbit hutch is to simply build it inside a mini barn or shed. this will add extra insulation to your hutch keeping it warmer. In addition to this, being inside a shed or barn it will also have added protection against wind, rain and snow. Besides having your rabbits indoors with you, this, in my opinion, is the best option.

Final Thoughts

Final thoughts on weatherproofing hutches

As you can see, there are many, many factors to consider when weatherproofing your rabbit hutch. All of which are very important. You should always take all of these things into consideration when weatherproofing your rabbit hutch.

Weather is an unpredictable thing at times so it is always important to check your weatherproofing frequently. You never know when the wind might blow the plastic off or rain may soak through all of the dry bedding. The absolute best way to fully protect your rabbits is to keep them indoors. So if at all possible do that. If you absolutely must leave your rabbits outdoors during harsh weather, please weather proof its hutch.

Don’t feel like you have to stick to our guidelines. The general rule of thumb for protecting your rabbit is if you see a problem arise, think about the cause of the issue and find a solution for your problem. This guide is not to deter you from owning and raising rabbit, but to educate you so you may raise the healthiest and happiest rabbits possible by protecting them from harsh weather conditions.

Now that you know how to weatherproof your rabbit hutch, why not checkout these great examples of outdoor rabbit hutches.


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Considering changes to student assignment

As reported in yesterday’s Chronicle, Board President Sandra Lee Fewer and I are working on a proposal to change the student assignment system — really, to tweak it — by reordering the preferences for Kindergarten admissions.

After reading and absorbing the 3rd Annual Report on Student Assignment outcomes last month, I became more convinced than ever that the relatively high power the current system gives the CTIP (Census Tract Integration Preference) was not having the effect we’d hoped in terms of desegregating schools. In addition, putting CTIP so high in the hierarchy of preferences (coming just after siblings and children enrolled in and attending an SFUSD Pre-K program in the same attendance area) is clearly having an effect on some specific attendance area programs, to the disadvantage of residents of those attendance areas.

The board continues to believe strongly that diverse schools are better for everyone, and President Fewer and I have not abandoned the idea that we should continue to work on desegregating our schools where students are “racially isolated.”  (Read this post from 2010 about academic outcomes in our schools where more than 60 percent of students are either African American, Latino or Samoan for more discussion on this issue.)

It’s important also to say that at the time I said I didn’t think CTIP would affect attendance area residents’ ability to attend their local schools.  Now, I obviously think I was wrong, at least in a few cases like Clarendon and perhaps Grattan. (I just read back over a number of my posts from January – March 2010 and it’s interesting to do if you would like to know more about how we got to where we are today).  Anyway, I’m increasingly uneasy when people tell me that they plan to “rent in a CTIP zone” for K admissions, then move to a different neighborhood (this has happened to me a number of times); when I hear from homeowners in CTIP zones that they have received calls from real estate agents who say they can cash in on their “golden ticket” status;  when I see the data showing that residents of the Clarendon attendance area have pretty terrible odds of attending their local school because of demand from siblings and CTIP.  It’s clear that it’s time to make a modest adjustment that will still preserve some expanded choices for areas where there are concentrations of lower-achieving children.

The fact is, no neighborhood in San Francisco is very affordable anymore for either middle-class home buyers or renters.  All over the City, there are people who — thanks to either rent control or getting in to the real estate market early — can afford to live here but can’t afford to move (I’m one of them!).  Any system that offers its primarly benefit to people who can afford to choose whatever San Francisco neighborhood they live in or move at will is not one that benefits the neediest and most struggling San Franciscans.

Anyway – there will be plenty of time to debate, dissect and discuss this issue this summer – our proposal will be submitted for first reading on June 24 and will not be discussed in any detail by the Board until the August meeting of the Student Assignment committee. I expect the proposal to come back for a final vote in late August and — if it passes — to take effect for enrollment for the 2015-16 school year.

* * * * * * * *

Tuesday night the Board will consider the 2014-15 budget proposal and Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) detailing how we will spend our new Local Control Funding Formula dollars from the state. The draft budget books and draft LCAP are available for download on the district’s web site, here, here and here (warning: the budget books are a big download – don’t click on the first two links from your phone).

* * * * * * * * *

School’s out, happy summer! President Fewer wrangled the Board and senior district staff and created this goofy fan version of the hit “Happy” by Pharrell. It’s a little embarassing, but it’s cute:

10 responses to “Considering changes to student assignment

  1. I am in the central part of the city and would love more Spanish Immersion programs! The demand for them is already double what is available, why not start more? I love the idea of a neighborhood school and also Spanish immersion, but unfortunately do not live in the Mission where most of them are.

  2. Salamander Sue

    Doesn’t sound like “plenty of time” to me. You’re targeting a total of two months in the summer, when families and the community are least connected to schools.

    Also, what positive steps are you taking to improve diversity in our schools?

    It feels like SFUSD has just given up. Given up on math, on integration, on expanding educational opportunity.

  3. Policy should never be dictated by anecdotes. And anecdotes about well-to-do families choosing to live in a CTIP1 area for the purpose of winning the public school lottery should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. My reading (and I suspect, yours as well) of the recent report on student assignment shows that– with the exception of two schools, Clarendon and Grattan– the current preference system seems to be gradually, but steadily, working as originally planned. Don’t take choices away from CTIP1 families just because some families fortunate enough to live near good schools want to revert to the status quo of winning the “neighborhood” lottery. Maybe a better solution would be to address the specific concerns of Clarendon and Grattan, such as those proposed above, without throwing the baby out with the bath water?

  4. Tweaking the school assignment process in the way you and Ms. Fewer propose sounds like a way to build local communities and encourage San Franciscans of all backgrounds to attend their attendance area schools. Kudos to you for tackling this issue!

  5. Thank you for re-visiting this, Rachel. We live in the Clarendon AA and I am already feeling stressed out about enrollment for the 2015-2016 school year. We want to send our children to public schools, but worry that we may not “win” the lottery and end up with a school assignment that is a long way from our home. I believe there are lots of great schools in SF, but the uncertainty that accompanies the current process creates a lot of anxiety for parents – and they are fleeing the city or opting with privates. The end result is a lack of socio-economic diversity in our schools and fewer resources for all. It is also unfortunate that the families that were meant to benefit from the CTIP designation are not even aware of the system! Selfishly, I hope we’re able to at least have a chance to attend our neighborhood school, but I also hope this is an opportunity for the School Board to think about how we can improve the system so that the goals of diversification and equal opportunity are met.

  6. I agree with Katyfranklin. As San Francisco suffers from tremendous income inequality, many – if not a majority – of SFUSD students qualify for free or reduced lunch. SFUSD is only 11% white. As a whole, the district represents lower and middle income, minority families. That’s why I was confused when the BOE decided to do away with honors and advanced math tracking. It seemed like they were removing pathways to help low-income, minority students achieve a high level of academic success so that they could actually compete with affluent private school children. There was a great article in the NY Times about how difficult it is for low-income college students to succeed in college, because they are not sufficiently challenged and not adequately prepared for the rigors of college level work. It seems that SFUSD should be making an extra effort to provide rigorous coursework for students who are capable of it. In our culture of diversity, SFUSD has a difficult time embracing academic diversity and truly supporting and acknowledging a student’s academic gifts. I would love to see honors level math courses full of low-income Latino, African American, and Asian students. And as those students comprise the majority of SFUSD, it could be possible.
    CTIP1 is one way to help students. Another way would be to reinstate GATE and honors classes and to help identify and nurture GATE students in CTIP1 areas. Why not create two K-8 math and science magnet schools in the the south side of the city where the majority of CTIP1 students live which has accelerated math programs so that students complete Algebra by 8th grade, small class sizes, a longer school day and extra study period? One could even be dual Spanish dual immersion as there are so many ELL in the system. Buena Vista, for example, is in the Mission, dual immersion, has many CTIP1 students, and is K-8. You could implement a rigorous, focused math curriculum at that school.
    At any rate, I think it is important to look at the actual enrollment data at Clarendon to see if all the seats are being occupied by wealthy CTIP1 candidates. I think when you fill out the enrollment form you have to mark parental education level which might give you an indication of who exactly is getting the seats. My hunch is that they are not tech millionaires (as they usually go private) but middle and working class families trying to get a good education for their children. There is a big economic gulf between those you can afford to pay $25,000 per year for kindergarten and those who can afford to rent an apartment in the Mission.
    Here’s the NY Times article:

  7. Hi Rachel,

    While I think it is good to re-visit the CTIP1 and AA distribution of seats in neighborhood schools, I think it is interesting to note that Clarendon is particularly hard hit because of its reputation, late start time, central location, complete offering of before and after care, and bus service. Many neighborhood schools do not receive any CTIP1 requests because they are far from CTIP1 neighborhoods and do not have bus service.

    You need to make some correction to the assignment formula so Clarendon AA families are not shut out from their local school. Yet, if you do not give CTIP1 families any lottery preference for Clarendon Second Community, you will be taking away one school choice that has a later start time (which is helpful if you are commuting by bus), bus service, and a central location.

    Would another option be to make 70% of all seats available AA applicants and 30% available to CTIP1 applicants across the board for all neighborhood schools in Round One? That way if there were 20 seats available in Round One, 14 would go to AA applicants and 6 would go to CTIP1 applicants.

    From the article, it sounds like CTIP1 applicants will have preference at city-wide schools, but that forces all the CTIP1 applicants into their neighborhood school or a city-wide school. As many city-wide schools are immersion, it only leaves open Rooftop, Claire Lillenthal, Lawton, and SF Community as GE options.

    Will you consult with the consultants who put together the formula for the assignment system to see what other options are available than simply changing the order of CTIP1 and AA priority for neighborhood school assignment. It seems like a rather blunt tool.

    I do think it is unfair that Clarendon AA applicants are shut out from their neighborhood school. At the very least, AA applicants should be 50% of the enrollment if it their number one choice on their list.

    I know that you have the data to see how many CTIP1 families versus how many AA families are enrolled after the 10 day count. It might be worth looking at what the percentages are and sharing them as you continue to think about this problem.

  8. I followed that process of changing the lottery system pretty closely then. I’m glad to read that you’re able to react with these kinds of tweaks without throwing the whole thing out again. I know that the “swap” is still a bit of a mystery to some, but overall it’s better than it was. The Clarendon situation was pretty egregious, but it was kind of an outlier (it was also a K-5 citywide school that converted to attendance area then; the K-8 citywides still don’t have attendance areas to fight over).

  9. That “Happy” video is like one of my recurring nightmares … . 🙂

  10. Regarding CTIP, I got those calls from Real Estate Agents but they take advantage of anything they can to get people to sell their houses. In reality, people who can afford to buy houses in SF right now are most likely to send their kids to private schools, so that isn’t the issue … the issue is the people who the system was supposed to help do not get the information about school selection for their kids and deadlines. There must be a way that the City and SFUSD could work together to make sure low-income and/or non-English speaking parents who have kids entering Kindergarten get good placements for their kids … leaving pamphlets at day-care centers is NOT going to reach the people who CTIP was designed to help; adding a household income qualifier to the CTIP preference is the way to go.


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Tagged: Rani Mahal

Palace, Madhya pradesh, Indian Architecture 3

Forgotten Slices of History

A visit to an ancient palace near Dhar, a town in Madhya Pradesh (Central India) inspired me enough to capture the moment in paint. Walking under the palace’s bat-occupied arches, it felt strange yet accurate to imagine its past as...

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Rutgers University

Rutgers University
“Good Time Oldies”
New Brunswick, New Jersey

or play livestream here

Rutgers University
Address: 57 US Highway 1 New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8554
Founding Year: 1766
Full Time Students: 67,556 (2016)

Mascot: Scarlet Knight

#RutgersCamden students, faculty, and alumni are making a difference here in Camden and around the world. Catch up with our community in the latest issue of Rutgers–Camden Magazine:

Meet @DonnaNickitas, dean of the @RUCamdenNursing, who draws on her service in @usairforce Nurse Corps to help nurses and students harness their political power.

As we approach the #19thAmendment centennial, keep your eyes on the graphic design work of #RutgersCamden senior Ariel Adels. She created the logo for @NJWomenVote100, a partnership between @OfficialNJHC & @AlicePaulInstit #RutgersPride

A dominant performance in a renewed rivalry 💪

Congrats to @CoachGoodale, @RUWrestling's all time dual wins leader 🔝🤼♂

#RelentlessPursuit | #GoRU 🛡⚔

Zeyad Assaf RLAW'19 shares his experience making an impact through amicus briefs as part of the International Human Rights Clinic at @RutgersLaw.

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Moved over

So I've separated my everyday life from my work blog-wise. I can't actually do so practically speaking in reality, but perhaps distinguishing between the blogs will help me to actively write more art and fibre art-related entries. I'm going to attempt to do at least one a week. Like all things creative, there are floods and droughts, so expect a flurry of activity during some periods and a dearth during others.

Must get some actual work done now. The first step to a blog entry is actually having something to blog about…..

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Stepping off the edge

Torbay Point
Stepping off the edge of the world at Torbay Point. Taken on a relatively clear day as the sun was dipping. You can see the stairs in the foreground as well as the path far out on the head. It’s a lot further than it looks.

Just south of Torbay is the community of Outer Cove. Following Marine Drive will take you to a quiet little road called “Doran’s Lane”, at the end of which is the trail to Torbay Point and The Cobbler.

This may be one of my favourite spots in the area of Torbay. It’s about a two-kilometer trip out to the point and back, so it’s one that can be done when you’re short on time.

And nowhere else in this area have I ever felt so completely and utterly isolated and vulnerable.

As you walk further and further out, you follow a narrow, winding path that drops you down over rocks and cuts through soil that is nothing but peat moss (this means it’s slippery). The East Coast Trail Association has done amazing work on the path and made it much safer, but there is still the sensation that the only thing between you and the rocks and ocean below is a good sense of balance.

The edge of the earth
Walking out to the point in the mists. A spooky sensation, since the path appeared and vanished with every footfall. I watched it swallow a couple of tourists.

You can also backtrack, after visiting the point, and proceed along the main trail heading south toward Red Cliff. The Cobbler Path is magnificent and rather a good workout, with hundreds of steps taking you up over several headlands and dropping you down into the ensuing coves.

The path to The Cobbler
The path to The Cobbler. You can see the trail winding up over the cliff.

It’s on my list to do again sometime soon, when I don’t have a sick child at home.  As you go, you could check out the numerous geocaches in the area!

10 Comments Add yours

  1. Journeym4n says:

    Wow, simply breath taking!

  2. Anita Mac says:

    Gorgeous. I would love to visit more – the area is so rugged and beautiful! I am sure I could spend a summer here!

    1. VickyTH says:

      When do you reach Newfoundland, in your quest to cross Canada?

  3. mjspringett says:

    wow what a trip, thanks MJ

  4. westerner54 says:

    OK, now I’m trying to figure out a way to get to Newfoundland. So stark and beautiful.

  5. craftsbythesea says:

    You live in a great place, very picturesque

  6. hannifrieda says:

    Wow that looks beautiful, absolutely brillaint for photography.

  7. John Todaro says:

    Awesome images (I especially like the vertical on top)–what a spectacular place!

    1. VickyTH says:

      Thanks, John. It’s a place I visit pretty often and I never cease to be amazed by it. Glad you enjoyed the photos!

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Picture of The Day: Christmas Girl

Christmas is coming and I would like to wish everybody Merry Christmas and Happy holidays! I would like to thank all of you who has been with us all this year and we hope we can keep providing you with some excitement in reading this website. Here’s to add another joy to your Christmas celebration is my selection of Picture of The Day featuring a girl in santa outfit.

yande.re 306474 bra christmas cleavage dress heels stockings tagme tail thighhighs wings

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 Dragon 1/35

6611 1/35 Pz.IV Ausf.H Mid Prod. w/ Zimmerit Mid Prod. HJ

item number: 500776611

Order quantity 1,00

Unit price: {PRICE} EUR

available at short time  Delivery time: available at short time

incl. 19% VAT. without tax
EUR 79,00 EUR 66,39
plus Shippingcost

Dragon 6611 1/35 Pz.IV Ausf.H Mid Prod. w/Zimmerit Mid Prod. HJ

- Newly tooled turret skirt molded w/Zimmerit
- 3 directional slide-molded gun sleeve newly molded w/Zimmerit
- Turret roof rendered w/turret skirt armor brackets
- Turret skirt and side-skirt armor plates can be installed separately
- Brackets for side-skirt armor relistically detailed- Great detail on hull rear
- Intricate spare tracks on rear armor plate
- Spare-track bracket on glacis w/optional photo-etched and plastic parts
- Slide-skirt armor produced in metal for scale thickness
- Side armor for air filter reproduced
- One-piece 3-directional slide-molded turret
- Commander's cupola recreates structural details
- Cupola vision blocks can be assembled open/closed
- Air filter reproduced
- Air-intake covers have option of injection or photo-etched parts
- Spare-wheel rack w/spare wheels on upper hull side
- Finely detailed 7.5cm Kw.K.40 L/48 gun
- Detailed gun muzzle brake
- Injection-molded fenders made to thinnest possible dimensions
- Zimmerit molded on the top of side fenders
- Final-drive housing w/details on both sides
- Sprocket wheels w/breathtaking detail and multiple delicate parts
- Idler wheels have detailed parts
- Road wheels and suspension w/multiple components exhibit crisp detail
- Injection-molded on-vehicle tools w/crisp detail

Dragon offers a complete lineup of the popular Panzer IV family tree in 1/35 scale. Now it is time to fill in a gap with this special variant! Its an Ausf.H Mid-Production, and it specifically represents a vehicle fighting in Normandy in 1944. One unit to field the Panzer IV H was the 12th Panzer Hitlerjugend Division, with the formations combat debut occurring on 7 June 1944 as German forces began a ferocious defense of Caen in the Normandy area against Canadian and British units. It was one of the closest divisions to the landing beaches. When the German division eventually escaped the Falaise pocket, it had lost 42% of its personnel and 94% of its armor.

This 1/35 scale plastic kit features a number of newly tooled parts, one example being the turret side skirts that have their own layer of readymade Zimmerit. Also brand new is the frontal armor plate containing the steering-brake hatches. This too bears a coating of Zimmerit, which is beautifully sculpted and looks extremely authentic. The inclusion of Zimmerit on this kit is certainly a highlight, as it saves modelers from the time-consuming task of recreating the texture themselves. The box comes with a generous selection of Cartograf decals, all of which cover those panzer divisions operational in Normandy, including the Hitlerjugend and 2nd Panzer Divisions. For those model-makers recreating a scene from Normandy, this is the perfect foundation on which to base it!

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1340, 1/72 EF 2000 Typhoon IIB

EUR 15,40
incl. 19% MwSt

350804 1/350 HMS 'Pennywort

EUR 19,70
incl. 19% MwSt

Mirage 481302 1/48 WWII PZL TOS 37B

EUR 51,20
incl. 19% MwSt

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Birds, Birds, and More Birds – Pictures!

July 30, 2012

The last couple of months I have been busy making birds and putting them on my pots. You can read in one of my first blog posts how to make the sitting birds. Since the birds are easy to make I have been working on them during my spare time at home, so I have quite a few. My loyal readers will also recognize my tea pot from a previous blog, but I have now added matching owl tea cups! Enjoy the new pictures!

One Comment
  1. these birds make me so happy!!! love them! so many little cuties!

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Morgan McCutcheon

Sales Associate to Eli Winger

Morgan is a young, upcoming agent who prides herself on her attention to detail and strong work ethic. Morgan is meticulous in her presentation and organisation, and ensures that customer service is at the forefront of all that she does.

With a keen interest in marketing, her tech savvy approach puts her a step above the competition. Morgan is not afraid to explore all avenues in ensuring a successful sale with happy clients and looks forward to bringing her high energy and enthusiasm to the real estate market in Hervey Bay.


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Jasmine Headless vs In Browser

In the last couple projects, we’ve been using Jasmine for our Javascript testing. It’s been great. Tying that in with jasmine-headless-webkit has made our Javascript testing super fast for both development and our CI box.

One problem we’ve hit a couple times is differences between the real browser and the fake browser (headless-mode). For example: in the real browser, you can build an iframe with a src attribute and it will do the right thing.

However, if you run this through your headless tests, depending on where this code is executed, you may get errors like this from jQuery:

Fixture could not be loaded: spec/javascripts/fixtures/recipe_subnav.html
(status: error, message: NETWORK_ERR: XMLHttpRequest Exception 101)

or like this from the Jasmine framework:

Can't load file:///projects/myproject/specrunner.11688.html, the file may be broken.
Out of curiosity, did your tests try to submit a form and you haven't prevented that?
Try running your tests in your browser with the Jasmine server and see what happens.

Certainly, we could probably stub out a bunch of stuff to make this fly, but sometimes time is better spent pushing forward. To get around this, we wanted a simple way to check for the command line tests vs in browser tests. We added to our SpecHelper.js file:

var is_headless = function() {
  return (/jasmine-headless-webkit/.test(navigator.userAgent));

With this now in place, we can write tests like this:

describe('save scroll top cookie plugin', function() {
  beforeEach(function() {
  if(is_headless()) {
    it('it sets a cookie for scroll position', function() {
  it('does something else', function() {

With this setup, instead of missing tests because we’ve constructed a bunch of xit or xdescribe blocks, we can keep all the tests around, and simply skip those that don’t lend themselves to the specific situation (in-browser or headless).

It is not something that is used a lot, because we really strive to make tests which are universal, but in those special cases where we still may want a spec, this simple helper method works pretty nicely.

Fauxtaux Booth – our Mashup-o-rama

We’ve been noticing that writing software for the web is becoming more and more like playing with lego blocks. We are currently working on projects using Ruby + Rails and Node.js + Express. For both of these technology stacks we have a lot of conversations like these:

“You need a library that does <this special thing>?”
“Oh yeah, it’s on github.”

“You need a javascript plugin that does <whatever>?”
“Sure, start from that thing on jQuery plugins and you’re 95% there.”

Such is the nature of participating in and taking advantage of the open source community.

We wanted to share our latest lego-block project. We called it

Fauxtaux Booth

A photographer friend was setting up a photobooth at a conference. She wanted to have the pictures sent directly to the subjects as they were being taken.

The blocks we used for this system were:

The basic setup was as follows:

The photographer was on the net at the conference, her camera tethered to the laptop. As photos were taken, they were written to a folder that sat under a shared Dropbox folder.

On a separate server, also sharing that same Dropbox folder, we setup a watch on that folder using Guard. When we saw a change, we sent an http request (basically a ping) to the Rails app. When the app caught that http request, it would look at the directory and figure out what had changed. If there were new images, it would run several image processing steps and finally email the current customer by way of Sendgrid.

The app also served as a customer signup form. So at the conference, the photographer’s laptop also had a browser window open to the app. As customers stepped up to the booth, they filled out a simple form on the laptop with name and email which we used to send the photos.

For each sitting, the final emailed image was a photostrip with the conference’s branding/data on it.

The majority of the special coding in the app was custom image processing. The rest was basically wiring a bunch of moving parts together.

At the event, our photographer took about 80 photos and we sent out about 400 emails.

This was the setup at the conference.


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Archive for the ‘video’ Category

whats_cooking.jpgCheck RCPL catalog

If you liked Bend It Like Beckham by director Gurinder Chadha, try Chadha’s What’s Cooking? This film is “a broad, highly accessible comedy that juxtaposes four dynamic families — black, Latino, Jewish and Asian — residing on the same street. Though often enjoyable, it’s an old-fashioned, feel-good movie…” — Variety

Read Full Post »

behaving1.jpgCheck RCPL Catalog

Starring Judi Dench.  Based on the novel by Catherine Heath.  Nominated for a BAFTA television award in 1990.  “Behaving Badly deftly mixes melodrama and comedy. Gwen Watfordias costars as Bridget’s former mother-in-law and champion, who torments Rebecca and makes Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond look like June Cleaver. In an early performance, Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck) steals her scenes as a nerves-frayed, stressed-out schoolteacher. Behaving Badly anticipates the current so-called ‘chick lit’ movement with this empowering personal odyssey that ends on an optimistically exhilarating high, as Bridget heals all family wounds, and ‘risks everything’ to embark on her ‘grand adventure.’ ” – Donald Liebenson, www.amazon.com

Read Full Post »

whenthelevees.jpgCheck RCPL Catalog

Spike Lee lets Katrina survivors tell the story in their own incredible words. “…What you’ll remember is the valor and humor of the people of New Orleans, determined to rebuild.” – Rolling Stone

Read Full Post »

wildparrots.jpgCheck RCPL Catalog

The film is that rare documentary that has romance, comedy and a surprise ending that makes you feel as if you could fly out of the theater…” Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News

Read the book by Mark Bittner,

Read Full Post »

upseries.jpgCheck RCPL Catalog

“In 1964, producer Apted set out to prove the Jesuit maxim, ‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.’ He interviewed 13 British children from very different backgrounds and classes, asking them what they wanted to be when they grew up, if they wanted to get married and have children, and what they thought was the difference between rich and poor, among other queries. Every seven years for the next 35 years he reinterviewed the same subjects, on basically the same topics, revealing their changing hopes and dreams, the realities of their lives, and the effects their backgrounds have had, or may have had, on their choices and successes (and failures). This is an astonishing and fascinating undertaking, compelling in its investigations and thought-provoking in the extreme.”  – Library Journal

Read Full Post »

shortcuts.jpgCheck RCPL Catalog

“A loosely connected collage of southern California characters cope with various emotional crises in Robert Altman’s freely adapted version of Raymond Carver’s short story collection-which, in a nice complementary touch, is included in this two-disc set. Among the extras are a conversation between the director and star Tim Robbins, from the large and impressive cast; a one-hour audio interview with Carver; a feature-length making-of documentary; and deleted scenes.” – LJ Reviews

Film Credits

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rivers.jpgCheck RCPL Catalog

“Thomas Riedelsheimer’s award-winning film is a spellbinding study of Andy Goldsworthy, a Scottish land-sculptor.” – Elias Savada, nitrateonline.com

Photo Gallery for Rivers and Tides

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Older Posts »


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The Muse

A Novel of Unrelenting Terror

Fiction - Horror
526 Pages
Reviewed on (not set)
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.

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Author Biography

Arjay Lewis (aka R.J. Lewis) is an award-winning author, entertainer, and magician. He has experienced every level of show business from street-performing to Broadway.
Arjay’s novel, The Muse: A Novel of Unrelenting Terror, has won 13 awards in the Horror category including: the 2017 NYC Big Book Awards: the 2017 Beverly Hills Book Awards, the 2018 National Indie Excellence Award; the gold medal at the 2018 eLit Book Awards; and the gold medal at the 2018 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards. He also is the author of the In The Mind series, which consists of six novels with more to come.
Arjay’s published stories have appeared in H.P. Lovecraft Magazine Of Horror, Weird Tales, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. He also has been published in the Anthology The Ultimate Halloween.
He has collaborated on several films including: Down In Flames: The True Story Of Tony ‘Volcano’ Valenci, which has won seven Film Festival awards. His screenplay for Dummy (co-written with Pamela Wess) was the winning screenplay for the 2017 Garden State Film Festival.
Arjay is married to his wife, Debra, and has one grown daughter Rayna.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Rabia Tanveer for Readers' Favorite

The Muse: A Novel of Unrelenting Terror by Arjay Lewis is the story a very famous and enigmatic writer named Jack Court. He is wealthy, young and handsome on top of being successful. But all of this comes at a price. Jack has a sinister secret. Sure, he is very talented; however, that does not mean he did not get any help. He has a small yet menacing creature living inside him that demands Jack shed blood for his talent and his fame. This is a price that Jack gladly pays by becoming a serial killer, but things are about to change in his life.

When he is in an accident because of a reckless driver, the creature leaves Jack and finds refuge in an unsuspecting writer named Harold Godwine. Harold has no idea why all of a sudden he is writing better and neither does he know why he is having intense dreams of blood and bloodshed. He is perplexed, yet he has no idea how to stop them. Now Jack is on Harold’s trail to get his creature back, but it is not that easy anymore. He is losing his humanity and an FBI agent is after him. What can Jack do now? Will he ever get his creature back?

Oh boy, this is one intense and wildly entertaining novel. Just saying that I enjoyed this novel would not be enough. I loved, loved, loved the way Arjay Lewis took hold of the story and took it to great heights. The novel is fast paced, engaging and simply too amazing to put into words. I loved and hated Jack, his development was on point. The suspense was killing me, but it was exciting and I didn’t want the story to end. The Muse is truly an amazing novel. I wish I could forget it and read it again for the very first time! Intense, demanding and really good!


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Doonesbury Encounters: Howard Cruse in Heavy Metal, April 1983

Alongside writing about the history of Doonesbury and posts about Trudeau’s ongoing work, I’ll also write about Doonesbury’s appearances in other media, starting with this look at Howard Cruses’s review of a Doonesbury collection that ran in Heavy Metal’s April, 1983 issue.

Recently, my rereading of Doonesbury intersected with another long-term comics reading project I’m doing, namely reading the full run of Heavy Metal magazine. Heavy Metal debuted in 1977 as an English-language spin-off from the French comics magazine Metal Hurlant, and played a key role in exposing American audiences to the work of European comics artists such as Moebius, Crepax, and Phillipe Druillet. While much of the magazine’s content can rightly be strongly criticized for its extremely limited vision of women as little more than objects of male sexual desire (a question that was regularly debated in the letters column from very early on), the magazine is packed with amazing – and historically important – comics art. When I was in tenth grade and devouring every Doonesbury book I could get my hands on, Heavy Metal ran an awesome little review of one of those books.

In the early 1980s, Howard Cruse, the creator of Wendel and Stuck Rubber Baby, wrote some short strips for HM. In April 1983, HM featured Cruse’s short graphic review of the Doonesbury collection Unfortunately, She Was Also Wired for Sound, which, among other episodes, chronicles Mike Doonesbury’s Uncle Henry’s brush with the law, and Dick Davenport’s attempts to protest Reagan-era Secretary of the Interior James Watt’s anti-environmental policies. Cruses’s strip is great example of how comics can do so much in a small space: in eight short panels, Cruse balances a positive review, a political contextualization of Trudeau’s work, a response to some critiques of Trudeau’s work, and some great humour at the expense of everyone’s favourite scapegoat, Mike Doonesbury.

“Cruse Reviews,” Howard Cruse, Heavy Metal, April 1983.

Cruse believed that Doonesbury, then in its thirteenth year, continued to provide insightful commentary on its times. Trudeau had recently begun a nearly two-year-long hiatus from writing and drawing Doonesbury (an unprecedented move for a mass-market comics artist), but Cruse sees no sign of burnout in Trudeau’s latest collection: waving his hands, he enthusiastically emphasizes GBT’s “humane but skeptical sensibility” which, during the Reagan era, captured how the “pathologically misguided bozos” acted like they were “shilling for a cake sale” and evoking a “jargon of decency” while leading a nation through crises of a fundamentally existential nature, including a heightened Cold War and mounting environmental catastrophes. Cruse, like Trudeau, understood that the 1980s were a deeply cynical time, when an avuncular president sold America on the notion that a new day was dawning after a decade-and-a-half of moral decay while simultaneously hollowing out many of the protections that people had fought for over the previous twenty years. One only has to look at current Environmental Protection Agency director’s Scott Pruitt’s disdain for the organization that he leads to see Reagan’s wicked vision for America’s future playing itself out.

James Watt, environmental extremist and a model for current American environmental policy. Doonesbury, 5 September 1981.

As somebody who is only beginning to learn about the unique visual language of comics in an informed and analytic way, I get a lot out of reading comics creators’ analysis of other artists’ work. Cruse briefly discusses some of the technical aspects of Trudeau’s style, applauding his skills and responding to a persistent critique of GBT’s work. Trudeau’s relatively static style in the Seventies and Eighties led to accusations that he was simply photocopying the same drawing over and over again; Cruse dismisses these by pointing to the subtleties – bits of body language, visual gags – that were a hallmark of Trudeau’s work in the late 70s and early 80s. The review ends with an appreciation of GBT’s drafting skills, as Cruse faithfully reproduces GBT’s fine lettering (still done by hand in those days), noting that he would never be able to work in a similar style without ending up “a bunch of loose jabber” confusing the panel.

What makes Cruses’s review truly noteworthy is that it is presented as a dialogue between himself and Mike Doonesbury. Cruse portrays himself as an enthusiastic fanboy meeting his favourite celebrity, gushing and then manically raving as the object of his affection grows increasingly uneasy and annoyed. But in true Doonesbury style, Cruse reminds us of Mike’s initial role in the strip – to be the butt of jokes about his incompetence and unlikeability. Mike “[doesn’t] get to be funny at all,” but still “draws a salary.”

This review was a fun thing to stumble across; like a lot of people part of one fandom or another, I’m a sucker for a crossover. More importantly, it showed me how a masterful comics artist like Cruse can convey a lot of information and emotion in a confined space. In less than half a page, these eight panels not only tell readers what Cruse wants them to know about Trudeau’s work, they show us just how geeked Cruse was about his subject – and if you haven’t figured it out yet, his excitement about and love for Doonesbury is something I share.

“Violence is as American as Cherry Pie”: Doonesbury Goes to War, Pt. I

When the curtain falls on Doonesbury, the ensuing retrospectives are bound to focus on Garry Trudeau’s chronicling of the War on Terror and its effects on the men and women who were asked to put their lives and their well-being at risk for a fundamentally flawed set of foreign policies. GBT has used the experiences of characters like B.D., Toggle, Ray Hightower, and Melissa Wheeler to promote awareness of the physical, psychological, and social challenges facing a generation asked to fight a poorly-conceived war in Afghanistan and a criminal war in Iraq. Beyond chronicling the effects of war on two generations of Americans, GBT has taken on an activist role, supporting veterans and giving them a space where they can make their voices heard on the issues that affect them.
Trudeau has written about virtually every war America has fought since the strip began in 1970 (and even a few that it hasn’t, such as when Duke, as governor of American Samoa, called on the Marines to invade the territory). Before re-reading the strip, my memory told me that the War on Terror led Trudeau to inject a dark tone in his writing about the military that had largely been absent in his previous work. The arc in which B.D. lost a leg in Iraq was arguably the most chilling thing ever to appear on the funny pages. Melissa’s experience with sexual assault in Afghanistan reveals ugly truths about the armed services that many Americans are uncomfortable acknowledging. Compare those horrors to B.D.’s experience in Vietnam: he joined up in order to get out of writing a term paper, and the highlight of his time in-country was a series of comic misadventures with Phred the VC terrorist leading to him earning his first Purple Heart, not for being wounded under enemy fire, but for cutting his hand on a beer can.
However, re-reading Doonesbury’s first years, I’m seeing how, when Trudeau took an unflinching look at the human costs of the War on Terror, he was building on a longer history of writing critically about the effects of war on American society and on the people that were at the receiving end of American power. Trudeau did use B.D.’s Vietnam experience to have a little fun writing about the war in a more lighthearted way. But, more importantly, he focused a satirical gaze on the violence inherent in American culture and demonstrated how American violence had tragic results for both the American and the Vietnamese people. Vietnam was, for Trudeau, as it was for the generation he belonged to and wrote about, an episode that revealed ugly truths about the country he loves. Trudeau spent decades trying to understand and come to terms with Vietnam. Nearly half a century on, Vietnam still resonates in Doonesbury’s America; one of the central characters for the past twenty-five years, Kim Doonesbury, formerly Kim Rosenthal, was the last orphan to be airlifted from Vietnam at the end of the war.
Over the next little while, I’m going to look at how Trudeau wrote about Vietnam. From the strip’s first days, Trudeau used his privileged position as a widely-syndicated newspaper comics artist as a way to bring a strong anti-war message to a key part of American mass culture, the funny pages.
Trudeau’s first mention of the Vietnam war came about six weeks into syndication. Mark Slackmeyer, suspended from Walden College after occupying the university’s president’s office, is planning to enjoy some downtime, but his hopes are dashed by the appearance of a “Greetings” letter from the draft board. The dreaded draft board letter made another appearance six months later; in the intervening time, the “beautiful cats” at the Selective Service had gotten remarkably hipper.

Mark’s draft notice arrives. Doonesbury, 5 December 1970

The beautiful cats at the draft board come after a Walden graduate. Doonesbury, 1 June 1971

Unhappy days, indeed. Doonesbury, 2 June 1971.

While these two strips hint at an important dynamic in how the Vietnam war was experienced by young Americans – the ever-present anxiety among those fortunate enough to attend university and thereby avoid the draft that they might lose that status – Trudeau, surprisingly, largely overlooked the draft. Instead, as he thought about students being shipped off to war, Trudeau focused on a key link between American militarism and higher education, the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC). For Trudeau, ROTC revealed, and fostered, the violence deeply woven into the American character, a theme he would return to when he began writing directly about Southeast Asia.
The summer after his freshman year, B.D. began his ROTC training. ROTC was always in the cards for B.D. Alongside resonating with his pro-military/anti-Red ideological outlook, ROTC was probably the only way he could afford to attend a liberal arts college like Walden. After all, he’s the son of a working-class immigrant family (his parents emigrated from Poland) whose father is chronically unemployed. Trudeau later turned Walden into the butt of numerous jokes about for-profit “diploma mills” that trade meaningless degrees for crippling debt, but in 1971, B.D. was exchanging service to his country for a shot at social mobility his parents didn’t have.

B.D. was always army-bound. Doonesbury, 26 July 1971.

H. Rap Brown of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee famously pointed out that “violence is as American as cherry pie.” B.D. may have seen ROTC, at least in part, as a chance at a life that would otherwise be unattainable for him, but Trudeau used B.D.’s ROTC training to comment on how violence, especially in its militaristic form, was central to American identity. B.D. represents that subset of American youth who did not buy into the counterculture or New Left politics. He’s a straight-arrow, all-American quarterback, a Republican, and a patriot’s patriot, who has no sympathy for the anti-war left B.D. rejects Mark’s New Left radicalism, but he lives his politics as much as his ideological opposite. With B.D., the huddle becomes a forum for the politics of Nixon’s “Silent Majority.” He will interrupt a huddle to allow his team to acknowledge an Air Force plane flying overhead, and once called for a beating to be delivered to a dissenting protestor. B.D.’s love of military violence is America’s love for military violence.

B.D. on the anti-war movement. Doonesbury, 1 March 1971

B.D. doesn’t care for dissent on campus or on the field. Doonesbury, 29 December 1970.

A patriotic huddle. Doonesbury, 17 December 1970.

B.D. began his ROTC training on and Trudeau spared no time in engaging in some of the darkest satire imaginable in a mainstream newspaper comic strip. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and M*A*S*H* satirized the insanity of military life and the basic incompetence of Army bureaucracy; Doonesbury focused on portraying the military, and thereby American culture, as sadistically violent. We learn that ROTC is not really about imbuing young men with values of “leadership”and “discipline,” but teaching them “to be methodical machines of destruction and ruin.” This is exactly what B.D. was looking for; he proudly writes his parents to tell them that he has already learned how to “shoot, lacerate, knife, blow up, detonate, and liquidate” as required.

The truth. Doonesbury, 12 June 1971.

Skills training. Doonesbury, 14 June 1971.

B.D. takes to military life, and the accompanying opportunities for acts of heroic violence, much as he takes to the opportunities for controlled mayhem presented on Saturday afternoons on the college gridiron. In fact, one officer is concerned that B.D. might be a little too eager to put his training to practical use.

It looks like fun. Doonesbury, 16 June 1971.

B.D. develops a reputation. Doonesbury, 19 June 1971.

Too much of a good thing. Doonesbury, 18 June 1971

By the end of the summer, however, the commanders put aside their fears that B.D. might be just a little bit too enthusiastic, and, in a nod to the spectacular aspects of America’s favourite pastime, give him the equivalent of an Oscar for the “Best Performance as a Gung-Ho G.I,” an award our hero turns down because – in an early appearance of the normalization of violent militarism as an occupation like any other – he’s “just trying to do his job.”

“Just trying to do his job.” Doonesbury, 2 August 1971.

Over the next little while, I’ll talk more about how Trudeau showed his readers just how nasty a job that could be.


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Doonesbury Goes to War, Part IV: Phred, B.D. and the Heartless Air Pirates.

Welcome back.

Last time out, I began writing about how Garry Trudeau addressed the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam war, looking at the experience of Kim and other refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia. The second part of that series is going to look at the ways in which two soldiers, Phred and B.D., adjusted to post-war world; the third is going to look at American foreign and military policy in the immediate post-Vietnam era.

But as I started to write that second post, sketching out some ideas about Phred’s post-war career as a re-education officer in a united, communist Vietnam, I realized that there were important parts of his story that I hadn’t looked at, and that I needed to finish telling the story of his war, and the story of the war more generally, before moving on.

Upon assuming office in 1969, Richard Nixon began implementing a policy known as “Vietnamization,” which involved cutting the number of American soldiers in Vietnam while building up South Vietnam’s ability to attain its military objectives. By 1972 – the year when B.D. served – the United States had withdrawn some 400,000 troops from Vietnam. As America pulled back from its commitment to fighting in Vietnam, Garry Trudeau shifted much of his attention away from the experiences of American soldiers to provide a running commentary on the war through the eyes of those who suffered the most during the conflict: the people of south-east Asia. His principal Vietnamese character, Phred the Viet Cong terrorist, was transformed from a sidekick to a spokesperson for a region that, even as the American presence was starting to shrink, was still suffering under massive aerial bombardment (in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) in order to advance American foreign policy objectives.

GBT’s strips about the bombings marked a second major shift in how he covered the war in southeast Asia. When he started writing about the war, Trudeau used dark satire to underline the brutal nature of American militarism. When B.D. arrived in Vietnam, dark satire gave way to goofy humour that took a softer approach dealing with violence. The arrival of Phred showed readers that, despite the fundamentally dehumanizing nature of much of American discourse about the Vietnamese people (…a set of ideas that made war crimes such as the My Lai massacre possible) they were actually human beings with the full range of human emotions. And mothers.

Phred’s reality. Doonesbury, 29 October 1972

Starting in October 1972, GBT stopped pulling his punches about the suffering caused by American aggression in south-east Asia. The Sunday, 29 October strip finds Phred in the jungle, writing to B.D. Using language that rarely appeared in the funny pages, Phred describes the “horror and agony of war”: “bombs rain daily” and his parents have again become refugees because his “hamlet was levelled.” While the strip ends on an uplifting note – Phred’s love of rock and roll helps “chase them naughty blues away” – it is fundamentally disturbing when compared to GBT’s previous Vietnam material. Death is no longer an abstraction: a familiar character is confronting it in a way that is much more real than we had previously seen. No softening, and no satirical exaggeration: people who, like us, love Elvis Presley records, are dying, and their homes are being destroyed.

Trudeau sometimes couched his increasingly pointed critiques of American actions n humour that played on the personalities of his characters. After Phred writes that letter to B.D., Boopsie interrupts B.D.’s huddle with the news that casualties from a recent American rocket attack on North Vietnam included cows, sheep, chickens and, worst of all, baby ducks. The punch-line is in Boopsie and Zonker’s reactions; two usually apolitical characters are shocked into understanding how horrible the war is because of some dead birds. A few days after this interlude, however, GBT gets real again. Zonker wants to talk with B.D. about how America has been bombing “schools and hospitals and defenceless hamlets.” Again, Trudeau is determined to use his voice to expose, in frank, clear, unambiguous language that was unique among syndicated comic strips, the horrors that were being done in the name of the American people.

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Baby ducks. Doonesbury, 30 October 1972

Shortly after the “baby ducks” strip, B.D. headed back to Vietnam – this time, not as a soldier, but as a tourist. His return visit allowed Trudeau to confront his readers with the helpless rage that the Vietnamese people must have felt as the American war dragged on with no end in sight. Foreshadowing Donald Trump’s vision of another communist Asian nation becoming a hot tourist destination, Phred invited B.D. to come see Vietnam before it was “spoiled” by the “tourists, resorts and hotels” that would come with the “impending threat of peace.” In fact, this was as much a planned exercise in consciousness-raising as it was a reunion of two war buddies.

Admittedly, the story of B.D.’s Vietnamese vacation was marked by the the goofy buddy humour that dominated his stint as a GI, much of which deliberately minimized the horror of the war: Phred admits to blowing up a man’s bicycle because he supported the Thieu regime, and he rejoices at finding his old desk in the bombed-out wreckage of his former school. We also get the incongruous images of B.D. and Phred getting drunk and singing Christmas carols and enjoying a gourmet meal in the middle of a war zone.

Phred’s having a bad day. Doonesbury, 21 December 1972

But these moments of lightness stand in sharp contrast to what we learn about the horrors of the war as it was experienced by Phred and his people. Phred takes B.D. to visit his mother at a refugee camp; there is “destitution as far as the eye can see.” A few days later, B.D. and Phred get caught in an artillery attack. When B.D. suggests they help a wounded man, Phred lashes out, screaming that the man is “just ONE of the millions of civilians who have been wounded or killed” since the war began, a statistic that’s repeated in a strip that ran a week later. Trudeau wanted his readers to understand just how tragic the war was for the Vietnamese people. He also wanted them to understand something about the logic that drove their suffering.

As B.D.’s trip was winding down, Trudeau introduced two characters who, although they never directly interacted with Phred, represented the power that was systematically destroying his people’s lives and livelihoods. After an American airstrike forces B.D. and Phred to take shelter, Phred impotently screams his rage at the “heartless air pirates” who dropped the bombs: “I hope you can live with all the destruction and carnage you’ve brought to my little country!!” Meanwhile, the Heartless Air Pirates, several thousand feet above, are insulated from, and seemingly oblivious to, what is happening below them.

Introducing the Heartless Air Pirates, Doonesbury, 29 December 1972

The appearance of the Heartless Air Pirates made GBT’s writing about Vietnam even more surrealist. War is a fundamentally insane endeavour, and the only way for the people tasked with executing it is to embrace the cognitive dissonance that defines existence in a war zone. Trudeau had already hinted at the insanity of the logic of American bombing in two throwaway panels earlier in 1972. Zonker reads that the Pentagon planned to drop 50,000,000 tons of bombs on Vietnam. The only rationale provided for this radical act of violence came from an official who justified it by reminding Americans that the lives of Vietnamese people were of exactly zero consequence: “Well, why not? You know? I mean, what the heck.” The Heartless Air Pirates allowed Trudeau articulate the gap between that bizarre logic and the ability of the people who had to operate within it to maintain their sanity. For America, the Vietnamese people were human beings of a lesser order, and their lives were secondary to strategic and geopolitical priorities: “In order to save the village, we had to destroy it.” The only way for the perpetrators to live within that logic is to do whatever they can to insulate themselves from it; but that’s only a stopgap measure. The inherent contradictions ultimately reinforce the systemic insanity. This was a key theme in 1960s and 1970s anti-war culture, as seen in popular novels and films like Catch-22 and M*A*S*H. Like Milo Minderbinder and Hawkeye Pierce, the Heartless Air Pirates know they are living with insanity, but as they attempt to make peace with that insanity, its depths are made all the more apparent because the contradiction is just too big.

He was just askin’…Doonesbury, 30 December 1972

High above the carnage they cause, the Heartless Air Pirates have a perspective on the war that in no way reflects the reality below. One of them is touched by a recent gift he received: a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Two ideas about flight that were central to the culture of the era – the well-meaning, if somewhat empty-headed hippie idealism of Richard Bach’s poetic novel and a B-52 dropping tons of ordinance on peaceful villagers – are forced into the same frame, revealing the insanity of the times in sharp contrast. In their last appearance, the Heartless Air Pirates take “one last spin over the Delta,” because “it’s a beautiful day” to look at “some kinda country.” How that country looks, of course, depends on where you look at it from. The Heartless Air Pirates watch in awe as the bombs they drop “[catch] the sunlight as they [disappear] into the clouds,” leading something akin to a Fourth of July celebration; however, as one of them notes, things probably “looked different from the other end.” Phred’s impotent rage at the Heartless Air Pirates gives us a hint at how things looked from the other end. I have yet to find another widely-syndicated newspaper comic strip that did so much to force American readers to reckon with the human costs of what their government was doing in their name.

Probably it did. Doonesbury, 4 February 1973

B.D., however, was not ready to reckon with what his country had done to the Vietnamese people; in the months following his Vietnamese vacation, he continued to wholeheartedly support the American war. The beginning of his reckoning with Vietnam would start when the last helicopters brought the last Americans off of the roof of the American embassy in Saigon, and the process would take decades; it’s still unfolding. Stay tuned.