news flash: weight loss secret revealed

eat less food
get up off the couch

ahh, sweet youth

ahh, harsh truth

elizabeth i, we grok thou

and now red and laughter and ladyhood and rejection and virginity and wooden exterior to match vulnerable interior and weighing sacrifice and matching manhood and "remembering who we are" and lack of fear and so much fear and hearing the oars in the water as we row toward The Tower and trusting in the one god and being threatened by sisters and refusing false confessions and being tempted by true love...

oh we are not a prince nor a queen but doesn't this all sound familiar....

hang on till june, jack

Assisted suicide advocate Kevorkian paroled
Wed Dec 13, 2006 7:16 PM ET

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - Jack Kevorkian, a fiery assisted suicide advocate, will be released from a Michigan prison in June after serving eight years for murder and vowing never to help the terminally ill take their own lives again, state officials said on Wednesday.

Known as "Dr. Death," Kevorkian, 78, touched off a firestorm of controversy in the 1990s for presiding as a medical doctor in dozens of suicides and advocating the legalization of such procedures in the United States.

Kevorkian has been serving a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder for giving lethal injections to a man with Lou Gehrig's disease who died with Kevorkian's help in suburban Detroit in 1998.

A representative of the Michigan Parole Board interviewed Kevorkian on Thursday. The state parole board then approved a recommendation Kevorkian be paroled in June, the earliest possible date for his release, officials said.

Russ Marlan, a spokesman for Michigan's prison system, said Kevorkian acknowledged he had broken the law during a flamboyant eight-year campaign to legalize assisted suicide.

"He said that anything that would bring him back to prison, he will avoid. He said prison is no place to live," Marlan said.

Kevorkian will not be allowed to counsel anyone on suicide as a condition of parole, Marlan said, although he remains free to speak out on the issue of assisted suicides.

Marlan said Kevorkian, who will serve a 24-month parole, indicated that he planned to write and speak on the question of assisted suicide once free. But Marlan added: "I think he sees his role in this issue as diminished."

In 1997, Oregon became the first and only state to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the United States.

FAILING HEALTH

Kevorkian, who claims he assisted in 130 deaths, had thwarted four attempts by prosecutors to convict him and flouted a state ban on assisted suicide that was passed in a bid to stop him.

But in 1999 a Michigan jury convicted Kevorkian of second-degree murder after he videotaped himself administering lethal shots to 52-year-old Thomas Youk and sent the tape to the CBS news show "60 Minutes."

In previous cases, Kevorkian had arranged to have those seeking to die under his supervision pull a string or otherwise start the process that led to their deaths from carbon dioxide or injected drugs.

Kevorkian said he had hoped that the jury would acquit him of the 1998 case and set a legal precedent for assisted suicide in the United States.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm had repeatedly refused to pardon Kevorkian or commute his sentence.

Kevorkian's lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, petitioned four times for his client's early release, saying Kevorkian was unlikely to survive in prison because of his failing health.

In June 1990, Kevorkian first attracted notoriety when the retired pathologist helped a 54-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease kill herself in the back of his rusty van.

(Additional reporting by Jui Chakravorty)

revelatory dream

we wake up with the knowledge that "decisions" we thought were made artfully and wisely on our own are actually due to our childhood, our upbringing, the war zone nursery. the idea that we would never have children, never want children, is a direct artifact of what being a child meant for us, when, for us, we were a child, a football, an emotional punching bag, and Freudian stage for the display of immaturity for two who perhaps should have thought twice (or more) about procreating.

now, we see (and maybe it's too late, but there must be some use for this insight) that it could be healthy and natural to want to have a child, or even to actually go ahead and create one.

of course, there is a part of us -- a large part of us -- that is still very drawn to and adamant about the concept of a woman being whole and happy without reproducing. we cannot and will not say that it's required, that making a child or becoming a parent is a necessary step in human development (though we can imagine those who would differ).

riding this fence is hard for us, painful even. but the awareness of the fence feels like a step in the right direction.

we and nietzsche

we knew something was wrong when our poor, tender eyeballs started to feel like they were popping right out -- and not symmetrically, mind you, but one at a time and randomly left or right. the coldness in our office seemed like a nice, simple thing to place the blame on. but of course, we did suspect maybe we were playing the baby diva a bit too richly.

until, that is, we remembered nietzsche -- and felt promptly vindicated (and just as promptly took a sick day). that poor, deluded man had many imaginary problems but also a few real ones including problems with the barometer. that is, when the barometer moved too fast, he suffered all manner of physical aches and pains.

this is not a hoax.

so far, the only remedy we can find today is hot rum (with some honey thrown in to make it seem more medicinal).

mother

we wonder:
why does spending time with our mother make us contemplate old favorite visions of suicide? what is it about her that just makes the sky grey and the booze so necessary? there is something beyond Eeyore about this lady. she reminds we of the bad old days, and she does it on purpose. something we don't crave, particularly at this time of year when unrealistic visions of sugarplums and happy family propaganda are already crowding the airwaves. she's on her way home now, thank the goddess and damn us to hell for being so glad the visit is over. the trick now is to figure out how to miss christmas.

harpie, harpy, hair pie