WISE WORDS FROM FILM

Pulp Fiction
Fabienne: No. Pot bellies make a man look either oafish, or like a gorilla. But on a woman, a pot belly is very sexy. The rest of you is normal. Normal face, normal legs, normal hips, normal ass, but with a big, perfectly round pot belly. If I had one, I'd wear a tee-shirt two sizes too small to accentuate it.
Butch:You think guys would find that attractive?
Fabienne: I don't give a damn what men find attractive. It's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.

JOKE OF THE DAY

"Three tomatoes are walking down the street- a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him... and says, Catch up."

JUST FOR FUN

This one's for you Mom

ELEPHANTS SUFFER FROM ZOO-KEEPING

A study recently showed that elephants who live in captivity live significantly shorter lives than those in the wild.

Is this really that shocking? I guess seeing it in numbers makes it more real.

The lifespan of African elephants in the wild is approximately 56 years; elephants kept in zoos live a mere 19.

Mortality rates of Asian elephants born in zoos are 2-3% higher than if born in nature.

Is this wrong? Completely!

Many scientists suggest that the living environments in zoos aren't large enough and their diet is not healthily balanced, which causes extreme stress in the animals day to day life.

Ross Clubb from the Britains Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals states "The vast majority are overweight in zoos, this could explain the high still-birth rates and why they're dying early. Bigger mothers have bigger calves and more of these are still-born."

This is so sick. If zoos cannot properly care for their animals then they should not take on the challenge of keeping them.

While zoos are very educational places where children and adults alike can come and enjoy the beauty of nature's living creations, they should be treated as such. The fact is: animals are animals. They are not pets, they are not a form of entertainment. Sadly, they do not have the right to obtain what is right for them if humans feel they don't need to.They need to live in the wild, and if we are going to deny them this access then we absolutely have to make sure they lead healthy and active lives in their unnatural locations.

We, as the most advanced species in our world, need to accept that we are not the end of the line in evolution. We need to respect our planet and all the living things that reside on it alongside us.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

FLIPPIN' SWEET NATIONAL PARK OF THE DAY: CRATER LAKE

On my journey across America via 15 passenger van and a shitty broken tent, my group of crazy professors and even nuttier friends stumbled upon heaven on earth: Crater Lake National Park , Oregon.

To awaken my inner Forrest Gump, (Yes, I am going to go there) "... like that mountain lake. It was so clear, Jenny, it looked like there were two skies one on top of the other."

This place is one of the most incredible and beautiful places I have ever seen. It is the deepest (and COLDEST freaking) lake in the United States; at 1,949 feet deep and approximately 38 degrees Fahrenheit. It formed when the volcano, after being dormant for many years, erupted violently and collapsed on itself, becoming a caldera. Eventually, over hundreds of years the caldera filled with water from rain and snow fall. Water is also fed from somewhere under the surface of the water.

The lake is famous for its spectacular clear blue water and steep volcanic walls that keep the water contained.

(That is the water, not the sky. Yes, it is THAT blue)

Despite how GORGEOUS this place is, the entire drive there and hike down the caldera I was freaking out. Its a kind of "right of passage" to jump into the lake off a 10 foot cliff; unfortunately being informed that the lake water was 38 degrees didn't make the jump any easier to conquer. I'm the girl who is too scared to jump into a swimming pool in July because its too cold. After finally putting my fear aside and just saying "fuck it!", I jumped over the cliff and into a pool of 10,000 knives stabbing my ass (or at least that's what it felt like). And on top of my frozen butt syndrome, I also received the LARGEST wedgie of my life on impact. Lets just say my ass has seen better days.

It was one of the happiest days of my life. No idea why, honestly. But that frigid water awoke something in me that day. Something I will never regret or forget.

On the hike back up, get this, the water is so clean my friend and I filled up a water bottle and drank it on the way back to the vans. It tasted better than bottled water. And no, I didn't get any form of diarrhea you germaphobes!

I highly recommend you travel to this place some time in your life. Go ahead, jump in.

The Death Penalty: Lesser of Two Evils?

The amount of executions in American prisons is continuing to spiral downward.

111 charged criminals will be sentenced to death this year, according to the Death Penality Information Center; this is the lowest number of deaths since the penalty was restored in 1976.

CNN News provides a few interesting facts about the death penalty:

• 37 death sentences in 2008, 98 in 1999
• At least half of all executions occur in Texas ( I guess they are serious when they say "Don't Mess with Texas"! )
  
• It is legal in only 36 States to perform the death sentence
  
• Louisiana's effort to execute child rapists failed; Supreme Court rules that only murderers can be executed via lethal injection.
• A commission in California states "an estimated $138 million was spent each year prosecuting, incarcerating and handling appeals of the estimated 667 current death row cases, bringing the system close to collapse".

So here's the question of the day...is the death penalty the right way to solve this problem?

Even though it is known by anyone that if you commit an extreme crime you will possibly face the death penalty. But is that instilled fear really lowering the number of crimes? Should prisons concentrate more on being a correctional facility where inmates can receive psychiatric help and live in an environment that will correct their behavior, or should it be based only on serving justice?

It is clear that the number of appeals is raising to lower the number of death penalties, which increases the chance of mulitple years in prison and possible probation. If we are eliminating the death penalty over time and prisoners are simply sitting in prison waiting to get out, are we really improving the situation? When they do get out, have they really been corrected to live in a civil society?

I think that if we are going to continually lower the amount of executions carried out in our country we need to concentrate on solving the delinquent's personal problems. This could be done through healthy activities that promote controlling anger and the understanding/acceptance of past personal issues. Many other options for correctional services would have to be available, obviously.

If we are going to let people out of prison for rape, robbery, vandalism and drugs, than we need to attempt change their behavior and perceptions of what they believe is a suitable process of obtaining their goals.

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Milk is Good for the Soul

Milk, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, has been getting rave reviews the last couple of weeks! It has already won numerous Best Film Titles!

The New York Films Critics Circle has awarded Milk with Best Picture and Best Actor for Sean Penn. Josh Brolin also took home the award for Best Supporting Actor.

The biopic also won the Producers Guild of America's Stanley Kramer Award, which honors films who raise awareness on challenging social issues.
Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected into public office in San Francisco in 1977. His positive attitude and refusal to recognize the hatred of the anti-gay community lead him to his victory. Harvey Milk passed one of the first gay right ordinances in our country.

Milk was assassinated on November 27, 1978.

His uplifting efforts and messages of hope to the shadowed LGBT community raised a time of compelling desire and awakened diversity in our country.

Watch this moving excerpt of his speech "You Cannot Live on Hope Alone" presented in 1978:

I can't wait to see this film! Hopefully I'll be seeing it this week! Will you see it?

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Quote of the Day

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

– Pablo Picasso

for erica, my love.

Three's Company

President-elect Obama and Joe Biden met with Al Gore to discuss global climate change on Tuesday.

PE Obama stated that "the time for delay is over, the time for denial is over" after the private meeting with the former VP.

There seems to be no definite promise that Gore will have a role in Obama's "transition to change" but it is clear that PE is very open to Gore's ideas on our world's environmental issues. The two are working towards new policies that will create new methods of energy production, which will, in turn, create new jobs and get our economy back up and running.

Obama, in all his wisdom, claimed

"We have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country, to re-power America, to redesign how we use energy, to think about how we are increasing efficiency, to make our economy stronger, make us more safe, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and make us competitive for decades to come, even as we are saving the planet."

Obama is the man! I really hope this plan works out. It is totally within our reach with the right people, policies and technology.

FYI, there are MULTIPLE ways to produce energy other than oil

• GeoThermal Energy
• Windmills
• Solar Panels
• Hydropower
• Wave and Tidal Power

Its about damn time we invested in our future!

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