Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Beware of the Penis Snatchers

Wow...moving to West Africa is going to be awesome. I'm laughing...but the part about lynchings is a little...unnerving. See article below (i pulled it off drudge)



KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mary Gabriel)

Thursday, April 10, 2008

I heart Portland

I stole this from my friend Rose.
Portland has more bumper stickers per capita than anywhere else in America.

We have some of the funniest bumper stickers too:
Legalize Tofu
What would Scooby do?
WWXD? (what would Xena do?)
Stop continental drift.
My other car is a piece of crap, too.
No food with a face.
Vegetarians taste better.
Keep Portland weird.


We have our own food pyramid. At the bottom is espresso.

If you carry an umbrella, we know you're not local.

If you dye your hair, we know you're not local.

You'll think by looking at us that we are completely oblivious to the rain. We don't use umbrellas. We don't bother to put up our hoods. However, there's one clue that lets you know that we do notice whether or not it's raining. In the rain, we wear clogs. No rain? We wear sandals. It doesn't matter if it's January.

Portlanders love micro-brew beer. We don't really care what they taste like as long as they have interesting labels.

Portland is one of the few places in the world outside of France where you can take your dog to pubs.

Portland pre-schoolers play at indoor play park during the rainy seasons.

You may think that we're a bunch of tree huggers. But we know better. Them tree huggers live in Seattle.

We think valet parking is like bragging. It's just poor manners.

Portland is one of those few places in the world where real estate prices go up when there's a good independent coffee shop in the neighborhood. Starbucks doesn't cut it.

Portlanders are anti-chain. We like the little guy and we want to shop local. So local that we don't even want to shop outside our neighborhoods sometimes.

The most ordered beverage in Portland is a half caff, 16 oz, soy latte. Beware, if you say, half decaf, this will label you as a non-local.

At the Oregon zoo, Pachy, the senior elephant in residence gets a birthday party with his own birthday cake every year. The flavor? Carrot cake.

Beaverton is the city in Oregon where you're most likely to give birth on the way to the hospital cause you're stuck in traffic.

When in Beaverton, make sure that you get your vocabulary straight. You gotta called Nike's headquarters a "campus".

If you live in Lake Oswego, then chances are you're not a native Oregonian. You're likely to be from California or New York. That explains why real estate prices are higher here. Then again, so is the appreciation.

Monday, April 7, 2008

One jammed hip later



The race went awesome. It was a great trail!

I'm VERY happy with my times and my running. I finished around 1:54 and for a hilly course, i think that's pretty great. I got 12th in my age group (outta 110) and 254th outta 1266 runners total (male and female).

After finishing, I enjoyed the post race festivities with thomas and went back home for a shower and a nap. Upon waking, however, i realized that my right hip was jammed during the run (too much running down hill i guess). But no problem today it's feeling almost completly normal, and i'm gonna do a nice easy 4-6 miler today (depending on how i feel mid run).

Next up, a 4 mile Xterra trail race. I love this race. It was my very first race ever a year ago. Last year I came in second, but this year i moved up an age group which, contrary to what you'd believe, makes it harder. It seems that my new age group is a peak time for "serious" runners, so i'm just gonna train hard and see what happens. Xterra races are my FAVORITE, and this is the last one i can compete in before i leave for Mali, so i'm pretty excited.

In other exciting weekend news...thomas and i went to the farmers market again this weekend and bought a bunch of fruit. mmmdelicious. Buy local!

Gypsy on!

Friday, April 4, 2008

Runnin on love

Tomorrow is the big day! I'm bib #2312 for the Dole Great Race!!! I'm running my second half marathon, and have no plan to PR. Although I'm in better shape thanI was for last August for the HulaMan Half Marathon, this race is on trails and has more hills. I'm used to running hills though, so hopefully i don't peeter out :)

Plan for today is rest, drink water, eat spaghetti, and have a little gatorade just before bed. Then, I'll be up just before 6 to be to the race around 6:15. Start time is 7am, hopefully all over and sittin on a curb eating post race party food by 9. My last time was 1:49 or something like that...I'm hoping to get under 2 this time. But I'm not going to concentrate on my time so much as enjoying the race and finishing.

7 weeks ago i couldn't even run because of an ankle injury, so i'm pretty happy just to be able to feel as confident as I do. I'm not a half-marathoner to be honest...i so much prefer the 6-9 mile range, but it's good to go outside my comfort zone occasionally :)

After the race I'm plannin on hittin up the farmer's market and then home to bed. :) I'll let you know how it goes...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Sex is weird...the gender kind, not the heavy panting one

I recently have become interested in (thanks to a drudge article) transgender issues. The Drudge article was a short memo on a 6 year old boy who is dressing and living as a girl with the support of his family(I would use the preferred pronoun, but for sake of clarity I'll stick with their biological gender pronoun). The article mentioned a Barbara Walters special on 20/20 that had previously aired about Transgender Kids. I went home and youtubed that up, and proceeded to learn more about this 6 year old boy turned girl, a 10 year old boy turned girl, and a 17 year old girl turned boy.

It was fascinating. I mean here we have a two year old boy correcting his mother that he is a "good girl, not a good boy," and an 18-month old boy unsnapping his onesy to "make a dress." Each of the three children had been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder and, apparently, their brains really were the opposite gender of their bodies (or so the psychologists said).

I thought to myself, originally, that these parents were indulging a fantasy that every kid has. I know for me, I never wanted to be a girl as a kid. I didn't want to shave, I didn't want wear a bra, and I wanted nothing to do with periods, the color pink, or dolls. I wanted to be a boy. I wanted to be in boy scouts, I wanted to wear jeans, I wanted to be a cowboy and a soldier and play guns. With all this in mind I'm thinking these kids are just weird. This seemed, to me, to be a phase...but that's when one of the mothers made a comment that blew me away....

She said, "It is one thing for a boy to say I WANT to be girl, and quite another for them to say I AM a girl." Suddenly, the playing field changed. As a kid I never IDENTIFIED myself as male. I wanted to be male, and then I outgrew it and, now, could not imagine having to be a boy...yucky, I'm quite happy in my girl body. These kids actually BELIEVE themselves to be the opposite gender. One mother told the heartbreaking story of a her 10 year old son who, when she peaked in the bathroom while he was showering, held a washcloth over his privates while washing his hair with the other hand. It's as if a TEN YEAR OLD couldn't stand to see himself as a gender he didn't feel. That isn't learned behavior. No amount of bad parenting (and for the record these families seemed to fall within the normal range) or media can lead to that kind of behavior. I mean that is a child in torment. He's not doing it for show or attention, he really is that uncomfortable with himself as a boy.

I've been pondering this for about a week now, the moral and spiritual implications of transgender people. My natural instinct is to say it doesn't matter, that there is nothing wrong with being transgender. I just love loving and accepting. I'm also not convinced of absolute gender. On the other hand, I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'm wrong. I'm afraid my baby boy will tell me he is a girl. I'm afraid my child will become so miserable in his male body that he will become depressed, suicidal, and angry (the 10 year old boy was this way until his conservative parents allowed him to express himself as a girl). I'm pretty sure that if I had a son like that, I'd let him wear a dress. I just don't think I could watch him suffer.

Then again, these kids have a life of suffering ahead of them...classrooms, religion, small minds...our world just isn't nice to transgender people, probably cause we're scared. Maybe scared for good reason, but probably just scared cause their different. We're always afraid of people who are different. Navagating a fallen world is rough.

Gypsy on