Robert Mugabe Militia Hacks, Burns Alive Opposition Leader’s Wife

The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.

The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

Mrs Chipiro, 45, a former pre-school teacher, was the second wife of a junior official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) burnt alive last Friday by Zanu (PF) militiamen. Pamela Pasvani, the 21-year-old pregnant wife of a local councillor in Harare, did not suffer mutilation but died later of her burns; his six-year-old son perished in the flames.

God rest their souls.

The floods in the midwest, the fires, the tornados, hurricanes. Food riots, gas prices, foreclosures. It can all be so much to bear, but when I feel like this I give. I need to know I am doing SOMETHING to help-even if I can’t directly help the people in Zimbabwe.

With my free food I get from clipping coupons I’ve been able to bring bags of food to the loca pantry. You can do this too-and it will cost you next to nothing. www.thegrocerygame.com You’ll save $ for your family, and help someone else, too.

My heart’s been focused on Friends of Pine Ridge Reservation too. They can use your Box Tops for education, and your empty printer cartridges.

The only way we can fight back all of the darkness is to give.

I’m 36 almost 37. My husband is 45. 

I’m rooting for Obamessiah, he’s for McCain. It’s been a firey time in our house (and I have to wonder how Carville and Matalin do it).

Here’s where the gap comes in. He doesn’t believe that America can elect a black man for president yet. I tell him he’s lost touch with my generation (and even if I’m actually on the tail end of his, being a Heinz 57 like I am, I tend to be much more sensitive to the anti racism feelings of the youngers, having those same feelings myself). As we were reading the papers Sunday morning we had that exact discussion-except I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about because he was an old fart. He promptly sniffed, snapped up the paper and plotted his revenge. 

I’ll have to pick fights with him like that again sometime. 

Look! HOTNESS. I swears, it’s making me into a mantitty ho. And the Luurvly dip of the jeans, MmmMmmMmm. You think the cover is tasty? You should read the book! And thank your lucky stars, you can! 

HERE!

Time-traveler. Cowboy. Assassin. Kit Frost has been all three, and more, but he’s never stooped to slave running, and he doesn’t intend to start now. So he announces when he arrives in a brothel to collect his cargo, only to be handed the drugged body of beautiful Lourdes Carterro. 

But Lourdes isn’t a slave. She’s a trained sexual submissive in thrall to a wealthy and powerful man. Her escape attempt may have failed, but she isn’t so submissive that she’s ready to give up. She’ll use her skills to lull Kit, to make him think she’s weak and easily controlled, and then she’ll find her way to freedom. 

Before long, Kit’s worn leather belt has strapped Lourdes to the bed, and she’s begging for his rough touch. But Kit finds new ways to torture her with pleasure, and soon she wonders … can she run away if running away means leaving Kit behind? 

Keep checking back for when I get to pimp her next out, a m/m named Wild Horses which happens to be one of my favorite’s she’s ever written. 

We’ve been getting ready for this day for weeks! Learning, reading books, talking openly and honestly about our feelings. We even bought clothes for the occasion.

What’s our special day?

POTTY TRAINING DAY!

I have normally trained my kids in a few days-two to three at the most so there is the possiblity that this could be the last week of diapers EVER inmy house. Think -7 kids, and this may be the last one. *blissful sigh*

I may make us a cake. 

(yes, I know that other countries potty train at 4 months or earlier-I was trained at 9 myself, but we were in Brazil and I had constant rashes. So sue me, I hold out for 2.5)

In our house THIS is about as fun as fun can be. As you can imagine, homeschooling astronomy geeks are sqeaking with glee. At least at my house. Not to mention how it gives the writers imagination a injection of Super Creativity Juice.

Worldwide Telescope

Stellarium

Where I will be buying most of the Christmas Presents for Hatchling #3

If none of that makes you lose hours of your day Kristen’s Letter to her Cat cracked me up. Go say Hi!

This is what I have playing on the iPod. Most of the time music gives me the atmosphere I need to get on the page.

.

I’m coming into the home stretch of my Young Adult, which after wrangling for longer than I care to admit, I like. After it’s done I get to revisit Selah’s favorite, an unnamed multicultural contemp set in Brazil, which will be published by Parker Publishing next year. I have to admit, it’s a favorite of mine, too and I’m looking forward to arguing with Selah which is where we left off (how loyal must Olivia be to her brother-remember?).

But all of this stops the research for my next ms, and I have to say, this research in particular is mightily seductive, mostly because this book is a long time coming. 22 years I’ve been cradling this one like the most precious seed, learning about the subject, building my world, creating arcs and plots.

It’s funny how some stories you simply write, like yanking a thought out of the air, and other stories you’re pulling in all that you are and know to write them. You realize writing them has been an unconscious journey, and your personal wanderings become knowledge you needed to have brought. Just like a woman who’s waited 9 months to give birth and knows it’s time, now, after all these years of knowing it WASN’T, time-I’m ready. And very excited. It’s a deep excitement and frantic all at once. I want to explode it all over the pages, and yet I want to meticulously craft it as well. It has epic possibilities, this world can last and I haven’t even tapped it’s potential with the first book.

One of the paths I’m researching is Goddess. And it has come about by my own personal wanderings, adding to the threads of plot seamlessly, making me know that this was something I needed to discover. Right now I’m reading GODDESS: MYTHS OF THE FEMALE DIVINE by David Leeming and Jake Page. This is a toe dip in the pool, I know. I have in my huge canvas library bag all of the Joseph Campbell’s I could get my mitts on, and then another 25 (so it seems) books about Goddess. As I go through them I’ll blog about the great ones, I’m sure.

The most interesting aspect is coming from a Christian perspective and noting (so far) that the Hebrew Yahweh’s gender never was up for any gender interpretations. An aside: I left the institutional church because of it’s never ending need of $$ and building projects, and because I didn’t want my daughters learning the absolute submission that was being preached.

I’ve read 3/4 of GODDESS now, and I’m to the part where the authors are telling the stories of when Goddess starts to be undermined in myth. Pandora, once Gaia, now is forced by Zeus to unleash ills that he’d collected instead, becoming the source of all human affliction instead of the giver of abundance.

I remember reading most of by Husain Haddawy and realizing that in every story women were deceitful and treacherous (I stopped halfway, disgusted). I, ignorantly, never realized that most myths were the same- sublimating women- and how can people raised on such Archtypes be any different? 

Knowing what I do about romance, I can see why it’s so popular, and so needed. It’s a reclaiming. It goes beyond feminisim to strike at the root of patriarchy, all the way back to the storytelling. 

Everything Old Is New Again – Using Mythology in Romance

May 16, 17, and 18 at Romance Divas

Featuring:
P.C. Cast

Robin D. Owens

Gena Showalter

Lori Handeland

Alyssa Day

Want to know how to use mythology, culture, fairy tales, or folklore in romance? Romance Divas is hosting a 3-day workshop with some of the hottest names in the genre. It will take place at the Romance Diva Forum. All are welcome. To get access to the forum you will need to register.
Lo

Yes, I’m posting. Get over it. 

We’ve found a house that I love, moreso, I love the acreage. Five of them. Now, that’s not a
lot, but it’s enough right now to make some of my long held dreams come true. Like keeping bees. 

The NJ Department of Agriculture (which Corzine is trying to shut down – *insert bad name for Corzine here*) has a program where if you take their bee classes, you can get $300 worth of bee keeping supplies, but I missed this years. I was pissed, but I’ve set myself up with the e-mail alerts for next year’s classes-if there IS a next year for the department. *another nasty name for Corzine*

Anyway, if you’ve been up on the news you know that bee colonies are being devastated by CCD (colony colapse disorder) and so far they’ve been unable to find out what was causing the deaths of so many bees.*

But at last they seem to be making some headway, and can I say I’m not so surprised?

Hackenberg, 58, trucks his bees around the country for pollination — from oranges in Florida to blueberries in Maine. He was the first beekeeper to report the disorder to Penn State researchers last fall, having lost nearly 75 percent of his 3,200 colonies.

He said he is convinced pesticides, and in particular a kind of pesticide called neonicotinoids, were harming his bees.

What I don’t understand is why didn’t they go all Numb3rs on this? Map it out, pinpoint collapses, and get the pesticides that all of the farmers are using. Start cross referencing. This is serious. And when the farmers who use that crap can’t get any bees, maybe they’ll start going organic. A girl can dream…

*Fireflies and Salamanders are getting rare, too.