The Easter Lamb Cake

OK, some backstory on this one. Two years ago we went to my in-laws for Easter and John's stepmom had a lamb cake. I'd never heard of this before, but then again my family was never really into Easter traditions. Everyone else I know seems to have heard of these before, so I can only assume that I'm the one that's weird.

Well I thought it would be interesting to make one, with a twist. What could be better than to have the "sacrificial" lamb made out of red-velvet cake? It would be so much more gory.

So I set out to find a pan. Never having done this before, I wanted to find a cake mix. I didn't want to go through all the trouble of making a cake from scratch and have it it get screwed up because I did something wrong with the pan. We couldn't find red-velvet, but we did find strawberry swirl - yellow cake with strawberry goo you can swirl into the mix. That sounded like a plan because we could have a gooey spine going down the center of the cake.

This is my (surprisingly) very successful attempt at making a lamb cake and the story of his violent demise:


Fresh baked lamb.

By the way, the apron says "D.A.R.E. to keep presidents off Peruvian Blueflake." I don't get why I'm the only one that finds that funny. John says because it's too specific, but I really think that anyone who thinks about it for a second can put "Peruvian Blueflake," the smirking head of Dubya, and rumors of Dubya's suspected bouts with cocaine together and assume that it's a type of cocaine. I never heard of it before I got the apron either.


The little lamb gets his wool (whipped cream frosting). I had to go all out on this. I got a decorating set and everything. I took a cake decorating class when I was about 10, and it kinda came back to me. Yeah, yeah, shut up. I took a cake decorating class. Wanna make something of it? By the way, the secret to getting the two halves to stay together - royal icing - it dries hard and acts like glue. Don't frost the whole thing in that stuff though - it tastes like wallpaper paste.


He knows something terrible awaits him. I love the way he looks from the side. He knows he isn't long for this world. The googly eyes were John's idea.


The sacrifice: Yes, a bit overly dramatic. But if you're going to have a sacrifice, I say do it right.


Off with his head: Kinda speaks for itself.


The chewy center revealed: The strawberry core worked very well. His head just kinda plunked right down on the plate, it was great.


John said it looks like lungs. Next year, I'm doing red velvet - imagine how much more gorey that would be than yellow cake dyed pink. The chewy center is staying though. Maybe raspberry preserves. I'll have to think about that.


Whoever bakes it gets the head. No, I didn't eat the googly eyes. He was actually quite tasty.

I think he turned out rather well, and it gave me an excuse to figure out how to post pictures to this damn blog.

Black men, "fags", and evolution...

What do these things have in common? They are feared by "Middle America" as a danger to our very civilization but pose no real threat at all.

In a very Donnie-Darkoesque moment, I read on CNN that a top Boy Scouts official has been charged with possession of child pornography. Why is it that no matter how many seemingly upstanding, heterosexual, christian, white men are found with child porn that Americans still seem to think that da fags are a danger to their children? Despite all the evidence to the contrary, many people still think that homosexual men comprise the bulk of sexual predators. I don't get it.

Same thing with black men. Despite the fact that you are several times more likely to suffer physical harm by someone in your immediate family or your partner, people still seem to believe that the "strange" black man is the perpetrator of most violent crime. It's true that black men are more likely to be arrested than white men for the same offense, and that they are more likely than white men to get stiffer sentences - but that's a different story. That's got more to do with our "blind" justice system which seems to be blind to injustices.

And of course, teaching evolution is going to destroy the stranglehold Christianity holds on this country... There's only one thing that can do that - and it's not evolution in public schools. It's a nuclear winter.

On a nicer note, I am so happy to have my window open in my office today! It's SO nice outside - finally.

This is so cool

"For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex."

How cool is that? I don't want to get into the cloning issue, but think of all the long-lasting debates that could be solved by this little bit of material? They could potentially tell, once and for all, whether dinosaurs were warm or cold blooded. Could make better inferences about diet. I just thought it was cool.

A scary precedent

One of the many benefits of a legal marriage is having someone who is automatically your next-of-kin. Gays and lesbians have been dealing with this problem for decades - battling courts, conservativism, and the families of their dead or incapacitated partners for this benefit. It means a lot of things - imagine not having the legal right to visit your partner in the hospital, to have society tell you that even though you know the person best, you can't make decisions on their behalf.

I'm about as tired as anyone about the Terri Shiavo case, and I agree that it points out the need for living wills - especially in an age where more people can be kept alive through artificial means. However, I think it also points out a scary precedent being set about the rights of the next-of-kin. Her husband is feeling the very real results of the state ignoring his next-of-kin rights; something gays and lesbians have been dealing with for decades.

Congress and the president intervened this week, in what should have been an open and shut legal case. Her husband has legal next-of-kin status, that means he has the right to make legal decisions for his wife in her current state. The federal government just put that right into question - so now, what does it mean? How many more of these cases are we going to see because the politicians (starting with good old Jebby) couldn't keep their noses out of a personal, legal matter? And what is even more sickening, is that they didn't do it out of any real concern for Terri or her family, they did it because it is a "powerful pro-life argument."

I know gays and lesbians are fighting hard for recognized, legal marriage, but one of the most important rights that comes with that has just been weakend.

More problems in the Middle East

The United States was firm in demanding the withdrawl, an agreement was reached, and is now being broken. No, I'm not talking about Syria & Lebanon. I'm talking about how Israel seems to have gone back on its word to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank:

"Aerial photographs by Israel's defence ministry have provided fresh evidence that the government is continuing its rapid expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank despite public statements to the contrary.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz yesterday reported that the pictures, taken last summer and again this year, show extensive construction on settlements, confirming Palestinian fears that Ariel Sharon is using the upheaval around the removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip as cover to grab control of more of the West Bank.

The continued construction is also in breach of Israel's commitments under the US-led road map peace initiative which requires a complete freeze on settlement expansion."

So, if it's a breach of a US-Israeli agreement, where are the "strong words" from our Secretary of State?

Jon Stewart was right, this administration's job really has been spreading irony throughout the world...

Rollin' RVs...

You never realize how many people are involved in making one lousy scene in a movie until you see it up close.

It looked like an RV convention descended on the South Loop this morning - Trailers, trucks and security lined two and a half entire city blocks. Along Jackson between Michigan and Wabash, along Wabash from Jackson to Congress, and along Van Buren between Michigan & Wabash. It's quite impressive. Each little trailer had its own tiny sattelite dish - so I guess everyone needs a little Oprah during the day, huh?

This is very surreal.

Religious Folks Need a Good Fuck

... or just something else to do with their time. Spongebob is gay, Tinki Winki is Gay, Salman Rushdie must die, Saudi Arabia doesn't allow foreigners to bring "anti-Islamic" reading into the country...

and now the Vatican is warning Catholics not to read the Da Vinci Code... because it challenges the teachings of the Church. Ok - how is this different from those terrible Islamic Fundamentalists restricting their people's intake of information? Oh, that's right - they're Muslim, and the Vatican is right! Whatever.

People.... RELAX. It's fiction - as in - a made up story. If you really believe that your way is the "truth" then you shouldn't be afraid to let people read/see/experience different things because they will eventually see the light and it will make their faith stronger. Experiencing different things is how you can bolster your debates with "non believers."

However, if you're seeking to control the masses with your narrow minded thinking, then issuing fatwas against books, music, or any kind of entertainment is the ideal way to do it.

Adler & Sullivan are rolling in their graves

The Auditorium Building is a National Historic Landmark - and deservedly so. With the exception of many of the current office spaces (which used to be hotel rooms) the building has been restored. There are several special rooms that have been restored to exactly the way they were in 1890.

Obviously a college needs different types of space than a Hotel/Theatre, so some spaces, while retaining their former beauty, are used for different things now. The old ballroom/dining hall is our library - with it's vaulted cathedral style ceiling and giant arched windows overlooking Buckingham Fountian. It's a great place to sit and relax.

Well, now they're filming a movie up there and they're moving all the reference stacks into storage for a week. That's no big deal - it's supposed to be an architect's office, so it wouldn't do well to have it look like a library. However, along with moving crap around, they've also installed these temporary chandolier-like light fixtures that are best described as giant circus-rings. They're cyllindrical hanging monstrosities - three of them - and they don't fit the style of the building at all... which is ironic seeing as how it's supposed to be an architectural office. I guess they have to be oversized to show up on film. But man - what a mess.

I just might have to check it out thursday - that's when they're actually filming.

Easter Bunny Rap

This is really cute (and stupid). The Easter Bunny Rap

"Freedom" in Lebanon?

So apparently pro-Syria demonstrators in Lebanon far out-number the demonstrators last week who were calling for Syria's troop withdrawl. They instead told the US to stay out of their business and focus their attention on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese lands... hmm - now THERE is a concept!

I have to wonder how much the US government had to do with the recent anti-Syria protests? Did they egg them on? I mean, the timing was immpecable. That's just the cynic in me.

Heroin, etc.

A friend of mine has been doing research on the increase in Heroin usage in Chicago and Northwest Indiana and I wanted to share some of it. If you want to read the studies, they can be found on their website under the "Health" section.

The mortality rate per capita for Porter county, Indiana is 156% higher than that of Chicago. The "DARE" model of Just Say No is inadequate as it teaches that all drugs are equally bad. This lulls them into the false sense that if they tried Marijuana that heroin would be no different.

• Heroin purity in the Midwest has been increasing since the 1980s
• For this reason, herion is now sniffable
• Snifable heroin has multiple consequences:
1. The stigma of the drug decreases - it is no longer an IV drug.
2. Children and teens are often not properly educated to realized that sniffing heroin is just as addictive and deadly as injecting.
3. The drug is much cheaper. Just $10-$20 is enough to get high.

Blahh

Will winter ever end? I just haven't felt much like writing lately. There's so much shit in the government that's pissing me off that it's simply overload to try and think about it too much.

Our SSDP chapter got a meeting with Dick Durbin's Chief of Staff to promote the introduction of the RISE Act in the Senate - so that's something.

Our washer was dying, or so we thought. For large loads, it would stop in between the rinse and spin cycles and then we'd smell this kind of burning. Then you would have to let it sit for a while before it would resume spinning. So we called Sears and a guy came out today. It wasn't the motor - our initial theory. It was the TIMER. The timer was apparently so covered with dog and cat hair that it was overheating! Who knew dog/cat hair could get INSIDE there!? Even after we move out I think dog/cat hair will be found in this apartment for years.... Thankfully it was nothing serious.

The RISE Act

The Higher Education Act is being renewed this year. Initially enacted in 1965 to help students with few resources be able to attend college. This act was initially geared toward lower-income, women and minority students who in the past were systematically prevented from attending college due to costs and discrimination.

In 1998 an ammendment weasled it's way into the HEA automatically denying federal financial aid to any student with a drug conviction on his/her record. I'm not saying that drugs are only a problem among lower-income and minority people, but realistically those are the people most likely to be convicted of such offenses. White, upper and middle class (just look at the Bushes) are more likely to get a slap on the wrist and to be able to afford rehab and counseling as opposed to jail time.

Since 1998, over 150,000 students have been denied federal financial aid for college for the mere fact that they were convicted of a drug offense, regardless of what the substance is. It doesn't matter that they're trying to improve their life by going to college. According to this ammendment, drugs are drugs. Drugs are the only offense for which students are automatically denied federal aid - that means even a convicted murderer or rapist could be eligible for financial aid and someone convicted of posession of marijuana isn't.

If convicted of an offense involving:
The possession of any controlled substance:	Ineligibility period is:
First offense	1 year
Second offense	2 years
Third offense	Indefinite
The sale of a controlled substance:	Ineligibility period is:
First offense	2 years
Second offense	Indefinite

This year the HEA is up for renewal again and there is a movement to repeal the drug provision. Illinois Reps and Senators are willing to sponsor bills in the House and Senate to repeal the ammendment. These bills are called the RISE Act (Removing Impediments to Students' Education).

I am a firm believer that if someone commits a crime and pays whatever debt to society a judge feels they owe, that it should be a clean slate, with very very few exceptions. There are some people who cannot be rehabilitated (sexual predators in my opinion and some violent criminals). Leave it up to the judge to decide what these people owe society for their crimes.

If you think this is ridiculous, contact your representatives in Congress and ask them to support the RISE Act and get the Drug Provision repealed.

If you don't already know it, find the contact information for your Senators and Representatives. Also remember that emails are good, but phone calls are more effective. You talk to a real person who tells the Senator/Representative that they received X number of calls about Y issue.

http://www.house.gov/
http://www.senate.gov/