Shroud of Turin: Is it real or a hoax?

The other day I was at a friend’s house when we came upon a PBS program about the Shroud of Turin. I thought it was a fake myself, after there was that carbon dating that placed it in the 1200’s, but this show was pretty surprising. It’s a forensic look at the shroud and all the evidence suggests that it really is 2000 years old. The weave of the linen used is the same kind found only in the middle east 2000 years ago, the imprint can be explained by bacteria which occurs on the skin (the same bacteria that makes yellow pit stains in otherwise nice white shirts), and the water stains can be explained by this 2000 year old method of keeping valued objects. They probably placed the cloth in a clay jar, which then had condensation and stained the bottom corner of the cloth. AND there’s also a companion relic to the shroud, a cloth used for covering the head of the deceased after a violent death, whose blood stains match the blood found on the shroud.

So who knows? Maybe it was Jesus, maybe just another unfortunate crucified soul’s shroud. Check it out on your local PBS station.

Ah, PBS, it’s so informative.

Shroud of Christ?

For Christians reading this blog, happy easter, for other people, happy day off work weekend!

Avian flu. Mad cow disease. Soon we’re not going to be able to eat any meat products without running the risk of getting some awful thing. It’s not a new thing to get crossover diseases from livestock, that’s been happening for as long as livestock farming has occured. Read Guns, Germs, And Steel by Jared Diamond and you’ll learn all about it.

And it seems like everybody is developing some kind of mental health problems. Maybe I’m only noticing because I have one and so of course like a newly diagnosed patient I’m diagnosing all these other people. But really and truly, I feel like mental health problems are increasing in the population. And in a roundabout way I will connect this to the little sick chickens.

See, I think the whole world can’t keep going on the way it is. I don’t know how it can change for the better, but something has to happen. It seems almost as if the cows and chickens are on strike. They don’t want to be meat anymore, or something. I mean, feeding them their own kind is the sort of idiot move that humans would think of.

But it feels like all of the world is going on strike, even our very own brains. I know there’s a lot of research being done on brain chemicals being the reason for mental health issues. However I think part of it is also just the world we live in, people go crazy because they’re living a life that’s getting unhealthy for them in some way or another. We don’t eat properly, or we’re putting too much stress on ourselves. I think part of it is that humanity needs to evolve, or we have evolved, but we don’t know what it means for ourselves yet. Maybe we have to live life totally differently, I don’t know. But something has changed.

The interesting thing is that as much as things have changed, they’re also balancing themselves out with older things from our history as humans. Take gender for instance. There used to be alternative models of gender in all kinds of different tribes of people. Then it turned into that damn boy or girl thing and we buggered up the continuum.

But then you have queers in my generation, where gender is so much more fluid. Most of the queers I know are bisexual or transgendered, or don’t really cling to a label. It’s pretty cool, because I don’t feel like a lesbian, I feel genderqueer. And I think as time goes on, those rigid definitions of who’s a boy and who’s a girl will start blurring again.

But then you know, there are those people who get scared by that. And this is where the little sick chickens come back into play, because like little sick chickens, there’s also this weird backlash beginning to form to try and take us backwards. Back to when “real” men were macho assholes and women didn’t have the right to abortion. Back to when life was pretty fucking boring.

I hate that, the people who want to make the human experience boring and homogenous. Bleh.

So in short, more fun, more play, don’t make animals eat themselves, let yourself be what you’re needing to be, and don’t get caught up in hegemonic delusions of whose’s a better human.

I think I’m getting Parkinsons or Tardive Dyskinesia, today I started twitching uncontrollably for a little bit and it freaked me out. It’s a side effect of this new medication I’m on. Fuck. I think I have to get off of it, besides that it puts me at risk for diabetes and breast cancer, two things which already run in my family.

I hate it, I hate how clueless my doctor is and I hate how people don’t realize how bad side effects are on some medications. There are REALLY good reasons why people stop taking their psych meds, and these are some of them. But people call us crazy for not taking it.

ARG!!! Why do I have such a sucky disease whose treatments can cause a bazillion other sucky diseases.

Tardive dyskinesia is irreversible once it starts. I hope to God I don’t have it.

I’m sad and frusterated. I want to be healthy, but it’s like my mental health means a trade off with other aspects of my health. Why?

Zyprexa Side Effects

Tardive Dyskinesia

And I say, the police knew and probably participated in what happened at that pig farm. And I say, there is genocide going on in the 21st century.

And I say and I say and I say, but what can change?

Trembling with rage, I am tired of being oppressed.

I am tired of the poverty, I am tired of being The Lesbian artist, The Indian artist, The Crazy artist, waiting for the next themed group show.

A program for every ghetto, and a place for us to speak that is neatly segregated.

I am tired of my soul split into a slice for every community I belong to.

If you want to eat my heart, eat all of it.

A small photograph in a small section of a major art magazine.

“We hope that you are happy with your representation in our publication.”

I tore it to shreds, I broke a window, I screamed at phantom agents of control.

Four friends come by to take me away so I could be fixed, but I was screaming too loud.

Four white police officers came to the house with loud voices and angry eyes, screaming get down, get down, and then I was in handcuffs.

“This seems like overkill” I remember thinking as I was led down the rickety stairs to a gurney.

Straps, more straps, strapped in, locked down, crazy lesbian Indian artist. Into the ambulance, one hundred and fifty dollar taxi ride to the hospital.

I am being wheeled, I am parked, waiting in a corridor. Nobody is telling me what is going on. I’m in a room, things are going in my mouth, and my friend becomes a needle full of haldol. Everything turns to black.

And my mother cried, and she cried, and when was I allowed to cry?

More Random Linkage

Body Modification Ezine’s interview with Raelians

I was surfing around on BME when I came across a creepy april fools interview with the Raelians, and if you thought they were just an innocent UFO cult, think again! These creepy little dudes consulted none other than Joseph Mengele for their cloning and research purposes. (So did the American government.) And they talk very casually about having to “terminate” small children. Truly chilling, it reminds me of the book Geek Love.

Barbie is a Lesbian

Queer girl cashes in $30 000 settlement after being sent home for wearing a Barbie is a Lesbian shirt to school. Damn, I wish my school sent me home when I was wearing my militant queer shirt. But my mom always told me suing was an american thing.

Teen Girl Squad!

Cerebellumed!! Very funny flash animation.

Random Linkage

I was sitting outside smoking and watching a raven bobbing it’s head and strutting along the road. I like watching birds walk when they could fly. It’s kind of comical. Anyway, I don’t have much to write about today, so I thought I’d do a random linkage list. Here’s some stuff I came across recently, in order of no particular importance.

Thirzahs, Tirzahs, and Thirzas

The other day I found my name in the bible in Songs of Solomon. So did this woman, who has a page all about Thirza’s she’s found. The woman I was named after is one of them! (Thirza Jones)

St. Christina the Astonishing

She’s not officially canonized, but her story is fascinating. Patron saint of the mentally ill, St. Christina died and came back to life, flew into the church rafters like a bird and refused to come down. She lived as a homeless woman feeding off her own lactations.

Vixen Love Bot

Yes, it’s sophmoric and silly, but nevertheless this little bot is quite funny as she manages to elude and mystify would be cyber partners.

Picking your nose is good for you

How can I top a headline like that?

My pet fat

When Atkins isn’t enough try lugging around realistic looking blobs of fat to help you in your dieting goals. No joking, this site is serious and I’ve seen it on CNN as well. Please, I don’t want this for my birthday, I just think it’s funny.

1940’s House – Feminist Reality Television

The other night I was at a friend’s house channel surfing when I came upon 1940’s House on PBS. A sequel to 1800 House, the show’s premise is this: a family is chosen to live for a period of time in a house restored to accurately reflect life in the 1940’s in Britain during the war. I didn’t think anything could top 1800 House, until I watched three back to back episodes of 1940’s House. The family dresses, eats, works, as historically accurate as possible, in the 1940’s. And like 1800 House, the focus is mainly on the women’s lives and their personal thoughts on how difficult life was.

This domesticity might sound boring to some who would rather watch people rappelling down buildings and eating earthworms to win thousands of dollars. However we aren’t talking Martha Stewart here, these programs show that “women’s work” is first and foremost WORK! Not only that, the women have the addictional burden of wartime, the Blitz, rations, air raids, black outs, and even nights in the bomb shelter where the sounds of nearby explosions are heard.

Maintaining a family during a time of great crisis becomes heroic. Of course to be as accurate as possible, the women sign up for the Women’s Voluntary Service and are assigned jobs in an aircraft facility. The show even recreates the local grocery with rationed food. At one point during the war when cigarettes were scarce, women were no longer permitted to purchase them. One day when the grocer tells the women he doesn’t have any cigs in stock, they duck behind the counter and steal a package when he’s not looking.

I think what appeals to me the most about the period House programs is that it’s a historical reality show which really does focus itself on women’s lives. Since these are 21st Century women it’s fascinating to see how truly uncomfortable the old roles were. So many women in my generation are afraid to call themselves feminist in part because they don’t really understand what kind of struggles women went through to get us where we are now. They recieve all the benefits of feminist activism, but don’t want to acknowledge how vital it has been for the contemporary woman’s quality of life.

Like any reality show, the women do start to break under all the strain. What’s different is that these women are a part of English history, this stress was a very real thing which a lot of women had to cope with. Add to that the haunting cry of the air raid siren waking the family from sleep. Although this family doesn’t have to worry aboyt any real bombs, they do have to clean up shattered glass and dust from nearby “explosions.” One of the youngest sons notes that he’s learned war is not a game. How timely.

The series ends just as the war has finished, which is unfortunate because it would have been amazing to see how the women responded to attempts to send them back to the kitchen.

This is a truly smart reality show which is feminist in a way no other reality show has touched. We really have come a long way, and yet I can’t help but wonder if in the future there will be a 2000 House and women around the world will wonder how we could stand living day to day under this current regime of white supremacist imperialist hegemony.

Went to see the doctor today. Good news, finally. It appears I am in the early stages of a full remission. Full remission, the words never sounded sweeter. It’s funny, because while I was taking the bus to see my doctor, I was looking at all the people on the street and thinking “Wow, I feel normal.” I wasn’t even sure what normal was anymore, but for a moment I knew this was it. No weird thoughts, no agitation, no hyperactivity, no sadness. Just a nice even feeling, all balanced and happy. But not too happy.

What a fucking weird disease! It takes you up, up and away, in your beautiful balloon, then it slams you down into the deepest, darkest pit of despair. It makes you horny, makes you sluggish, no sleep, too much sleep. Day becomes night and night becomes day. And then it can fade away into remission. Go on then, you’re fine now. Bizarro land.

So I’m going to stay on all these things I’m taking, since it seems to be working. Maybe in a year or two the doctor and I will try going off my drugs, but I don’t really mind if I have to take Epival forever. All I want is a normal life, or as close to normal as I get.

And for people who think psych drug consumers are all being conformists, I should state I am still as much a weirdo as I ever was.

Mars is in retrograde so I am eating it and there’s no more left for you. Apparently communication breaks down when this happens. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of the cosmos.

So I thought I would be a bit more experimental in my blog today.

This is what a writer looks like who is writing and has nothing to say, we all do these things day to day. Talk talk talk and there’s nothing to talk about, or what needs to be said will never be uttered. A collection of words beaded for traders cast aside for a statement about safety. Slipping candied ginger on the tongue over and over. Repetitive, I can’t avoid using the letter a. Patterns of symbols clatter to the floor, and in the end all we can do is sleep.

People killed outside and inside of mosques, churches, synagogues, temples. These are supposed to be safe places, sanctuaries. A still place to escape the world and feel faith. What a world we live in. The world is condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Yassin. Egypt decided not to celebrate the 25 year anniversary of the Camp David accords with Israel. That’s spooky. It looks like things are going to get a lot worse, these things have repercussions all around the world.

But one really cool thing I read about recently was Jimmy Carter condemning Bush and Blair for the war in Iraq. I mean really, it is just him trying to make his daddy happy, it has very little to do with ending “terrorism”.

I’m tired of hearing GW Bush say “Evil-doers” and “Madmen”. Evil-doers just sounds like some kind of elementary school playground slang. “You broke my sand castle! You evil doer!” I don’t think evil doer is even a word. Maybe the Bushes will patent the phrase, the way Trump just patented the words “You’re fired!”

Here are a couple of questions I have about America.

Why was it that on Sept 11, 2001, the only plane approved to fly after the attacks was carrying the Bin Laden family out of America?

Was 911 allowed to happen as a publicity stunt to garner support for two unrelated wars during a single term in office?

There are a lot of conspiracy theories on the subject. I was a bit of a conspiracy theory junkie for a while, so I have probably heard them all. The ones where they start talking about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion I just ignore right away. Those are totally worthless and I don’t like reading the hate stuff.

I wish there was a nice conspiracy theory. Something about giraffes eating sugar pears and saving the world through tantric giraffe sex.

Well, here’s a link to the article on Jimmy Carter