Pussy Riot: will Vladimir Putin regret taking on Russia's cool women punks?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/29/pussy-riot-protest-vladimir-putin-russia

Video of Cindy Goff reading "The First Twinkle of Death"

Cindy Goff reads at Iota in Arlington, VA on May 13, 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkP-np3_X54

Fart Math Problem

This story is true and honest, and since I'm completely lacking in math skills, I am searching for an answer:

I walked down the antacid aisle in the grocery store. I strolled through a horrible area of fart that smelled like corn nuts had been tossed onto burning tire. The fart was 5 feet long, 5 feet 9 inches tall, and 10 feet wide. What was the volume of the fart?

The Sad New Life of George Zimmerman

The Sad New Life of George Zimmerman

He feels put upon because he has sit on unpopular beaches wearing a fake Fidel Castro beard. It itches, but he is afraid of scratching, afraid of the paparazzi, afraid of having to run down a black and white street being pursed by his fans like the Beatles in the 60’s. He lifts the hair from his face for a moment to sip a green drink and says, “I always knew I’d be famous just like John Wayne. I’m sure he was also a master of disguises.”

Happy Birthday Nancy Wilson

Happy Birthday to Nancy Wilson.

Here is a great video of Nancy playing the acoustic intro to Crazy on You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whXeb7Ohfkk

Picnic People

I'm suspicious of the smell of someone else's lunch in an office. The odor is hard to identify. Usually smells burnt. I'm always surprised if I see the source of the smell because it's never the food I thought it was going to be. Perhaps there is something about the smell of an office that gets into microwaveable food. The whole thing turns my stomach. However, I must admit that when people have given me some of their homemade lunch to try, I have been pleasantly surprised! Once I smelled the generic burnt odor and it turned out to be skinless chicken with delicious herbs, and the chicken wasn't dry (the problem I have had with cooking chicken).

I guess its just weird seeing homemade food out of its normal kitchen setting and popping up in the office kitchen. The one exception to this is the homemade party platter. You expect to see some kind of platter in the office.

I'm just not organized enough to bring food with me anywhere. This is a personal failing. Not that I'm that anxious to bring party platters or lunch, but I would like to be the person who could produce a picnic from a basket. That would be nice. Victorian. In 2012, "picnics" are usually pot-luck affairs with covered dishes spread out on a portable table with fold-out legs. The dishes look like criminals in a line-up, each one not happy to be stared out, judged.

I want to be the kind of person who can make a picnic with nice breakable dishes and glasses, wine, silverware. Under a tree, private, not for everyone's eyes. I don't know what it takes to be a picnic person. Is it a skill you are born with or can it be taught?

Cattle Women

Feb- 26 "Virginia officials backed off last week from requiring vaginal ultrasounds before abortions, but state legislators are still expected to pass a bill that mandates abdominal ultrasounds and adds other significant requirements for women seeking abortions.
In recent years, this common diagnostic tool has taken a greater role in abortion-related legislation. Seven states require ultrasounds before abortions. Twenty states regulate some aspect of ultrasound exams, including requiring abortion providers to give women the option to view the image or listen to the fetal heartbeat if an ultrasound is performed." http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/virginia-ultrasound-bill-joins-other-states-measures/2012/02/24/gIQAervUcR_story.html

The War on Women started in 2010. The year right-wing republicans took power in many state houses. Since the republicans swept into local power, anti-women legislation has gone up 20% all over the country.

There is nothing complicated about access to abortion and birth control. It is a choice of simple alternatives: either you believe women are livestock and should be out in the field, or you don't believe women are livestock. I don't believe women are livestock. I think they are human beings. But if you take away their right to control their own bodies, they are livestock.

Let's go over this once more. Here is a photo of women:

Here is a photo of livestock women:

Poem Constructed from Viagra spam

She is out to twelve mon cher highly seen. She goes gingerly downhill.
Smile mon cher
smile exiles, table his legends,
and obey
the great plot he has construted.
He was out, terminating. Mon cher said an age, not a personal navigator,
makes the centre dragon twist.
Already there was too much used viagra in her.
Three americans, 140 – towels,
looking out the windows
they all took dizzy, and years went too, back as far as maps. Under foreign control
mon cher had guns, not nerve crack.  Twenty made mon cher a perpetual pair.
Who would it be? Who was to live? They raced rarely, but pitting outranked soliders
against sister was mean. It watched here know.  Mon cher take off the triumphant harness –
it could creak your back, and time could erase the shrubs off your empty face.
From the scheming, I was the international passport for another cher.
He was seating the tourists for two thousand a couple. He can't stop
the development over this city. "It worked out," he told his cher.
"The cat decompression is like losing the inside of an empire."
He wiped the viagra off mon cher and had his own space,
weeping and trusting her so. Rulers have said only three thin muffled words.
Later at the financial idea, everything slid down good.

An Electric Cigarette-Found Poem from Spam

An electronic cigarette, or simply smokeless cigarette,
it just happens to be an electric instrument.
The model's act of cigarette smoking
is a result of creating a particular enduring,
the particular bodily feeling, looks, and the best kinds
the taste, in addition to various written content,
in cigarettes nevertheless without the presence of fragrance
It works by using warmth, to help you vaporize choice
in a particular misting, just as the process simply vaporizes intended breathing.
Almost all of us can be like actual cigarettes,
cigars, or simply plumbing,
however, many use ballpoint pens or simply screwdrivers
because those variations are usually sensible to particular mechanisms
which humans call for. Many are moreover reusable, changeable
refillable items, however, many types can be used-and-thrown.
Tobacco is an instrument, considering that efforts to give you the knowledge
of smoking cigarettes not having unfavourable overall health outcomes
Inquiries happen to be elevated involving your instrument
nonetheless health risks will probably attract non-smokers, certainly babies,
due to the novelty, seasonings, even overstated cases of safety

Found Poem from Spam (some minor editing)

Austin, computer swabbing from his sunflowers, scarred instead his pastime with the gun.
He put the opposite face, raw for screens.
Of only old dropped they said reaching the first.
Then learned she the back north physical!
My merchants before the viagra pointed reproachfully
to bring she into no round of wreckage. He took in the pill,
dying cheap viagra didn’t help with pretty terri,
she hesitated to keep as the twisted first animals. Being her,
to make beneath my people, them felt its cases and said a corner
and two of a foil. Grimly told of  a routine inche. And she panned
been luckier of his estimate. Side for as the good viagra and toward a soft door.
If that guest at caribbean, of a fog of limp – viagra and butler power,
chartrukian walls went at both streets. Filing about its memories
had the recollection on immobile beams but sails. Hers is their ant.
Garrison flayed tied its tired – viagra entrance again like so to be the eyes.
He want to say to a tilted. El will once answer crushing instead. The travel at cloud,
act i’ve asked. And that’s modified spanish. Up, and its viagra, wrote I
for the real viagra, camping up in her anus or sizzling beneath the hoof while I started.
And she returned being had completely.  Ones he can crack into door but revulsion.
New name baron of the duration to five,’ know sound only. All held gone over alone.
I am an earlier aircraft.

Floral Euthanasia

One of my poems was just published in the March edtion of Thrush: http://thrushpoetryjournal.com/?p=1214&preview=true

Floral Euthanasia

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful
than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin

At the flower hospital, millions lie on stick stretchers.
The “Unblossomed Emergency Room” is so loud with complaints
the flower nurses and doctors have to wear acorn hearing protection.
It is rare one cannot blossom for medical reasons.
99% of the time it is only psychological.
The disappointment screams are unbearable,
so unbearable
their water vases are removed.
They wilt, still shut tight,
cursing the sky
they cannot see.

Cindy Goff

Georgia Democrats propose limitations on vasectomies for men

The following is from CNN: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/21/georgia-democrats-to-propose-limitations-on-vasectomies-for-men/

As members of Georgia’s House of Representatives debate whether to prohibit abortions for women more than 20 weeks pregnant, House Democrats introduced their own reproductive rights plan: No more vasectomies that leave "thousands of children ... deprived of birth."

Rep. Yasmin Neal, a Democrat from the Atlanta suburb of Jonesboro, planned on Wednesday to introduce HB 1116, which would prevent men from vasectomies unless needed to avert serious injury or death.
The bill reads: "It is patently unfair that men avoid the rewards of unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly. ... It is the purpose of the General Assembly to assert an invasive state interest in the reproductive habits of men in this state and substitute the will of the government over the will of adult men."
“If we legislate women’s bodies, it’s only fair that we legislate men’s,” said Neal, who said she wanted to write bill that would generate emotion and conversation the way anti-abortion bills do. “There are too many problems in the state. Why are you under the skirts of women? I’m sure there are other places to be."
Personally, Neal said, she has no qualms with vasectomies.
“But even if it were proposed as a serious issue,” she said, “it’s still not my place as a woman to tell a man what to do with his body."
The anti-vasectomy bill was a response to a bill that would punish abortions performed after the 20^th week of pregnancy with prison sentences between one and 10 years. Georgia law currently prohibits abortion after the second trimester, except to preserve the life and health of the mother. Neal's bill borrows some language directly from the anti-abortion bill.
The anti-abortion bill makes exceptions to avert death or “serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function” of the mother, but doesn’t include “diagnosis or claim of a mental or emotional condition.” If an abortion occurs after the 20th week, the bill requires doctors to attempt to deliver a living baby.
Earlier discussions about the bill have been “outstanding,” said Rep. Doug McKillip, a Republican from Athens, Georgia, who introduced the anti-abortion bill this month. He said legislators are “drilling down" on questions about when a fetus can feel pain and what exceptions can allow abortions later in pregnancy, and he expects more testimony late this week.
“I’m just disappointed in my colleague, that they would take this opportunity to make light of a very important topic,” McKillip said. “I believe this is a serious topic deserving of serious debate. It feels like a poor attempt at humor.”
Neal said she's serious about making legislators recognize women's rights to make private decisions about their bodies.
"I hope that through the madness this has caused, it gets him to understand where the woman is coming from," she said. "There are a number of women in other states trying the same ploys we’re trying here."
Earlier this month, Democratic Oklahoma Sen. Constance Johnson added – then withdrew – a provision to an anti-abortion bill that read "any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman's vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child." The state Senate passed the bill this month.
In January, as the Virginia state Senate debated a bill that required women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, Democrat Janet Howell attached an amendment that required men to have rectal exams and cardiac stress tests before they could receive prescriptions for erectile dysfunction medication like Viagra. The amendment was rejected in the Senate, 21-19.
CNN affiliate WAVY reported that hundreds gathered this week to protest the ultrasound bill, which is up for a vote in Virginia's House of Delegates, and another that says life begins at conception.
On the Georgia House floor, Neal doesn't anticipate her anti-vasectomy bill will generate much serious debate.
"If it moves anywhere," she said, "that’ll be a very interesting day."

Raining animals

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raining_animals

Raining animals is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals "rain" from the sky. Such occurrences have been reported in many countries throughout history. One hypothesis offered to explain this phenomenon is that strong winds traveling over water sometimes pick up creatures such as fish or frogs, and carry them for up to several miles. However, this primary aspect of the phenomenon has never been witnessed or scientifically tested.
Sometimes the animals survive the fall, suggesting the animals are dropped shortly after extraction. Several witnesses of raining frogs describe the animals as startled, though healthy, and exhibiting relatively normal behavior shortly after the event. In some incidents, however, the animals are frozen to death or even completely encased in ice. There are examples where the product of the rain is not intact animals, but shredded body parts. Some cases occur just after storms having strong winds, especially during tornadoes.
However, there have been many unconfirmed cases in which rainfalls of animals have occurred in fair weather and in the absence of strong winds or waterspouts.
Rains of animals (as well as rains of blood or blood-like material, and similar anomalies) play a central role in the epistemological writing of Charles Fort, especially in his first book, The Book of the Damned. Fort collected stories of these events and used them both as evidence and as a metaphor in challenging the claims of scientific explanation.
The English language idiom "it is raining cats and dogs", referring to a heavy downpour, is of uncertain etymology, and there is no evidence that it has any connection to the "raining animals" phenomenon.
Note that this is a regular occurrence for birds, which can get killed in flight, or stunned, and then fall (unlike flightless creatures, which first have to be lifted into the air by an outside force). Sometimes this happens in large groups, for instance, the blackbirds falling from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas, United States on December 31, 2010. It is common for birds to become disoriented (for example, because of bad weather or fireworks) and collide with objects such as trees or buildings, killing them or stunning them into falling to death. The number of blackbirds killed in Beebe is not spectacular considering the size of their congregations, which can be in the millions. The event in Beebe, however, captured the imagination and lead to more reports in the media of birds falling from the sky across the globe, such as in Sweden and Italy, though many scientists claim such mass deaths are common occurrences but usually go unnoticed.

French physicist André-Marie Ampère was among the first scientists to take seriously accounts of raining animals. He tried to explain rains of frogs with a hypothesis that was eventually refined by other scientists. Speaking in front of the Society of Natural Sciences, Ampère suggested that at times frogs and toads roam the countryside in large numbers, and that the action of violent winds can pick them up and carry them great distances.
More recently, a scientific explanation for the phenomenon has been developed that involves tornadic waterspouts. Waterspouts are capable of capturing objects and animals and lifting them into the air. Under this theory, waterspouts or tornados transport animals to relatively high altitudes, carrying them over large distances. The winds are capable of carrying the animals over a relatively wide area and allow them to fall in a concentrated fashion in a localized area. More specifically, some tornadoes can completely suck up a pond, letting the water and animals fall some distance away in the form of a rain of animals.
This hypothesis appears supported by the type of animals in these rains: small and light, usually aquatic. It is also supported by the fact that the rain of animals is often preceded by a storm. However the theory does not account for how all the animals involved in each individual incident would be from only one species, and not a group of similarly-sized animals from a single area.

Doppler Image from Texas showing the collision of a thunderstorm with a group of bats in flight. The color red indicates the animals flying into the storm.

In the case of birds, storms may overcome a flock in flight, especially in times of migration. The image to the right shows an example where a group of bats is overtaken by a thunderstorm. The image shows how the phenomenon could take place in some cases. In the image, the bats are in the red zone, which corresponds to winds moving away from the radar station, and enter into a mesocyclone associated with a tornado (in green). These events may occur easily with birds in flight. In contrast, it is harder to find a plausible explanation for rains of terrestrial animals; the enigma persists despite scientific studies.
Sometimes, scientists have been incredulous of extraordinary claims of rains of fish. For example, in the case of a rain of fish in Singapore in 1861, French naturalist Francis de Laporte de Castelnau explained that the supposed rain took place during a migration of walking catfish, which are capable of dragging themselves over the land from one puddle to another. Thus, he argued that the appearance of fish on the ground immediately after a rain was easily explained, as these animals usually move over soft ground or after a rain.

Occurrences
The following list is a selection of examples.

Fish

1555 engraving of rain of fish

• Singapore, February 22, 1861
• Olneyville, Rhode Island, May 15, 1900
• Marksville, Louisiana, October 23, 1947
• Bhanwad, Jamnagar, India, Oct 24, 2009

• Lajamanu, Northern Territory, Australia, February 25 and 26, 2010,

• Kerala, India, February 12, 2008

• Loreto, Agusan del Sur, Philippines, January 13, 2012

Frogs and toads

• Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, June 2009 (Occurrences reported throughout the month)
• Rákóczifalva, Hungary, 18–20 June 2010 (two times)

Others

• An unidentified animal (thought to be a cow) fell in California ripped to tiny pieces on August 1, 1869; a similar incident was reported in Olympian Springs, Bath County, Kentucky in 1876
• Jellyfish fell from the sky in Bath, England, in 1894
• Worms dropped from the sky in Jennings, Louisiana, on July 11, 2007.
• Spiders fell from the sky in Salta Province, Argentina on April 6, 2007.
• Scottish school children are hit by worms during PE class on a cloudless day, April 1, 2011.
• Orange goo believed to be the eggs of an unknown species of invertebrate washed up on the shores of the Alaskan city of Kivalina on August 4, 2011.

Exercise-Define the phrase "Refresh Tears"

Refresh tears-Definition- The little known Nazi scientific experiment. Their headquarters in a brick building on the Auschwitz compound. It is a little known fact that many citizens of Europe lost the ability to cry during WWII. The Nazis tried everything to force tears from them, but they remained dry. The Nazis believed there must be some gland that created tears (near the liver), and that "lesser" peoples such as gypsies, Jews,Slavs, homosexuals, blacks had a limited amount of tears in their lifetime. After so many tears, the gland would simply dry up and be useless. At the Auschwitz Tear Project, they cut open many humans in an attempt to find the tear gland. Special attention was paid to those who stepped off the train, were separated from their families, and didn't cry. These people were whisked to the Refresh Tears building. Some subjects were dead, some alive and awake when the Nazi doctors groped around their open torsos. The Nazis goal was to locate the gland and inject it with real human tears to see if it would reanimate. After cutting open hundreds of thousands, the Nazis only found a pear growing on heart of an old rabbi from Latvia. Dr. Snarlz found the pear at 1:23 PM 1945, cut it out and took a bite. He found the "Jew fruit" to be "bitter" according to the official records. It is said Dr. Snarlz became younger and was only a five year old boy kicking and screaming when he was was hung by a group of prisoners at the liberation of the camp.

2 Minute Writing Exercise-Ash Being

Many of you parts fall off
is there a human being built somewhere
from you hair, toenails, fingernails, skin?
Is this person waiting for parts
Waiting to be complete.
Somewhere is a person, waiting for me
to fall apart. So far it has all the normal items
hair, toenails, fingernails, skin
also tonsils and skin cysts.
What more does it want?
When I die, I will be cremated.
Will this thing try to make a body from my ashes?

Found Spam Poem with some line breaks and a little editing

Geese migrate on their incredibly individual phrases
and at their very own chosen situations
We have absolutely no conduite
basically on the alien at the rear of a canada goose
mainly due to the fact a consecutive earthmark uses
outstanding information on the way to place your goose decoys
form ‘Goose Decoys’ and a hipster however may go
for just a distressed leather or splash
calm colours or a funky belt buckle
hooded Canada Goose
even if it is really indoors
takes it down.
Come forth with jackets.
A few canada geese employed
by taking some productive time to enjoy the aspect
of typical points, an easier strategy
than setting up bird netting or a bird fence in close proximity
to the water’s edge to prevent motivated
motion in the birds.
Along with the support of their handlers
herd and drive the geese off parachutes
camping tent fundamentals of getting a terrific offer
In addition to get employed in the course of the rain
work on your goose feet all day more often

Unsolved Murder 1977 #4-Gwendolyn Nelson

Gwendolyn Nelson was brutally raped and murdered in June 1977, New Bern North Carolina. Nelson was found dead near the cafeteria outside F.R. Danyus School in New Bern. According to autopsy results, blunt force trauma to the head was the cause of death. 

Andrew Adams was charged with this 1977 murder Jan. 20, 2012.

Unsolved Murders 1976-1977 #3-Washington PA

I have written on this blog about the unsolved murder of Sharon Blankenbeckler in 1977, Marion VA: http://cindygoff.blogspot.com/2011/11/murder-of-sharon-blankenbeckler.html

I have started searching for other unsolved murders within a year of her disappearance, March 10, 1977. She disappeared from the K-Mart parking lot in Marion VA which is right off Highway 81. Is it possible she was the victim of a serial killer who was passing through?

The Following is from http://www.skcentral.com/articles.php?article_id=555

In a period of seven months, between November 1976 and June 1977, young women were raped and murdered within a 25-mile radius of Washington, Pennsylvania, their killer striking with impunity and leaving homicide investigators at a loss for clues. Despite a fair description of the suspect, published in the form of artist's sketches, there were no arrests, and none are now anticipated in a case that terrorized the peaceful border region, holding women prisoners of fear inside their homes.
The first to die was 21-year-old Susan Rush, a native of Washington County, found strangled and locked in the trunk of her car on November 25, 1976. Detectives noted that her body had been "hastily clothed," her bra and panties left on the front seat, and a post mortem examination confirmed that the victim was raped prior to death.
On February 13, 1977, 16-year-old Mary Gency was reported missing from her home in North Charleroi. She had gone out for a walk after supper and never returned, her body recovered three days later from the woods at Fallowfield Township. Gency was beaten to death with a blunt instrument, raped before death by an assailant the county coroner described as "a mad animal."
Debra Capiola, 17, was last seen alive on March 17, walking to meet her school bus in nearby Imperial, in Allegheny County. She never arrived at school, and searchers found her body in a wooded section of northwestern Washington County on March 22. Capiola had been raped before she was strangled with her own blue jeans, the pants left wrapped around her neck.
Two months later, on the afternoon of May 19, 18-year-old Brenda Ritter was found dead at South Strabane Township, in Washington County. Nude except for shoes and stockings, she had been raped, then strangled with a piece of her own clothing, tightened around her throat with a stick.

Unsolved Murder 1977 #2-Oklahoma Girl Scout murders

I have written on this blog about the unsolved murder of Sharon Blankenbeckler in 1977, Marion VA: http://cindygoff.blogspot.com/2011/11/murder-of-sharon-blankenbeckler.html 

I have started searching for other unsolved murders within a year of her disappearance, March 10, 1977. She disappeared from the K-Mart parking lot in Marion VA which is right off Highway 81. Is it possible she was the victim of a serial killer who was passing through?

#2 Unsolved Murder-Oklahoma Girl Scout murders, June 1977

The following is from the website: http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/girlscoutmurders/

Camp Scott, a 610 acre summer camp for Girl Scouts and Brownies, was located three miles southeast of Locust Grove, Oklahoma. It was the site of the brutal bludgeoning deaths of three little Girl Scouts on June 13, 1977. Police arrested Gene LeRoy Hart, a Locust Grove native, and charged him with the murders of Lori Lee Farmer, Michelle Guse, and Doris Denise Milner.
Operated by the Magic Empire Council of Girl Scouts since 1928, Camp Scott was perfect for boating, hiking, fishing, and camping. Girl Scouts had come from the Tulsa metropolitan area to attend the summer camp.
Introduced as roommates on the first night of camp, Lori Lee Farmer, Michelle Guse, and Doris Denise Milner went to their tent, Kiowa tent # 8. Their tent was located at the outer edge of the wooded camp and isolated from the other tents. A last minute change left Tent # 8 one girl short (Wilkerson and Wilkerson 3).
As night fell upon the camp, counselors checked to make sure that the one hundred Girl Scouts were in their assigned tents. As counselors walked away from the Kiowa tents, they saw a dim light in the woods which then disappeared. The counselors thought the light in the woods was some sort of a prank and went to their tent.
At 2:00 a.m., counselors heard some Girl Scouts making noises and went to quieten the campers. Several Girl Scouts told them that a man looked into their tents and then walked away. Others said they heard someone outside their tent. Another Girl Scout heard a girl screaming "Momma! Momma!" at 2:00 a.m. (W & W 9). Also, girls said a man grabbed them as they walked toward the bathroom. One girl became hysterical in the woods when she thought she saw a man (W &W 10). The counselors told the Girl Scouts to go to sleep, and went back to their own tent. They didn't look around for the strange man that several of the Girl Scouts had told them about.
At 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 13, Carla Sue Wilhite, a counselor at Camp Scott, went to take an early shower. She walked on the trail and noticed some things under a large tree. As she got closer, she noticed some sleeping bags. Then, she saw Doris Denise Milner's nude body (W & W 10). At that time, Carla couldn't see the other two dead bodies. The other bodies were still zipped up in their sleeping bags and naked from the waist down (W & W 11).
At 6:30 a.m., Mayes County District Attorney Sidney Wise said all three of the small victims had died from blunt trauma to the back of the head and strangulation. All of the girls had lengths of cord around their necks and had been gagged and bound with two-inch wide black electrical tape. All of the victims had been sexually molested. Officers found their clothes a few feet from their bodies. The killer or killers carried the bodies approximately one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards from their tent and piled the young victims under a large tree (Allen - "Compassion").
At the scene, detectives found a large roll of black duct tape and a red and white nine-volt flashlight near the bodies (W & W 19). The lens of the flashlight was partially covered to allow only a mere pencil of light through. Inside the death tent, detectives found the bloody footprint of waffle-type jungle boots. It appeared too large to be one of the victim's prints. Large pools of blood were found near the beds of two of the girls. The other girl could have been strangled to death after being pulled from the tent (W & W 26).
Shortly after the discovery of the bodies of the Girl Scouts, Governor David Boren ordered a task force of Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents and highway troopers to assist the Mayes County authorities in the investigation. Govenor Boren also arranged the use of three bloodhounds from Pennsylvania to help track down the killer or killers of the three little Girl Scouts (Allen - "Officers").
Three days after the brutal slayings, the hunt for evidence moved less than a mile west of Camp Scott to the 110 acre ranch of 58 year old Jack Shroff. The hunt moved because the bloodhounds lead the lawmen to his home and pond. Lawmen searched for a murder weapon and other possible evidence. During the search, officers found a roll of black duct tape and rope. The evidence matched the items found on the three little Girl Scouts ("Owener of Farm"). Several rocks, a tire tool, and a crowbar were discovered at the ranch, but the items were not connected with the slayings. Detectives found a footprint that matched the print in the death tent at Camp Scott. Mr. Shroff submitted to a lie detector test and passed (Allen - "Dogs").
Camp director Barbara Day said she knew that the camp had received several threatening notes. The notes claimed that four little girls would be killed. Also, she said the camp had been burglarized several weeks before the camp opened, but she never considered the notes or the burglaries to be serious.
The task force polygraphed many suspects and all passed. Also, Ben Woodward, ranger and custodian at Camp Scott, was polygraphed. He passed (Allen- "Lawmen").
On June 24, local, county, and sate lawmen launched a massive air and ground search. Although lawmen would not say how they linked their investigation to the prime suspect, they looked for a convicted rapist, Gene LeRoy Hart (Kelley). Mayes County authorities charged Hart with three separate counts of first degree murder in connection with the brutal slayings of Lori Lee Farmer, Michelle Guse, and Doris Denise Milner.
Gene LeRoy Hart was convicted on October 14, 1966, on two counts of first degree rape and kidnapping. On March 16, 1969, Hart was paroled from Granite State Penitentiary. He was sent to McAlester State Penitentiary where he would serve forty to one hundred and forty years on a charge of rape, two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of burglary (W & W 60).
In 1973, Gene LeRoy Hart and two other prisoners hacksawed their way out of the Mayes County Jail. Lawmen found the other two prisoners, but Hart, a Locust Grove native, had remained free since the jail break. Even though he was a convicted rapist, no one looked for him. While at the Mayes County Jail, Hart had been awaiting a postconviction hearing (Kelley).
On June 24, 1977, Locust Grove natives spotted a man who resembled Hart running from a cave near where the three Girl Scouts had been slain. He was supposedly armed with a 20-gauge shotgun and a .22 caliber rifle. He had supposedly stolen these guns from Jack Shroff's farm (Allen - "Frightened").
At the cave, local, county, and state lawmen searched for Gene LeRoy Hart. The lawmen searching in the wooded area had thousands of ticks crawling on them. When they got inside the cave, lawmen found no ticks. The lawmen's theory was that Hart had used Indian medicine to ward them off (W & W 85). On a cave wall, lawmen found a written message. It said that the person who killed the Girl Scouts had been living in the cave since the murders. The person who wrote the message called the lawmen fools (86).

The following is from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Girl_Scout_murders

The Oklahoma Girl Scout murders is an unresolved crime in rural Mayes County, Oklahoma. On a rainy, late-spring night in 1977, three girls—ages 8, 9, and 10—were raped and murdered and their bodies left in the woods near their tent at summer camp. Although the case was classified as "solved" when Gene Leroy Hart, a local jail escapee with a history of violence was arrested, and stood trial for the crime, he was acquitted. 30 years later authorities conducted new DNA testing, but the results of these proved inconclusive, as the samples were too old.
History
In 1977, Camp Scott was in its 49th year as a keystone of the Tulsa-based Magic Empire Girl Scout Council. Situated along the confluence of Snake Creek and Spring Creek near State Highway 82, the 410-acre (1.7 km²) compound was located between Locust Grove and Tahlequah.
Gene Leroy Hart had been at large since escaping four years earlier from the Mayes County Jail. He had been convicted of raping and kidnapping two pregnant women as well as four counts of first degree burglary.
Hart was raised about a mile from Camp Scott.
Less than two months before the murders, during an on-site training session, a camp counselor found her belongings ransacked, her doughnuts stolen, and inside the empty doughnut box was a disturbing hand-written note. The author vowed to murder three campers. The director of that camp session treated the note as a prank and it was discarded.
June 12, 1977 was the first day of camp. Around 6pm a thunderstorm hit, and the girls huddled in their tents. Among them were Tulsans Lori Lee Farmer, 8, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, along with Michele Guse, 9, of Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa. The trio were sharing tent #8 in the camp's "Kiowa" unit, named for a Native American tribe.

The killings

The following morning, a counselor made the discovery of a girl's body in the forest. Soon, it was discovered that all three girls in tent #8 had been killed. Subsequent testing showed that they had been raped, bludgeoned, and strangled.

Aftermath

Camp Scott was evacuated and would never reopen.
Gene Leroy Hart, a Cherokee, was arrested within a year at the home of a Cherokee medicine man and tried in March, 1979. Although the local sheriff pronounced himself "one thousand percent" certain the man on trial committed the crimes, a local jury acquitted Hart.
Two of the families later sued the Magic Empire Council and its insurer in a $5 million alleged negligence action. The civil trial included discussion of the threatening note as well as the fact that tent #8 lay 86-yard (79 m) from the counselors' tent. The defense suggested that the future of summer camping in general hung in the balance. In 1985, by a 9–3 vote, jurors sided with the camp.
By this time, Hart was already dead. As a convicted rapist and jail escapee, he still had 305 of his 308 years left to serve in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. In June 1979, during a jog inside the jail, he collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack.
Richard Guse, the father of one of the victims, went on to help the state legislature pass the Oklahoma Victim's Bill of Rights. Guse also helped found and then chaired the Oklahoma Crime Victims' Compensation Board, which would later gain prominence for its "Murrah Fund" in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Another parent, Sheri Farmer, went on to found the Oklahoma chapter of support group Parents of Murdered Children.

Unsolved Murder 1977 Murder #1-WHO KILLED SISTER ROBERTA ELAM?

I have written on this blog about the unsolved murder of Sharon Blankenbeckler in 1977, Marion VA: http://cindygoff.blogspot.com/2011/11/murder-of-sharon-blankenbeckler.html

I have started searching for other unsolved murders within a year of her disappearance, March 10, 1977. She disappeared from the K-Mart parking lot in Marion VA which is right off Highway 81. Is it possible she was the victim of a serial killer who was passing through?

WHO KILLED SISTER ROBERTA ELAM?

http://westvirginianews.blogspot.com/2009/09/unsolved-murder-in-mountain-state.html

Roberta "Robin" Elam was not actually a nun yet the day she was brutally murdered on June 13, 1977. The twenty-six-year-old woman was a pre-novitiate candidate. She was preparing a silent retreat at the "Mother House" by the order she intended to join for a life in Christ. Roberta was reportedly by herself in the field by the convent for the Sisters of Mt. St. Joseph to contemplate the commitment she was about to make.

According to regional newspaper accounts published shortly after her death, it appeared that while Roberta was kneeling to pray, she was attacked, raped, then strangled to death by hand and left near an overturned park bench. Her brutal rape and murder occurred within earshot of the Speidel Golf Course, but no one there heard a thing. A sister in the Order of Mt. St. Joseph was quoted in news stories explaining why she felt Roberta might have been out in that field near the golf course. "It is always peaceful and quiet there."

A caretaker discovered her body behind an overturned bench at 2 p.m., a few hours after she had grabbed an apple from the kitchen and walked up the hill with her Bible. The brazenness of the midday attack at a holy place outraged people in Wheeling and the Tri-State area.

Everyone remembered her as a brilliant, gregarious young woman who drove an orange sports car, jogged and hiked, wrote poetry about the mountains that soared above them and laughed as often as possible. The oldest of four children, Roberta grew up in Minnesota and Illinois. While in graduate school at Fordham University, she became a friend with fellow student Sister Kathleen Durkin.

Inspired by a pastoral letter written in 1975 by Catholic bishops from Appalachian states, Miss Elam went to work for the Wheeling-Charleston diocese after earning her master's degree in religious education. Over the next two years, her friendship with Sister Kathleen deepened while they traveled and taught adult religion classes in small towns around the state. In the fall of 1976, she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph and moved into its mother house the next June. She was spending eight days devoted to prayer and contemplation in its retreat house when she was killed.

Now-retired West Virginia State Police homicide investigator Don Shade was called to lead the investigation two weeks after the murder. By the time he saw the murder scene, Shade said, "cigarette ashes were all over the place," and the chances of obtaining any forensic evidence were slim. Even two weeks after the murder, an area of nearby weeds remained mashed down, indicating the killer had lain in wait for her. Shade said Elam’s killer was "very strong" and crushed her larynx. Police obtained blood samples from everyone they could think of, from golfers to priests, and tried hypnosis on witnesses.

They released a drawing of a white man in his 30s, with dirty, dark hair, bushy eyebrows, a mustache and a beard who had been seen near the Mount St. Joseph grounds. They sought but never found a rusty, gray or faded-blue Chevrolet or Buick, festooned with religious and coal-mining bumper stickers, that had been parked on nearby Pogue's Run Road.

Police said there was nothing in her background that was even remotely dangerous or unsavory. She was what you'd expect a woman becoming a nun to be and people who knew her were eliminated leaving investigators all evidence pointed to a stranger. Those are the most difficult cases to solve because there is no hard trail to the suspect. Despite the intensive investigation, no arrests have ever been made or motive found in Roberta’s death.

The State Police lab extracted a DNA sample that, investigators believe, came from Miss Elam's killer, according to state police Sgt. Danny Swiger who hopes someday they will make an arrest and conviction for her brutal murder.

Convicted WV murderer Eugene Blake was also considered after Department of Corrections documents exposed the distinct possibility that Blake may have been roaming around the Wheeling area in the mid 1970s when he was serving life without the possibility of parole in the state penitentiary at Moundsville. But, DNA evidence was not linked to Blake. Authorities went as far as to say they also believed that a second killer could have been with him at the time.

According to authorities, "It is possible that there could have been two subjects involved in the Elam matter and the DNA evidence could have belonged to a second subject, realizing that Blake was reportedly out of the prison walls on occasion during his incarceration.

One question about Blake was never addressed… if he was serving a life sentence without parole, how would he have been able to be "roaming around" the Wheeling area?

If you have information on the murder of sister Roberta Elam, you are asked to contact Sergeant Danny Swiger with the Cold Case Unit at (304) 329-1101 or Ohio County Deputies at (304)234-3741 or contact your local State Police Detachment. The tip you give may help solve this horrible crime.

1 Minute Writing Exercise

And you,
you have the brightest tooth under the stars
sharp like the wish of a dictator
ripping the drying sheets
on every clothes line
in every alley of Europe.
No face
just the tooth that brightens
only the freshly-swept corners
and fat pigs
whose hoofs rattle the barn.

Mountain Dew

Another great Appalachian invention:

My grandfather knew the Mountain Dew inventor from Marion VA.

Mountain Dew (currently stylized as Mtn Dew) is a carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in the 1940s by Florida beverage bottlers Barney and Barney Hartman and was first marketed in Marion, VA, Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee. A revised formula was created by Bill Bridgforth in 1958. The Mountain Dew brand and production rights were acquired by the Pepsi-Cola company in 1964, at which point its distribution expanded more widely across the United States.

Mountain Dew was originally Southern and/or Irish slang for moonshine (homemade whiskey), or poitín as it is called in Ireland. An 1882 song from Ireland "The Rare Old Mountain Dew" (Words by Edward Harrigan. Music by Dave Braham) begins:

Let grasses grow and waters flow

In a free and easy way,

But give me enough of the rare ould stuff,

That's made near Galway Bay,

Come gougers all from Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim too,

And we'll give them the slip and we'll take a sip,

Of the rare ould Mountain Dew.

A 1947 version by Grandpa Jones (1913-1998) may be better-known to Americans:

There's a big holler tree down the road here from me

where you lay down a doller er two.

When you come round the bend and when you come back again

there's a jug full of good old Mountain Dew

Oh they call it that old mountain dew and them that refuse it are few.

I'll shut up my mug if you fill up my jug with some good old Mountain Dew

Found Spam Poem

Charm beans are usually magic or Rhodesian and also precious
metals plated along a magnifying glass
consist of no less than 800 designs.
Beads depict the birthstones,
astrology signs, family pets, alphabets,
correspondence, along with challenging styles.
Every one of these broad options make sure there is no repeating of style.
The beads were created in such a way so it matches an active bracelet
or maybe necklace around your neck. In the event you tend
to buy necklaces as opposed to beans,
the gathering can be more unique
for you to allure your cardiovascular.
Your necklace trust will come
frequently in inches. Your styles could be interchanged
to ensure the options 
and it also may usually takes age groups
to discover it is copy in this world.

Papa John's Apologizes for Calling Customer "Lady Chinky Eyes"

Papa John's is apologizing and is firing an employee who called an Asian customer "lady chinky eyes."

Minhee Cho ordered a pizza on Saturday at one of the chain's locations in New York City, and when she looked at her receipt she saw the ethnic slur where her name should have been.

She took to Twitter, posting an image of the receipt and writing:
Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn’t "lady chinky eyes."
It went viral, prompting Papa John's to apologize, also on Twitter:
We are very upset by recent receipt issue in New York & sincerely apologize to our customer. Franchise employee involved is being terminated.
Store owner Ronald Johnson told the New York Daily News he will order sensitivity training for his employees.
“It’s just wrong,” he said. “I was shocked and I was very, very upset about it.”
He seemed more upset than the 24-year-old Cho.
"I wasn’t super angry about it,” she said. “I (just) can’t believe this happened in this day and age."
Still, she said she probably won't be going back to Papa John's anytime soon. And she really shouldn't given the quality of the local pizza.
“Some of the tweets I’ve gotten back are, ‘Why are you going to Papa John’s when you live in New York City?’” she said.

From: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/headlines/papa-johns-apologizes-calling-customer-lady-chinky-eyes

DVD Isolation

I can't tell you how many times I have ended up watching a movie on TV that has commericals and editing, when I have the uncut version on DVD or Apple TV. I'm not the only one that does this. Are we so lazy that we just don't want to put in the DVD or start Apple TV? I think it is deeper than that. When you watch a movie on TV, there is a sense of community even though it's a pain in the ass community that cuts out all the real language and shows sinus commericals. When you are watching DVD, there is a sense of being closed off. Isolation. I have observed we are more likely to choose the "isolation" of a DVD or Apple TV when there are more than 2 people because we are not alone. The isolation turns to privacy.