BLUE HAIR!!! And you know, I've always wanted to be Pharoah of Egypt.

and it is raining outside and I am working inside. Happy holidays.

Hey all. I know I haven't been posting much as of late (busy busy, not much to say, etc.), but I just wanted to remind you folks that Scary-Crayon continues to be updated more or less regularly -- and that we've got a couple of holiday pieces up: The Donatello Christmas Tradition and The Five SCARIEST 39¢ Christmas Cards. Among other things, of course. Hot Flashes continue to be posted as always, and the Crayon Haikus are making a comeback. Hopefully I'll get at least one more holiday article up before the 25th hits, and who knows what I'll have in store to ring in the new year? Maybe the saga of Krang will officially continue. 🙂

Happy holidays, everyone!

That is what my room looked like in June 2004. By November of that year, it looked like this. So you can just imagine what it looks like now. Or at least how it did look before I spent almost twelve hours last night -- I started at 10:30 PM and didn't sleep until around 10 AM this morning -- burrowing through the mess in an attempt to restore it to some semblance of order.

Now, I didn't take any pics of what the room looked like before I started, but several hours into the cleaning process, this is what the room looked like. Note the captions. In the course of rummaging through the clutter, I actually came across three boxes with cereal still in them, all of which had been expired for at least a year. Pictured here is a box of Winter Fruity Pebbles -- which, given its expiration date, must have been there since the previous winter season. Nice. Also, the reference to the bed frame calls attention to one of my modes of travel. Given that the floor was often too cluttered to serve as a suitable path, I used to grip the frame of the top bunk with my hands and strafe along the side until reaching an acceptable dismount spot. I'm actually going to miss doing that! It was kinda fun and made me feel like only the most nimble of secret agents could navigate my lair of mystery. (more...)

Been a while since I wrote something of a more substantial nature.

I'd heard that people were anticipating LA riots following the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams III, and in thinking about some of the folks I know in California, it popped into my head to see if anything had happened. Upon finding an article that addressed my concern -- it was all quiet on the Western front -- I went on to read the numerous comments that readers had posted regarding this turn of events. And I haven't been this disgusted in a long time. Which is saying something, since I find myself thoroughly disgusted on a daily basis.

Now, I don't go in for the death penalty. Even if a person has done unspeakable things, once that person is caught and incarcerated, that person can do no further damage. Killing the convict neither serves to protect society -- if they're that worried about the person doing further damage, they should probably beef up the prison security -- and numerous studies have shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent for violent crime. In the thread attached to that article, posters gloated over the execution, condemning the deceased as a "merderous thug" (so either they can't spell or were referring to the French word for crap) and asserting that now young would-be gang members will look at the fatal consequences and be frightened away from that path. But look: if the threat of being beaten, stabbed, or shot to death by rival gang members isn't enough to dissuade them, why should the death of an apparently repentant man, 25 years later, by lethal injection, have any effect on their mindsets whatsoever?

Yes, I do think it was a glaring flaw on Tookie's part to claim innocence for the murders -- unless he actually didn't commit them. I think he probably did. However, when the state executed him, it didn't kill a violent, 28-year-old multiple murderer. It killed a harmless 51-year-old author of children's books that spoke out against gangs. Tookie never claimed that he didn't co-found the Crips, and during his time in prison he renounced his former activities and wrote books to dissuade others from following in his footsteps. I'm not saying that's tantamount to achieving "redemption" or atoning for murdering four people and starting a gang that's been responsible for the deaths of thousands. But the impact that he might have had in the future does constitute a compelling reason to spare his life.

Was Tookie genuinely sorry? There's no way to know. However, one in his position only needs to appear sincere to make an impact. Had Tookie been spared, the media buzz surrounding the case might have helped to spread his anti-gang message to a number of different people who wouldn't otherwise have been reached. Maybe that'll still happen. Maybe it never would have, given the fickle nature of the media. Maybe Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton should realize that they do their causes no favors by getting involved.

Maybe people who claim to have such respect for life shouldn't derive such satisfaction from the deaths of others.