Poop 2011 Vol 5: The Final Frontier Closes

Since I last griped about stupid people, we have had quite a bit of news in the Sunshine State; the end of an era in Space exploration as well as a head-scratcher of a court verdict. Evidently, Florida has now joined California in the legalization of murder for people deemed "celebrities." We can surely expect an MTV reality show featuring Casey Anthony and other deranged mothers in the months to come. Perhaps a sort of spin off of "Pregnant and 16" called "High School Dropout who Legally Killed her Baby (without a coathanger, draino, and a vacuum) so She could get back to Drinking and Whoring it up"? Ah, we may need to work on the title a bit. At the very least, I think that the phrase, "Party like your baby 'accidentally drowned in gram-gram's pool' (wink, wink)" should replace the obsolete, "Party like it's 1999." Additionally, we enjoyed a wonderful celebration of our independence from a murauding hoarde of wasteful aliens with a penchant for exploding national landmarks, thanks in large part to the leadership and courage of Will Smith, and President-Captain Lonestar. I hope you all spent it well and relected on just what it means to be a proud and free Earthican. In other news, the Economy sucks, unemployment is still rising, but don't worry because we can probaly keep pinning our problems on the previous administration for at least 6 more years. Oops, I almost slipped into politics.

Weekly Words of Wisdom
"What you're seeing now is NASA, I think, redefining its mission. And we've set a goal to let's ultimately get to Mars. A good pit stop is an asteroid."
-Barack Obama (aparently a fan of Michael Bay's World of Practical Science) on discontinuing space research as we know it.

Farewell, Atlantis
Today, NASA lauched its final scheduled shuttle mission, ending a 30 year period of space exploration that in many ways solidified the US as a world power. It seems that without a rival world power with a conflicting ideology to challenge us, we have no desire to continue physical space exploration. What does this mean to NASA aside from putting a lot of incredibly well educated people involved with the shuttle program out of work? Basically, it means that the US isn't quite as interested in science as it once was, and it could lead to a cut backs that some fear might spell doom for NASA altogether. While I'm not so pessimistic to think that NASA will simply cease to be, it is certainly a sad day for science and any aspiring astonauts. To all those eager young minds out there with dreams of boldly going where no man has gone before, all I can say is pray that the next administration 2-6 (hopefully 2) years from now, will understand the importance of studying the stars. Either that or pray for a resurgence of the menacing Commuinist regime that was the USSR.

At times I feel like this country parallels the Ole Miss/MSU/SEC relationship just a bit too much when it comes to making advancements. For those not following, allow me to explain. Ole Miss (The US in this scenario) will sit on its fat ass and do nothing as long as it's comfortably ahead of the USSR (MSU). All the while, China (Bama), Japan (LSU), and Europe ( The rest of the SEC) are building and watching us celebrate our irrelevant victories over an opponent that nobody has cared about for decades. For God's sake, Japan has toilets that can practically gleen from your extreta, your dietary deficencies while the US is still pissing in the metal trough clogged with cigarette butts.

Ok I'm getting a bit off course now. The current Presidential regime seems to believe that the private sector will now step up and carry on the work of the shuttle program, and of course, anyone with a brain knows that this is an absurd assumption even with the likes of Virgin Galactic trying break into the space travel (for the insanely rich) market. I'd love to believe that we have a few billionaires that see space travel as more than a money making novelty to be sold to other billionaires, but frankly, I've never looked to the insanely rich when it comes to caring about much besides their own egos. For now, we can look back on the shuttle program and be proud of what it meant for us and hope that those in power don't forget the importance of discovery.

Hide yo' Wife, Hide yo' Kids...
If'n' you ever need to off somebody, there are apparently now two states in which to do it. California, who proved with the O.J. trial that a mountain of evidence, a guilty verdict does not make, was joined by Florida as the only states where a highly publicized, seemingly clear case of murder can be completely botched by a jury. I'm at a complete loss on this one. How can a trial end with so many unanswered questions? And how can such a porous, and absurd defense lead to an acquittal of a person who alledgedly murdered a 2 year old? I really don't want to rehash the whole sad story, but I feel that it would be poor form to not at least glance over this since it's been the lead headline on most news outlets for the past month or two. I can't help but feel like TV played some roll in this failure of the justice system. I know that jurors aren;t allowed to watch media coverage of a trial such as this, but that's not really what I'm getting at. I mean that people's perception of how the leagal system works is based more on TV dramas than reality, and with many things, perception eventually becomes reality. It seems to me that once people starting pulling out that popular "Cop Drama" term, "circumstantial evidence", it felt like the wheels were coming off. Without a smoking gun or a confession, what evidence isn't Circumstantial? In any trial that lacks an outright confession, certain things must be inferred, and I would have hoped that a group of intelligent adults could have made the necessary jumps from overwhemling evidence to the proper verdict in this case.

Of course, it really didn't help when Cindy Anthony apparently lied on her daughter's behalf to help get her sentence dropped to something less than the death penalty. I guess that's what gets me the most, all these loose ends. Let's just say for a minute that the defense wasn't completely full of shit, and George Anthony really did rape his daughter, and Casey's brother really did rape his sister, and Cindy Anthony really did lie about being at work and was in fact at home looking up neck breaking and how to make chloroform, and the baby really did drown in the pool and get dumped in the woods by Casey and her dad after months of them questioning each other about what happened in an apparent charade meant to mislead police from finding out about a perfectly legal albeit tragic accident, etc, etc, etc. How can the defense make all these unsubstantiated claims and simply walk out without another question? I don't even know what else to say, and I hate that the only real victim in this whole deal was forgotten when the champagne was being poured by someone who in all liklihood got away with murder. My God, what a depressing subject for the poop. Time to move onto something different.

The Holiday Weekend
This past holiday weekend fortunately enough fell on my scheduled 7 days off of work and I did my best to make the most of it. I was able to make a few discoveries around town and since I have little else to talk about that isn't related to stupid people or the ever annoying topic of politics, I figured I'd share them with you. For anyone who, like me, doesn't make it to the farmers' market nearly enough, they have finished the roof expansion project which provides some much needed shade and generally just makes the whole thing seem more high class, really. It's always good to see Memphis making strides to become more progressive and I can't express how much the city has improved since the ousting of Mayor Herenton. Here's hoping that old racist bastard continues to fade into oblivion. AC Wharton, Willie's successor, has done much to get the city caught up with many smaller southern cities that had recently passed us in many ways, and for that I applaud him.

While at the market, we picked up some nice locally produced fruits and veggies as well as some alligator, which was a pleasent surprise. Of course, that sort of fare isn't for everyone, like the woman who gave me a rather unpleasent response when I tried to give her some seafood advice after learning that all the regular fish was sold out. I guess the whole human family, love one another attitude that typically is associated with Farmers' Markets hasn't yet made it to the 'hood. Oh well, I guess she just like what she like and no white boy is gonna convince her to try anything as outlandish as shrimps.

On the 4th, I went for a much overdue spin on the old roadie that included some of the best riding I've had since my last tour to arlington and back. Chris and I rode out from the Island to Overton Park and then to the Memphis Greenline where we continued onto Shelby Farms and back. The only unpleasent part of the ride was a brief traverse along Tillman street, but even this wasn't so bad since, being earlier than 1 pm, most of the ne'erdowells were still fast asleep in their projects during the outgoing leg. The greenline is an absolute treasure and I really hope that they extend it the rest of the way down town, or at least to a better street than Tillman, before i finish with school. It's amazing how nice it is to ride on brand new pavement with zero automobile traffic. And the speed that you can travel across the county when you can cut straight across is nice too. You could feasibly get to Shelby Farms by bike in roughly the same amount of time as by car (well if you didn't get caught by the train on Broad that is) which means that the greenline could eventually be a legitimate means of commuting for the athletically inclined among us who are fortunate enough to live near the route. This is yet again, a project that was, for years, blocked by a Mayor that saw cycling as a "white thing" and thanks to our new mayor, this is now a reality. I'm also happy to report that we passed more than one serious black cyclist (in full spandex, no less) so that just disproves Willie's notions of cycling demographics.

The last discovery of the week was again, nothing new really, but more of something that we had been meaning to try and simply failed to get around to. We decided to hit the Five Spot, a tiny hole in the wall restaurant attached to Ernestein and Hazel's. The place absolutely feels like one of the upstairs rooms of E&H and has about 5 tables unless the weather is nice and they open up the outside seating area. The menu is small but strong and very affordable. We opted for the 4 course meal at a meager 28 bucks. It included a salad, soup, main course (anything from the menu), and dessert. The soup was a shrimp creole that gained the approval of Ashley who, being a coonass, is understandably a tough critic of such offerings. The fact that they were able to pull off such a feat makes me all the more eager to go back and try the reportedly outsanding seafood gumbo, a notoriously easy dish for people north of the gulf south to mess up imensely. For a main course, I opted for the Paradise Island; a dish that consisted of penne pasta, perfectly cooked scallops and shrimp, and a cream sauce that I would have probably licked from the plate if I'd had a bit more wine in me. Speaking of wine, the Five Spot allows you to bring your own so be sure to swing by the Cork Screw just a block away on front and pick up a few bottles. We did and it was pretty much a perfectly paired meal. The red went marvelously with the creole and the white paired perfectly with the cream sauce and seafood. Of course, what "fancy" dinner would be complete without a bottle of port to go with the cheesecake dessert? Yeah, it was pretty spectacular. The only thing missing was a glass of Bushmills and a good after dinner cigar but that never quite materialized, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid it's time for me to call it a night on this edition, but y'all have your homework. And if y'all have any other good places in the downtown/midtown areas that are must-see/do/eat/etc. hook a brother up and let me know about them.

y'all have a good, safe week.