WTF?!

'Fat for cosmetics' murder suspects arrested in Peru

Some of the suspects were carrying bottles of fat when arrested

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe.

The gang allegedly targeted people on remote roads, luring them with fake job offers before killing them and extracting their fat. The liquidised product fetched $15,000 (£9,000) a litre and police suspect it was sold on to companies in Europe.

At least five other suspects, including two Italian nationals, remain at large.

Police said the gang could be behind the disappearances of up to 60 people in Peru's Huanuco and Pasco regions.

One of those arrested told police the ringleader had been killing people for their fat for more than three decades.

The gang has been referred to as the Pishtacos, after an ancient Peruvian legend of killers who attack people on lonely roads and murder them for their fat.

Human tissue

At a news conference in the capital, police showed reporters two bottles containing human body fat and images of one of the alleged victims.

One of the alleged killings is reported to have taken place in mid-September, with the person's body tissue removed for sale.

Cmdr Angel Toledo told Reuters news agency some of the suspects had "declared and stated how they murdered people with the aim being to extract their fat in rudimentary labs and sell it".

Police said they suspect the fat was sold to cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies in Europe, but have not confirmed any such connection.

Sleeping On An Empty Stomach

As part of my new fangled effort to lose weight, my doctor suggested counting calories. So I've been very diligently counting calories for a little more than a week now - keeping an average count of between 2000 and 3000 calories a day. As I understand it, you should have approximately 10 calories for each pound of weight you want to achieve. So, if you weigh 250lbs, for instance, and you want to get to 200lbs, you should eat only 2000 calories. Since I'm still dialing in a total that I can live with, my number fluctuates wildly.

On Monday, I only managed a little more than 2000 calories and my stomach growled when I went to bed. But it was simply annoying. However, by the end of last night, due to a combination of eating right and being rushed, I only managed a whopping 1400 calories - less than half of what my body would consider normal. I went to bed last night feeling really rather weak and starving.

As I tossed uncomfortably in bed trying not to think about food, I had a sudden divine smack upside the head - Hey Stupid, there are kids all over the world that do this every night. There are kids for whom 1400 calories would be a feast. That is why you're trying to help them, remember.

I was able to get up this morning and have a larger than usual breakfast (still probably under my normal calories though). The kids I'm trying to help in Africa probably got up for another day of scrounging for food and survival. Talk about putting things in perspective.

I may go hungry again before I head off to Africa, but I doubt that I'll ever complain about it.

The Lighter Side - The Greatest Movie Ever Made Opens Today!

2012 will be a magnum opus of destruction! It is the visceral filmed version of that game we all played as a kid - build something and then destroy it. Why? Because there is a guilty pleasure that strikes at the core of our being to watch stuff get destroyed, blowed up, and otherwise mangled. SimCity creators knew this - they added disasters that you could call down upon the unsuspecting sims. Irwin Allen knew this back in the 70's with Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Towering Inferno. Hollywood briefly rediscovered it in the 90's with ID4, Twister, and, current champion and claimant to the title of greatest movie ever made, Volcano (This summer, the Coast is Toast! - that's all you needed to know!)

When I was a kid, one of my most favorite story pitches was an idea that my friend Eric and I played around with. Here's the gist: After a series of severe and freak natural disasters, Scientists discover that the world is coming to an end. First, all the monsters from Monster Island get loose. This causes a natural strain on society and so, World War Three breaks out. And then, just when things can't possibly get any worse, Armageddon happens and there's a final battle between Heaven and Hell, USSR and USA, Monsters and People while the entire earth convulses and dies. At the very end, our hero Scientist admits his love for the beautiful female Scientist; they kiss, and then they're swallowed by lava.

For a third grader, this was the greatest possible story ever told. No other disaster story could ever match it. You had total carnage and total chaos mixed with a G rated love story. Pure brilliance, never to be topped.

Roland Emmerich must have had similar ideas. He has let loose his Epic 3rd Grade self and paid a whole bunch of CGI artists to imagine his own version of the end of the world.

Warning: Do Not Confuse This With Shakespeare... though you might be tempted because of how cool it is. If you do, you will be disappointed.

In short, 2012 is the New Benchmark for Total Film Destruction and after watching a giant tsunami wave crest the Himilayas, I'm not sure it'll be beaten anytime soon. Then again, there's always my own third grade dream. But until that becomes filmed reality, we'll have to settle for 2012.

Buy lots of popcorn and prepare to laugh your head off in sheer destructive glee!

A General Shout Out!

To all who have responded to my blog posts this week, thank you. This place is far more interesting when I get to hear what you think than when I write what I think. Community is all about other people, not myself.

Shove me in the shallow water...

... before I get too deep. Too late!

Before I completely abandon this deep line of thinking that I've been swimming through the last couple of days, I had a truly bizarre philosophical notion yesterday. It sounds more like pseudo-philosophy to me - the kind you find in only the best science fiction stories. So hear me out because I want to see what anyone else thinks of this.

My initial thought was this, "Mathematics points to God." This is probably nothing new in terms of thinking. Lots of people would point to the neatly ordered world and explain that there must be a higher power at work here to bring order out of chaos. But my mind is never content at stopping at the superficial statements. It delved deeper.

Mathematics is the language of science. All things is science are generally explained using mathematics. Even a social science like Anthropology uses a great deal of mathematics to help explain its theories (statistical analysis of bone densities, for instance). So, positing that mathematics is the language of science, I decided to try a thought experiment about the origins of math.

Its generally believed that the origin of human languages comes from an attempt to communicate between two people (as opposed to language simply appearing in situ). Like animals cry out in danger or amorous advancements, so too would there need to be a way to communicate more subtle concepts - boundaries, emotions, etc... Applying this notion of the development of language to mathematics leads one to posit that the first number of any mathematical system would have to be one.

One would be the first number because we would always point to ourselves first. We are the origin. We are the source of mathematics. First there is me, then there are others. I know me - and me knows others. So, one is the source, the primary concept. All mathematics flows from this. If I add to myself, there are two (or three, etc...), but no matter how large the number, the source always remains the same. The One is always there and never goes away.

But, of course, even if we were the proverbial Adam, we would not actually be the Source. The entire world is controlled by mathematics. Science believes that at its source, mathematics can explain everything. The laws of the universe are written in mathematics. Therefore, everything has mathematics as its source. Math, then becomes the universal language. And Math has, at its source, the One. (I hope you're still with me... cause quite frankly, even I'm just barely hanging on to this thin thread... ;)

So if Mathematics points to a single source, then that source must be something that existed first. We can go backwards and discover that, indeed, there is a single source for all things in the Big Bang - which was a singularity (a single point in spacetime) that exploded and created the entire universe. But what caused the singularity to come into existence? A single creator.

(Okay, that last part requires a stretch of the logic. Realistically, my philosophy can actually only trace back mathematics to the Big Bang singularity. From a religious point of view, this brings up an interesting thought that perhaps the God we worship is the singularity - or the entirety of the universe. I'm insufficiently wise to ponder whether that is a good thing or blasphemy. God's being is something that I shall never fully grasp - like the thought of something existing outside of existence.)

Anyway, I said it was a slippery concept. And now I'm ready to ponder more shallow thoughts.

Go 49ers! (See, I'm feeling better already!)

Reformed and always reforming...

My mind tumbled, whirled, and stumbled over itself all last night. At approximately 11:00pm, the Presbytery of San Francisco voted to call an openly lesbian woman to become a minister of word and sacrament. I was there. And I voted in favor of the call.

That this woman was eminently qualified to be a minister, I have no doubt. Aside from the one obvious issue, she has been a good and faithful servant of Christ her whole life and in the brief time we got to examine her I was able to see that she was quite capable of talking the talk as well. She looked and sounded Pastoral. And as for her faith, that I certainly have no doubt. Though she has been rejected again and again and again, she was finally officially called for the first time in 23 years. How many of us have tried to answer God's call for 23 years?

But, alas, there is that one sticking point upon which all of the questions and most of the debates were centered. The Bible clearly lists homosexuality as an aberation. I won't belittle the discussion by mentioning the other things that God lists as aberations that we now take for granted, except to note that there is a precedent in the church for us to change our minds over time. Perhaps that is what is taking place. Perhaps not. I heard many arguments on both sides of the issue - all of them passionate and well spoken (with the exception of one that was really just kind of pointless, but I nitpick). And I knew, before a full speaking session had gone by, that this was ultimately going to not be decided by debate, but by discernment.

We've heard all the arguments, but in a nutshell they come down to a question of belief. Are we tied to Holy Scripture to the point of excluding our Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, and Transgender brothers and sisters from God's grace so long as they refuse to repent of this sin? Or can we, as the Church, decide that love and forgiveness is more important than scripture?

I'll be honest with you. I don't know the answer. In one of the most poignant exchanges of the evening when this question was posed to the candidate for ministry, she replied, "If I knew the answer to that, we wouldn't be here right now having this debate." I concur. Though we might have our opinion one way or the other, neither side has a definitive answer.

I voted yes, however, on the basis of one bit of Jesus's teachings which I'll paraphrase. When asked by the Pharisees which was the most important commandment, Jesus replied, "To love God with all your heart, mind and soul. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Upon this is the Law and all the Prophets." In Jesus's mind, the most important issue was to love God, then to love your neighbor, and based upon those two things, everything else would flow. So as a sort of litmus test to my decision, I asked myself which decision seemed most in keeping with these two important commandments. You know my answer.

All I can do is pray that I made the right decision. A little more than half of us felt led by God one way, and a little less than half felt led by God the other way. If we all felt lead by God, which of us was wrong?

(P.S. As an addendum to the above story, I need to make a point. I was not supposed to be there last night. I was called in at the last minute to replace another elder of my church that could not make it. I was not given instruction on how to vote, but was told that the vote was important. Despite the historical precedent of the vote, or perhaps because of it, I did not wish to attend the meeting. I have been in many rancorous meetings in the past in my own church and my heart has never quite healed from these bitter debates - watching former friends and colleagues tear each other down in order to prove their point is to me the equivalent of watching a Roman soldier take a catonine tails to the bare back of Jesus. This meeting, however, while every bit as intense was conducted with decorum and peace, if not exactly dignity. I am very happy to be back on the sidelines of history now.)

Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here...

Yesterday, we had a wonderful Alternative Christmas Faire at my church. Our Kenya Children's Mission Group raised enough money to build almost five full houses for grandparents taking care of orphaned children, or school fees and uniforms for hundreds of students, or food for an entire village. Combined with other funds, we are leaning towards finishing a new Well project for an organization that wants to be able to have sustainable farming in order to feed its orpanhed infants, abused girls, and AIDS patients.

WAAAYYYY Better than a new I-Phone... or ten new IPhones, for that matter.

I've always been a member of the working poor - but like most kids raised in America post-Great Depression 1, I was an avid believer in the Receive part of Christmas. When Christmas time rolled around, my siblings and I would sit in our living room consuming the toy catalogs and circling all the amazing toys that we wanted Santa to bring us for Christmas. We wanted everything. Two or three items on each page demanded our purchase. Of course, being part of the working poor, we usually got about three toys and an assortment of clothes. We loved all the toys we got, but, of course, joy was tempered with a bit of disappointment because often times the flashy thing that we most wanted was also the most expensive.

Still, we made do - playing with our new toys all day long and for the entire rest of the winter break, and then getting to enjoy the new items anew when we got back to school and got to share them with our friends who also had new toys to play with. Christmas was a communal affair.

As I got older, my Christmas's fell into three distinct phases. First, I was in the Navy and I didn't get to experience Christmas with my family or friends. Opening the presents that Christmas was the joyless equivalent of finding buried treasure while trapped on a desert island. At first, I chalked it up to the heat and the palm trees and said, "Hawaii is no place to enjoy Christmas." But though I missed the central tenet of my problem, I also made sure it was the last Christmas I spent alone.

The second phase occurred after I got out of the Navy and found steady employment. Suddenly burdened with a paycheck, the Christmas season exploded for me. I discovered that I could afford to buy the flashy things that I had always wanted when I was a kid but could never afford. My Sister and I went hog-wild when it came time to go Christmas shopping. We spent and spent and spent and for about five to ten years there (especially the first couple of years with my Sister's kids) we had overflow parking for all the loot that "Santa" placed under the tree. It literally took us hours and hours to open everything and at a pace that would have made a drill sergeant proud. But this smorgasbord of Christmas excess always ended later than night when I went to find new places for all my new loot and realized that so much of it was... well... it was crap - the useless stuff that you would bypass 11 months out of the year was now cluttering my house. It was well intentioned and joyously received crap, but it was still crap nonetheless.

A few years ago, I realized that something needed to change. It wasn't just the bills that were getting outrageous, it was the lack of space for all the junk I had been accumulating - junk that I just didn't need. I began by asking myself whether Christmas was still important and whether it would make sense to just cancel it. And that was when I entered my latest, and hopefully, last phase of Christmas.

You see, I realized that what was important to me about Christmas was not the getting or the giving. It wasn't about the holiday songs or the Christmas tree or what type of food was on the dining room table. It wasn't about the Christmas Eve service or mass consumerism or even the Peanut's Christmas Special. What made Christmas my favorite holiday of them all was the ability to spend time with my family and friends for no other reason than just to be with them.

Looking through the catalogs at Christmas was a time I spent with my siblings where we weren't trying to kill each other. Spending time at my Grandparents house was all about being in my pajamas in front of the heating vent with my grandparent's dog watching people open presents and having toast and jam with my grandpa. Christmas dinner was about seeing my extended family, catching up with all my relatives that I only saw once or twice a year, and being stuck in the kid's room with my larger sibling base. The same sorts of things that I see now in large families on a weekly basis, were the things that I enjoyed most about Christmas. Togetherness. Family. Ohana.

Oh sure, the Christmas presents are nice, but they're not the point. The dinner is delicious, but its not what feeds us. Doing Christmas is more than just following some checklist of activities that must be performed every year. Christmas is family and friends and joy and laughter and maybe even a few tears.

So this year, as you prepare to start the holiday marathon, pause first to consider what really makes the holiday important and what real joy is out there to find. Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season - but stacking a Baby Jesus on top of a pile of consumer goods misses the point. Jesus can best be celebrated in peace, joy, and togetherness.

Just like riding a bicycle...

On Sunday, I decided to take my bad old self out for a metaphorical spin. I climbed behind the wheel of my keyboard and started writing my novel. As the aches and pains quickly added up, I remembered that I hadn't written a darn thing in so long, I'd forgotten the last time I'd actually tried to write a story.

You see, for most of my life, me and the keyboard have been bosum buddies. In High School, I'd think nothing of writing for four or five hours a night. It was fun and silly and I loved it. Of course, I'd go through stretches where I didn't write for all sorts of reasons. But normally, I felt some anxiety at not being able to get behind the keyboard and write something. It got to the point where if I didn't write for a stretch of time, I'd start getting moody and depressed. Writing was my therapy.

That changed after I started writing The Novel (henceforth refered to Novel #1). For five years I more or less lived in front of my keyboard to no avail. The Novel was hopelessly flawed at its conceptual base. I could write and write and write and it would never get any better. It was the literal equivalent of quicksand. When I finally came to the conclusion that I was wasting my time trying to improve it, I walked away from my computer and started looking into film.

To be sure, I've been writing scripts for the past couple of years - but writing scripts is much more technical than it is creative. Same result, different process. But until I sat down on Sunday and started tapping away, I hadn't realized how much different it really was.

Suddenly, I discovered that I was a stranger in the land of English and sentence construction. I pounded my head against the wall a few times, but nothing came loose. I persevered and managed to rack up about two full pages - all of which, I quickly surmised, was garbage.

Writing can be one of the most frustrating exercises in the world. There are times its like swimming in molasses. And then there was last night.

I went home from work not feeling so hot - pretty tired actually. But by the time V stopped scrawling on my TV screen, I was feeling a bit more energetic. Since Sunday, I had figured out how to start my new novel in a more constructive fashion. I sat down at my computer, turned on my Itunes, and before I knew it an hour and a half had disappeared and five wonderful pages had magically appeared on my computer screen.

I was exhausted, of course, and quickly fell asleep. But when I woke up this morning I was refreshed and excited and ready to go again. I haven't had this much spring in my step since... well, its been a while.

So, the new Novel (officially Novel #2 - or N2 for short) is underway and off to a good start. Today, it's good to be me.