• 4 T butter
• onion
• carrot
• bunch of broccoli (4 stalks)
• 2 boullian cubes
• 4 c water
• 1 c barley
• Handful of flour
• 4 oz. cheddar cheese of your choice
• Pint of 1/2 n 1/2
• salt n. pepper to taste
• some good cooking music

1. Melt butter in pot
2. Chop onion and add to pot
3. Chop carrot and add to pot
4. Saute for 10 minutes or so
5. Chop broccoli & add to pot
6. Add water, barley and boillion
7. Simmer/boil for half an hour, occassionally mashing vegetables
8. Add half n half and flour, stirring continuously
9. Finally add some cheese and salt n pepper to taste

For one, I quit smoking.
For two, I moved to a new town.
Here’s a sneak peak into my projects, endeavors, adventures and general merrymaking/busy bee keeping:

Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center This is where I work.  This is where I go every day, Monday  – Friday.  It used to be a post office, until it was bought by some big thinking organizers.  Now it’s filled with art and music and giant paper mache insects.  The people I work with are simply amazing.  Dedicated, motivated, passionate, exceptional people working on so many projects I can’t keep track.

Public i, the newspaper

WRFU, the radio station

Shows

Tech

Bike Co-op

Books to Prisoners

Art Studio space

Finance

Library

Makerspace

Computer space

The space is perfect.  An old post office purchased by big thinking organizers.  Ordered chaos in every way.

So, I need to get back to work.  Working on a poetry workshop event, there’s a press conference in half an hour for the UP Center on our front steps, the Public i needs a Scribus template (and a face lift for the website), and WRFU desperately needs its podcasts updated.

Here’s some links to a few of the hings I’ve been invested in, attending, generally excited about:

Then, of course, there’s the Rose Bowl dive that does bluegrass on Tuesday nights.

Overall, things are good.

Initially, I was turned off from this article because of what was supposed to be the ‘hook’ of this story: “Blood smeared bedroom walls, doors and curtains.” Seriously?  This sounds right out of a cliché murder mystery novel.

But I managed to read on, and about halfway through, I was became intrigued (It’s hard to remember in this age of collaborative information gathering that this story is attributed to the efforts of a single, dedicated author.  Allan Turner is his name, by the way).  Sure, it’s an easy, hot-button topic: murder, homophobia, death row, but certain details of how Turner decided to present the story compromise the larger story that could be told.

The emotional peak of the story comes an interview with the victim’s father, who is resolved to witness the execution Tuesday.  That’s tomorrow, July 20, 2010, by the way.  Statistically speaking, you will probably read this after Derrick Jackson has died.  Carl Wrotenbury, father of victim Alan Wrotenbury, made the decision to be present for his son’s execution.  The quote Turner uses?

“I feel like it’s my duty as a father and head of the clan. I feel a responsibility to be there and see this done for other family members who, though they may have strong feelings, won’t be able. I have no real desire to be there. I don’t expect to feel anything different. It’s just an unpleasant duty.”

The described details of the murder scene are gruesome.  The sober insight by Derrick’s father is gut-wrenching.  But there is a larger story Turner is trying to tell here.  There is reason to believe the protocol used to convict individuals of the death penalty is flawed.  It’s a small, seemingly contradictory detail he seem to build the weight of the story upon.

Blood type is not included in crime scene reports. Then, a Type B blood type suspect is exposed. And then, so it’s implied by Turner, Type B shows up in the forensic suspect profile.

After reading over the article again, I disagree with the chosen subtitle.  ’Man convicted in brutal killings will be 15th put to death this year’ should instead be replaced with ‘Human fallacy compromises evidence in  execution case”.

Check out those little bits of heaven!  I’ve taken to baking recently, and it seems to have taken to me too because my past two projects have been a complete success.  Pictured above is my latest concoction, strawberry lemon bars with a few local Oly twists.

The recipe called for plain, boring almonds, but I decided to take a chance and opted for granola from the San Francisco Street Bakery on the Eastside instead. They don’t advertise their SFB Granola on their website, and it’s a -tad- pricey, but it has a whole plethora of nuts, seeds and sweet things (including pecans! which are incredibly overpriced up here).

The recipe also called for strawberry preserves, so I headed up to the Farmer’s Market to see what I could find. Lo and behold, Johnson Berry Farm had the perfect solution, more perfect than I could have even imagined.  Also not featured on their website, (you’ll just have to go see them in person!) I picked up a couple of jars of Strawberry Mojito jam, flavored with strawberry, lemons and mint.  Talk about taste explosions.

Strawberry Lemon Bars

• • 1c butter (plus a little extra for greasing pan)
  • 3/4c granulated sugar
  • 3/4c brown sugar plus a little extra
  • 2 eggs
  • lemon zest (grated lemon peel)
  • 3c flour
  • 3/4c crushed SFB granola
  • baking powder (not soda)
  • salt
  • 12oz. JBF Strawberry Mojito jam

1. Preheat oven to 350° F
2. Cream butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating between each
4. Add 1t of lemon zest and granola (note that ‘t’ stands for TEASPOON)
5. In a different bowl, mix flour, 1t baking powder and 1/2t of salt
6. Mix the dry and wet mixes together until coarse and crumbly (using your hands is best )
7. Set aside 1c up dough for topping
8. Grease 10x15x1 baking pan
9. Place rest of mixture in pan, using your hands if need be to press it down and make sure the bottom is covered pretty evenly
10. Spread jam all over the top
11. Combine leftover dough with 1/4c flour and sprinkle over preserves
12. Top with brown sugar
13. Bake 25-30 minutes
14. Cool, cut and enjoy! <3

• Fup by Jim Dodge
• A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
• One Day by David Nicholls: NPR did a promo for it back in June
• What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
• New Sudden Fiction and Flash Fiction Forward edited by Robert Shapard & James Thomas
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
• White Noise by Don DeLillo
• A Short Story of Myth by Karen Armstrong: yet again another NPR promo
• The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
• Once Again for Thucydides by Peter Handke

In the writing of this post, I became increasingly frustrated by Google’s inability to find me information about books beyond the likes of Wikipedia and Amazon, or social networking literary sites such as goodreads.  Why does this bother me?  Because the integrity of Wikipedia has yet to stabilize.  Because Amazon’s goal is to for me to purchase.  Because goodreads’ explanation for why they exist is simply to “make reading fun again.”  Because none of these reasons seem good enough for me.

I’m still trying to figure this out.  I’ll let you know once I do.  In the meantime, instead of ranting, I’m gonna give you something more pragmatic: Read The Future of Print.

It’s good.