..:. Cracking My Vainpot .:..

KC Country Club Plaza Lights. I'm actually starting to appreciate them.

Supposed to be "the event" that kicks off the holiday season, you can see it from my balcony :P

Gosh I'm still full. Happy Turkey Day ~

This is Pumpkin, the first horse I've ever ridden :)

Gentle and chilled, this chestnut Pinto is the perfect horse for beginners.

We somehow have amazing chemistry. He actually likes me. hehe

They say that he gets all perky whenever I'm around lol

Surprise surprise. I can cantor him like no other, even though he's known to be a lazy boy.

If I ride another horse, he'd look at me all sad... haha I can tell!

Ode to Pumpkin.

Thanks for making me feel special :)

"So you believe in... monkeys?" a 21yo Kansan asked. 

Since then, I wanted to find out what children here really learn at school.

Kansas City is a funny place that trap both godless liberals, right-wing religious fanatics and everyone in between.

Kansas thrust into international spotlight in 2005 when the state board of education voted 6-4 to adopt a new set of "science standards" that marginalized the theory of evolution. Those stupid "intelligent design" lazy fuckers redefined science, paving the way to slip God into science classroom through the backdoor (something that Texas is now trying to do).

So it felt kinda unreal and exciting to celebrate the bicentenary of Darwin's birthday here in KC at the Linda Hall Library today.

We were late for the cake, but did make it to the discussion session.

I half-expected some uninvited insane bible-thumping Jesus freaks screaming in tongues, and there was one.

But it was a brave greying school teacher who captured my attention, and here's what she said. 

"I'm a school teacher in Shawnee (Kansas). I teach general science to 14 year olds. There're lots of Bible literalists in our district. The kids believe in whatever their parents told them and would openly challenge me every time I talk about evolution or genetics."

"They're very well versed. If you tell them about fossils, they'd just say that God put them there to fool them."

"They'd say they're not animals and would totally take the class down that road. I can't debate with 14 year olds in class. Very often I'd just have to stop the conversation. I hope one day they'll think back and realized that yeah, we actually HAVE taught them science."

"Fortunately, the district board is very firm about the curriculum and book banning. We've always been able to strike a balance in our library collection because of our incredible librarians."

"In fact, every year we have a ban-book-day called "Right to Read"."

[This post is a salute to her and all the defenders of science and reason.]

Darwin celebration: full house at the Linda Hall Library, Kansas City

USD$1.399 per gallon of gas! That's USD$0.37/L. It hasn't been this low for a long time...

Kansas City rally against Prop.8 ban on same-sex marriage

Freedom to Love

If anything, Prop.8 has woken up a whole new generation of gay rights supporters.

It was WRONG ban interracial marriage back in the 1960s. It is WRONG in to ban same-sex marriage in 2008.

It is Disgusting that the majority can just vote away the constitutional rights of a historically oppressed minority.

Marriage: a right for All, not a privilege for Some!

Keep Your Bible Out of My Constitution!

Nobody is equal until Everyone is equal.

Homophobia has NO Place in the home of the brave.

Mormons want 5 wives, I only want one.

How do you know your kid is straight?

2 out of 3 Gods prefer gays to Mormons.

You don't have to be gay to believe in equal rights.

God hates cotton-polyester blends (and scallops).

I'm too old to wait for my civil rights.

Civil marriage is a civil right!

My tax dollars pay for my oppression!

I DO want my rights!

Fight discrimination!

The right to marry is a human right!

You can be fired in 31 states just for being gay!

Get off the sidewalk into the street!

I'm a shark, and my kind is being driven to certain extinction because of Hong Kong's demand for that tasteless and nutritionless shark fin soup.

Air-drying shark fins, just like they do illegally in Costa Rica, after killing close to 100 million sharks each year...

Ironic isn't it? I have survived 400 million years of evolution and 5 mass extinction cycles in the past... long b4 there were dinosaurs, let alone mammals. But I just can not escape from long-line fishing and the insatiable and uneducated Chinese appetite.

My fins have all been hacked off by illegal poachers, and my body tossed back into the sea so that I suffocate to death...

Most people still don't know that most sharks species are endangered and the ocean's ecosystem is on the brink of collapse.

I'd like to bite the head off that pig with lipstick - Sarah Palin (and all those irresponsible soup-drinkers of Hong Kong)

Safe-d-sharks activist arrested by a corrupted policeman for exposing the truth...

If the Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization, then yellow (soy) beans must be what made me yellow.

I've been drinking yellow (soy) milk and dipping yellow (soy) sauce for all my life. Yet, I've never ever seen or touched a yellow (soy) plant until this week, when I travelled with a bunch color people to a 93% white suburb of Missouri.

It was such a strange feeling, that I had to go all the way across the globe to come face to face for with this pod of familiar beans for the first time.

I even remember that famous 7-step "bean" Classic poem from the 3rd century Three Kingdom.

No mum. I want a black president and I suck white cock, but I haven't lost my true color.

If you sign up as a volunteer, you won't have to go to the zoo area towards the back, where latecomers snaked around the whole memorial more than once...

"Vote Now"

"What are the conservatives conserving?"

"Yes We Can"

"No third term" "Ask me how many houses I have"

Smiley gangsta 

"Time for a Change"

"That One"

"History in the Making"

The VIP Stand