Lisa Nowak is totally wack

This astronaut is trippin’ balls.  How else do you explain driving across four states while wearing a diaper listening to “How I could just kill a [wo]man!” The astronaut, Nowak, thought Shipman was interested in her man. So she figured she’d teach her a lesson. According to CNN:

“Nowak told Shipman her ride had not arrived and asked for help, but Shipman refused, saying she would send help instead, the reporte said. When Nowak complained she couldn’t hear Shipman and started to cry, Shipman opened her car window about 2 inches — and Nowak sprayed pepper spray into the car, police said.

Shipman, her eyes burning, drove away and found police, who returned to the bus stop and found Nowak, who was wearing a different coat. As he approached to bus stop, an officer observed Nowak put some items into a trash can. Those items were found to be a wig and a plastic bag containing a carbon dioxide-powered BB pistol, the report said.

Inside a bag Nowak was carrying, the officer found a tan trench coat, a new steel mallet, a new folding knife with a 4-inch blade, 3 to 4 feet of rubber tubing, several large plastic garbage bags and about $600 in cash, the report said.

Nowak admitted the details of Shipman’s allegations, according to the police report, and permitted a search of her car.

Inside the car, police found an a half dozen latex gloves, MapQuest directions from Houston to Orlando International Airport, e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein, diapers that Nowak said she wore to reduce stops along the highway, a letter indicating how much she loved Oefelein and directions to Shipman’s home address in Florida.”

Diapers, man, diapers. However, according to CNN, “It is standard procedure for astronauts to wear diapers when they suit up for launch and re-entry.”

That totally makes it okay.

AND THEY ALL FALL DOWN

Goodbye, and good riddance!

When the levees broke

Tonight at 8, HBO will air Spike Lee’s Hurricane Katrina documentary, When the Levees Broke. It’s sure to be a four-hour emotional symphony of anger, frustration, disbelief, and perhaps even hope.  

It’s a year ago today that Katrina devastated New Orleans. This time last year I was on a Buddhist retreat on cultivating compassion. About the disaster I wrote:

It was completely surreal to be on a Buddhist retreat for a week, meditating on compassion, only to return to the real world to find that a kind of armageddon had taken place on the Gulf Coast and our government was impotent and unable/unwilling to give the people of New Orleans te help that they needed.

A year later, a lot of us feel the same way. Aside from providing FEMA trailers and checks (some say hush money), the government has yet really affect change in N.O. The ninth ward is still trashed, and on the radio this morning, Spike Lee said that 75% of the residents in affected wards haven’t returned. We all know the developers will make a killing once the land is condemned.

To me, this was never a race issue. It was a class issue. Though I wouldn’t go as far as Kanye West did, I say wholeheartedly that George W. Bush barely gives a shit about poor people. And when he does care, it’s only for the moments that the cameras are on.

Let’s tune in tonight at 8. Give some focused energy to people in pain and bear witness to the tragedy that happened on American soil.

On Sept. 11th, 2001, almost 3000 Americans were killed by terrorists.

Since August 29, 2005, more than half that number died in relation to a natural disaster compounded by federal, state, and local government and systemic failure.