So last night around 9:30pm I was outside on my porch when I heard a screeeeechCRASH! It was obviously a car crash and I knew right away that it wasn't any average fender bender, but what Felly and I (and practically all of our apartment building and the surrounding neighbors) saw when we got out there was more than I had expected.
First, right in front of our building was a COP CAR slammed into a parked car that happened to belong to my downstairs neighbor. On the opposite side of the street was another car that had been hit. Further north on the street was another jeep that was also involved. There may have been a fifth car but I did not venture up there in my pj's to check it out.
We heard one story that claimed that the cop car had been chasing someone without their lights on and had to swerve to miss someone who pulled out in front of them. Another story said that cop was just driving to fast. Either way, I can't quite make out what happened, especially after seeing the tire marks on the road this morning. Some twenty to thirty feet from where the cop car stopped the skid marks start...looking as though the cop hit a car up there and continued to slide that thirty feet, somehow hitting another car in the process. Either way, that cop was going WAY TOO FAST for a residential street. Unless he was chasing a murderer, slow the eff down, especially at night when you can barely see pedestrians crossing 10 feet in front of you. Someone could have been killed. If you are on the 300 block of Elmwood in the next couple days, check out the skid marks and the carnage.
Oh AND, my poor neighbor. SHE has to pay to get her car fixed and then the Buffalo police will POSSIBLY reimburse her! Need I not remind you that she was PARKED on the street, legally I might add, and wasn't even in her car when it happened and she has to pay AND she is moving to Rochester next week and they are going to make her drive back and forth for paperwork BS. All I can say is the Buffalo Police Department needs to take some responsibility here. I don't care if you have lights on your car and a badge with your name on it, if you are speeding down a street and cause a four car accident, you better pay.
Oh and. Why isn't this on the internet yet? I googled pretty much everything I can think of and it's a no show. I know there were news channels there last night because we saw there cameras. Hm.
Lauren's Journal
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05/08/2009 18:12 #48627
4+ Car Accident ElmwoodCategory: elmwood
04/29/2009 10:19 #48533
Beer-Ology and the likeCategory: randomo
So Beer-Ology ended up being a lot of beer and not a lot of ology. There were plenty of different breweries represented and they were serving beer past the 9:00pm deadline, but that was about it. There were a couple of presentations...we went to one and the guy seemed like he knew a lot about WNY and Buffalo old school breweries, but he wasn't the best public speaker, so we left. We did, however, find it quite enjoyable to look at science exhibits and the Egyptian exhibit while slightly intoxicated. Good times. All in all I got to try some new beers (for those of you who like light beers like Blue Moon, might I suggest Saranac's Pomegranate Wheat) and got to see some really interesting people all drinking in a museum. Not too bad.
The sun on Sunday made me so happy that I spent most of the day outside on my porch doing random things like cleaning the fan that has been sitting in out basement all winter, just so i could be outside. I also made friends with my neighbors...one old, one new. It's been so nice to take Ralphie for walks around the neighborhood and just have my porch door open. Sigh. I'm a happy camper. I haven't already marked 4 or 5 different Buffalo events on my newly printed out summer calendar. I'm ready to thoroughly enjoy my last summer in this crazy city. Word.
The sun on Sunday made me so happy that I spent most of the day outside on my porch doing random things like cleaning the fan that has been sitting in out basement all winter, just so i could be outside. I also made friends with my neighbors...one old, one new. It's been so nice to take Ralphie for walks around the neighborhood and just have my porch door open. Sigh. I'm a happy camper. I haven't already marked 4 or 5 different Buffalo events on my newly printed out summer calendar. I'm ready to thoroughly enjoy my last summer in this crazy city. Word.
04/09/2009 14:22 #48334
AbstractCategory: school
Ok so as many of you know, I am writing my thesis. I think I have finally come up with a worthy and comprehensive abstract, but I was hoping for some feedback from you all if you are feeling so generous. Not generous in the 'go easy on me" kinda way, but generous as in, honest and sincere feedback. So yeah, here goes....
Chaotic whiteness is a road map, a tool box, offering ways of being that allow for the possibility of re-membering, re-imagining, and un-mastering whiteness in the ongoing projects that make up critical race theory and whiteness studies. By trespassing on the boundaries that have been fabricated in and among various academic disciplines, I will navigate through women's studies, African American studies, literary criticism and various other theoretical paradigms in order to expose and explode the ways in which the fabrication and maintenance of whiteness haunts both black and white bodies. Finally, I will consider the necessities of articulating and performing a whiteness that must not be bound by what whiteness is supposed to be or have access to, while simultaneously taking seriously the ongoing potential for appropriating, commodifying and romanticizing the knowledges, imaginations, memories and interiorities of people of color.
Chaotic whiteness is a road map, a tool box, offering ways of being that allow for the possibility of re-membering, re-imagining, and un-mastering whiteness in the ongoing projects that make up critical race theory and whiteness studies. By trespassing on the boundaries that have been fabricated in and among various academic disciplines, I will navigate through women's studies, African American studies, literary criticism and various other theoretical paradigms in order to expose and explode the ways in which the fabrication and maintenance of whiteness haunts both black and white bodies. Finally, I will consider the necessities of articulating and performing a whiteness that must not be bound by what whiteness is supposed to be or have access to, while simultaneously taking seriously the ongoing potential for appropriating, commodifying and romanticizing the knowledges, imaginations, memories and interiorities of people of color.
tinypliny - 04/09/09 23:16
Hey Lauren, here's my viewpoint. Take it in with a grain of salt, though. In my field, the stress is on simple short sentences and absolutely no jargon in abstracts. The idea is that a vast number of people will not be reading your thesis directly. They will instead be reading your abstracts to get a rapid idea of what your thesis is about. In fact, the abstract is sometimes the only thing they will read if they don't get it at first go. Quite honestly (and you asked for it. HEHE), I had trouble getting the central idea because:
a) I am completely alien to your field
b) I have no idea what some of those words mean.
c) Perhaps you are not targeting a completely "naive" audience without even a social science background.
Nevertheless, I am taking some liberties and rephrasing your entire abstract, according to how I understand it right now. The question is - is this what you meant?
Ongoing projects in critical race theory and whiteness studies have a rigid idea of "whiteness". In contrast, "chaotic whiteness" is a road map and a tool box that offers ways of re-membering, re-imagining, and un-mastering this conventional and inflexible construct of "whiteness". In my thesis, I propose to conceptualize "chaotic whiteness" by trespassing on the boundaries and navigating through the theoretical paradigms that have been fabricated in and among various academic disciplines such as women's studies, African American studies and literary criticism. I intend to expose and explode the ways in which the fabrication and maintenance of "whiteness" haunts both black and white bodies. Finally, I will consider the necessities of articulating and performing "chaotic whiteness"- a construct of whiteness that is not bound by what "whiteness" is supposed to be or have access to. I will argue that any concept of "whiteness" must utilize the potential to appropriate, commodify and romanticize the knowledges, imaginations, memories and interiorities of people of color.
Hey Lauren, here's my viewpoint. Take it in with a grain of salt, though. In my field, the stress is on simple short sentences and absolutely no jargon in abstracts. The idea is that a vast number of people will not be reading your thesis directly. They will instead be reading your abstracts to get a rapid idea of what your thesis is about. In fact, the abstract is sometimes the only thing they will read if they don't get it at first go. Quite honestly (and you asked for it. HEHE), I had trouble getting the central idea because:
a) I am completely alien to your field
b) I have no idea what some of those words mean.
c) Perhaps you are not targeting a completely "naive" audience without even a social science background.
Nevertheless, I am taking some liberties and rephrasing your entire abstract, according to how I understand it right now. The question is - is this what you meant?
Ongoing projects in critical race theory and whiteness studies have a rigid idea of "whiteness". In contrast, "chaotic whiteness" is a road map and a tool box that offers ways of re-membering, re-imagining, and un-mastering this conventional and inflexible construct of "whiteness". In my thesis, I propose to conceptualize "chaotic whiteness" by trespassing on the boundaries and navigating through the theoretical paradigms that have been fabricated in and among various academic disciplines such as women's studies, African American studies and literary criticism. I intend to expose and explode the ways in which the fabrication and maintenance of "whiteness" haunts both black and white bodies. Finally, I will consider the necessities of articulating and performing "chaotic whiteness"- a construct of whiteness that is not bound by what "whiteness" is supposed to be or have access to. I will argue that any concept of "whiteness" must utilize the potential to appropriate, commodify and romanticize the knowledges, imaginations, memories and interiorities of people of color.
heidi - 04/09/09 16:57
Ah, thanks for the explanation.
Ah, thanks for the explanation.
james - 04/09/09 15:37
godspeed captain!
godspeed captain!
lauren - 04/09/09 15:27
Thanks Heidi! I did change the wording of the first sentence...I tend to try to put too many words into sentences...and interiority, more specifically "the black interior" is a book by Elizabeth Alexander, the woman who read that poem no one like at the inauguration. I expand on that later in the thesis. i am not a big fan of the need for "thesis statements" and abstracts but I have no choice. sigh... :)
Thanks Heidi! I did change the wording of the first sentence...I tend to try to put too many words into sentences...and interiority, more specifically "the black interior" is a book by Elizabeth Alexander, the woman who read that poem no one like at the inauguration. I expand on that later in the thesis. i am not a big fan of the need for "thesis statements" and abstracts but I have no choice. sigh... :)
heidi - 04/09/09 14:49
Nice, Lauren! That's some complex stuff. From the abstract, I'd expect a definition and explanation of chaotic whiteness and how it can be used to challenge and reconceptualize hegemonic whiteness, drawing on several disciplines' uses and interpretations of critical race theory while also not allowing the reader to marginalize experiences/knowledge/etc. of people of color. Is that what you're expecting the reader to get?
I particularly like the phrase "...haunts both black and white bodies."
I'd like a slightly different punctuation of the first sentence around "tool box" or an increase in parallelism like "a road map, a tool box, an offering of..." or "that offers..." ? Without ",a tool box," the sentence works fine.
"is supposed to be or *has* access to" ?
"interiorities"? does that mean something like "interior landscapes" or "internal experiences" or "subjective experiences"? I get that you're trying to convey something like that in one neat & tidy word but I'm not sure I like that particular construction.
Hope this helps. *Encouraging thoughts!*
Nice, Lauren! That's some complex stuff. From the abstract, I'd expect a definition and explanation of chaotic whiteness and how it can be used to challenge and reconceptualize hegemonic whiteness, drawing on several disciplines' uses and interpretations of critical race theory while also not allowing the reader to marginalize experiences/knowledge/etc. of people of color. Is that what you're expecting the reader to get?
I particularly like the phrase "...haunts both black and white bodies."
I'd like a slightly different punctuation of the first sentence around "tool box" or an increase in parallelism like "a road map, a tool box, an offering of..." or "that offers..." ? Without ",a tool box," the sentence works fine.
"is supposed to be or *has* access to" ?
"interiorities"? does that mean something like "interior landscapes" or "internal experiences" or "subjective experiences"? I get that you're trying to convey something like that in one neat & tidy word but I'm not sure I like that particular construction.
Hope this helps. *Encouraging thoughts!*
04/06/2009 21:21 #48310
Bonsaiiii Pics!So Felly spent
$6 plant
$11 Pottery
$2 garden shears
$5 soil
$24 for a not so bad lookin bonsai
Dwarf Japanese Juniper...aka shrubbery.
The pottery makes a big impact.
$6 plant
$11 Pottery
$2 garden shears
$5 soil
$24 for a not so bad lookin bonsai
Dwarf Japanese Juniper...aka shrubbery.
The pottery makes a big impact.
metalpeter - 04/07/09 20:33
I have heard they can be addicting I wouldn't be surprised if you bought some more. I wonder if it will survive ralphie, HA.
I have heard they can be addicting I wouldn't be surprised if you bought some more. I wonder if it will survive ralphie, HA.
fellyconnelly - 04/07/09 09:23
you should make one! they are so easy!
but if you get obsessive, you have to force yourself to back off... or you will have one branch with one tuft of tree....
The juniper really is an outdoor bonsai, but I'm next going to try a Japanese maple - which doesn't need a lot of outdoor light.
And penguins do love bonsai.
you should make one! they are so easy!
but if you get obsessive, you have to force yourself to back off... or you will have one branch with one tuft of tree....
The juniper really is an outdoor bonsai, but I'm next going to try a Japanese maple - which doesn't need a lot of outdoor light.
And penguins do love bonsai.
ladycroft - 04/07/09 04:46
Brilliant idea! I also love the penguin.
Brilliant idea! I also love the penguin.
paul - 04/07/09 01:12
That looks awesome. I am totally going to make one too.
That looks awesome. I am totally going to make one too.
03/27/2009 09:57 #48213
Random FunCategory: randomo
Felly and I have been looking for a dog for her parents for a while now, mostly via craigslist. The other day we saw an ad for a free mini dachshund and now I have two in my house. Amazingly enough, right now, they are both sleeping and it is pure bliss. However, all of last night and most of this morning (since 8:30am when they woke me up) has been HumpFest 2009 in my living room. Sigh. I am not exactly sure what this is all about...if it is a power struggle or a confusion or simply male bonding. Who knows, but I have never seen red rockets quite like these. It's traumatizing really. Maybe later I will take some photos or video so you too can join in the fun. Tonight Felly is taking the new dog, "Lil Smokey," to her parents house in Lake George, so even though I will be alone tonight, at least I will have a chance to recuperate from HumpFest.
Kids doing crazy things
Animals doing crazy things
Kids doing crazy things
Animals doing crazy things
th cops are jerks, plain and simple. I heard a similar story from a friend recently. One of em had hit her mom or something and they refused to take responsibility or let her insurance company know it was their fault.
You see alot of dumb things cops do on the strip. i lived next to panos a couple years ago and the cop goes and double parks in the WRONG DIRECTION in front of subway, turns his lights on and goes in to get food. traffic was all sorts of disrupted, and then you see the cop come out of subway with his food, turn his lights off and drive away. I wish i had a video camera- takl about abuse of authority! I hope your friend gets this straightened out-if not i would take pics of the damage and send em to the news or something. they shouldn't be able to get away with it.