http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/supervalu_pigs

Sleeping with the Enemy

I'm sorry, still crazy busy looking for an apartment. But here's a true story to interest you in the meantime:

Sleeping with the Enemy
by Nick Cooney

We've all heard about the sometimes-laughable, sometimes-frightening lengths the government has gone to in order to collect intelligence on animal rights activists: paying off housemates to report on an activist's whereabouts, having the mailman copy down the names of those sending letters to an activist, going through trash cans, etc. Apparently they've now gone to the next step of ...absurdity? Intrusion? I'm not quite sure what to call it, but at any rate this past Fall I came to find out that the woman I had been "dating" for the past two months was actually a private investigator (working hand-in-hand with the FBI) who had been hired to investigate me.

The scene is AR-2006, the annual national animal rights conference in the US. A young woman comes up to the Hugs for Puppies table saying she's been working with a local animal welfare group nearby but wanted to get more active and join Hugs. Very flirtatious from the get go, we ended up talking a long time that night and then dating. Each weekend for the next six weeks she came to Philadelphia to visit. We were sexually involved, romantically intimate, and I even brought her to a family wedding. Aside from hanging out, she also attended a few demonstrations, leafleted, and volunteered to type up some research for us.

One very odd thing happened during the course of a day of demonstrations. After two home demonstrations, I returned to my car to drive to the third location only to find that it wouldn't start. Popping the hood, I discovered that the motor oil cap had been taken off and sat precariously perched on some wires. The oil had spurted all over the engine, and the car wouldn't start because there was no oil left in the tank. Had I been driving, this would have caused my engine to seize up or, worst case scenario, all of the motor oil could have ignited on the hot engine and set my car on fire. As no mechanic had been under my hood in over a month, it was clear to me that someone had tampered with my car after I left it alone on this day of highly-publicized demos. Only, I didn't expect that it was the woman who I had driven up with that had made it happen.

Flash forward to about two months after our initial meeting. Over the phone, she "breaks up with me" citing the fact that I often leave town but won't tell her where I'm going, which makes her not trust me. She tries to get me to explain where I am going and what I'm doing, but when it's to no avail she ends the relationship. A week later, through means which I can't go into here, I find out the reality.

A small investigation agency in central Pennsylvania had hired her to investigate me - first by working with the local welfare group (for six months) so she had some credibility, and then sending her to the A.R. conference to meet me. Her boss was in constant communication with the FBI's anti-terrorism office in Philadelphia, relaying back all that she saw and heard and sharing info that they thought would be useful in the investigation.

It's also worth noting that, over the phone, she attempted to get my consent/support for her idea to tamper with supposed evidence in a case against me for vandalism. A friend of a friend, she told me, worked where the evidence was stored and could make it "disappear" - but she wanted me to authorize such an activity. Naturally I did no such thing, but you see where this could have led were I not the law-abiding citizen I am.

Moral of the story: be on guard against any pillow talk that could get you in trouble. The woman investigating me did do a pretty incredible job of selling herself as the real thing - revealing intensely personal stories, showing a great deal of emotion, and in general bending over backwards to sell the ruse and to get me to genuinely care for her. That the FBI or the animal-abusing companies they seek to protect would attempt to use our love and affection for others against us is not surprising. I'm sharing this story in the hopes that no one falls for a similar ruse but that, if you do, it simply ends in surprise and a few hurt feelings and not in a jail cell.

DC hugger

Odd story of a DC mugging.

Also, a happy balloon story.

Finally, some good animal rights news: Wendy's has finally agreed to commit by 2009 to get 20% of its pork from farms that don't keep them in crates too small to turn around or lie down. Ok, that's a small percent, but it's a start. They haven't agreed to any progress on cage-free eggs or other stuff, but at least millions of more pigs will be coming out of their crates... yay!

Miscellaneous

Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi said, "The principle role of the Jewish mother throughout the generations has been to take care of the home and the children." The rabbi said that he was not against women working, on the condition that they "don't build careers." [Source]

Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns sold in one Beijing neighborhood, state television said. [Source] [8/19/07 Update: The reporter is now in jail for lying about this story. Overzealous reporter or government crackdown on stories that give China a bad image? Who knows...]

Please stand by

Please excuse my quietude, I am apartment-hunting, and it is enormously time-consuming. It will soon be over and I will return to our regularly scheduled program of burgers, cupcakes, alibi, mandarin, tzipi livni, and so on.

Peeve: Google

I am really annoyed by Google. Used to be great, found pages with the words you type in them, the best ones near the top. Now, they keep "improving" their algorithm, and they commonly bring up pages that don't have the words you type. I'm sure they're trying to find the pages you want even if those pages don't have those words in them, but how am I supposed to try to target my search if whatever they do with my words is an utter mystery? If I want pages with the words X and Y, maybe because I remember the page I want has those two random words in them, then I want to get a page with X and Y! No longer possible. Dammit.

Happy July 4

Yesterday, my roommate's relative was here, and was nice enough to try to mediate our dispute, shuttling between rooms with offers. It looked like it was going to work, but then my roommate apparently just said, forget that, I prefer to fight, and refused to entertain any arrangement. Apparently she is out to get me, and doesn't really care any more about whether she hurts herself as long as she takes me down with her. She has the rage virus, or something. But her relative was so great, I mean, who would be nice enough to do that? She was so good at it. And patient, this went on for hours. They should send her to the middle east.

Today, for reasons entirely unrelated to the exciting roommate saga, I felt depressed and spent the day in bed. Except, at 2am, I worked out. I've been working out for weeks and haven't seen any uptick in the amount of weight I can lift, which isn't encouraging. Anyway, happy birthday America.

My psycho roommate

Anonymous’ comment on my earlier post, warning me about a shiv in my spine might not be so farfetched. My roommate has now twice threatened me. She says she has something planned for me, and that I better watch my back. When I tried to ask her, she just said, ominously, "You’ll see."

She is now telling people that I’d said to her, not "F--- you" (which I did), but "I often think of f---ing you." Oh my, can you even imagine those words coming out of my mouth? It’s been suggested that the whole police thing might have been groundwork for accusing me of raping her.

She has been harassing people I know, so watch out readers, if she finds your IP address she might come after you…

Just thought I should report this, so that if my body shows up somewhere impaled with its skin peeled off, you’ll know to look for Ge Li, aka "Lee". Be warned!

Sunday in the Park

Sunday I undertook to do what I’d been meaning to do for some time, join a weekly ultimate Frisbee game in Central Park. I never make it in part because it’s so very far from where I live, in the northwest corner of the park. This time, albeit and hour late, nothing would deter me. Now, I never did find the game--or any kind of field, for that matter--but I did explore a part of the park I’d never been to before, which was quite a surprise because I thought there was nothing more to see. Up here, the park is less crowded, and though you’re never actually alone, there are spots where you are surrounded with trees and feel truly like you’re in a park away from the city (even though you know there must be a road just past the thicket). Spots like that quickly open up into an open circle around a rock formation (the "Great Hill") where people are lounging on blankets, or to a pretty lake with water flowing over cascades into a creek below. It was very pretty, and in a way strikingly prettier than the parks I grew up with in Columbia. I asked myself why--I mean, both have lake, trees, grass, but something in Central Park it seemed like they did a lot of work making everything just so, the placement of the trees, the rocks by the lake, it was all so well-designed and well-kept, all done up on purpose and not by accident. Lovely. I will have to explore more of northern Central Park.

I then visited the Penn-Top bar at the Peninsula Hotel on Fifth avenue. The hotel is quite nice, and the lobby is like a baroque-era mansion. The bar view isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but it does give another perspective on the area.

Then I did something else I can’t remember. So, use your imagination here. Make it really exciting, but New York-ish.

Oh, right, I went to the big Apple store, the one with the glass kaaba. To see the Jesus phone, of course. It is everything it's been promised to be. It is a revolutionary product, that will change the way we live. As I played with it, I couldn't help but think, it is so worth the price. The multi-touch screen is an incredible innovation. Afterwards, when I tried a regular iPod, it was annoying to have to use the touch wheel, buttons are so clunky and inconvenient in comparison. There are so many things you can do with this... it's like the devices people carry with them in science fiction shows, only better. I think Apple has knocked this one out of the park.

Then I did the other thing I always like to do in Apple stores: listen to the iPod. Which is interesting, because I don't care to have an iPod, and almost never listen to music. It just has little allure for me. But this reminded me that, in circumstances that I can let myself focus entirely on the music, and get completely lost in the music, it is a powerful experience. It made me want to cry. So, bizarrely enough, visits to the Apple store are, I guess, concert events for me. I guess that's why everyone carries around an iPod, though I never will. It takes too much work to focus on music for me to do that with any regularity, it is not a passive experience. Ok, I'm a freak.

Was what you imagined for me more interesting than that?

Online I saw a room available right in midtown Manhattan, right at Rockefeller Center, for the same price I was paying now. I rushed to see it, and sure, it was tiny, I’d have to get rid of all my furniture, but besides that it was quite nice. I told the guy I wanted it, and would come back tomorrow to give him everything he needed. Sadly, when I called him the next day, he’d already given it to someone else. I guess I’m stuck in this spacious room with high ceilings and lots of furniture and stuff. Sigh.

You are right if you interpreted "stuff" to mean "maniacally evil roommate". I hereby dub her Blofeld. Or, Dr. Claw. Your choice.