I love EBAY, and find most of the impossible pieces of pottery that I have spent life searching for there- things that I cannot get anywhere else.
I also like convenience, but then again, not at the hands of rip off artists.
I had Paypal for a while- but they had a nasty tendency of just suddenly saying "you MUST 'verify' this account or we won't let you use it-- with VERIFY meaning LINK IT TO A CHECKING ACCOUNT.

So I left.

I am glad I did. The proliferation of problems there scares me, as does the *reasons* for some of those problems.
I ran across this on a search about freedoms-- and it was VERY interesting and rings true.


The Malignancy We Won’t Cure
By Jack Rinella

Since last July I have found prosperity of sorts by selling my books on my website and collecting payment through Paypal. It was easy to use, didn’t cost a great deal, and there was no worry about bounced checks or fraudulent credit cards. I had even begun to sell packages to our up-coming D/s Intensive. Years of hard work, I thought had begun to pay off.

That is until last night when Paypal shut me down. Accused of violating their terms of agreement, I can’t even (right now anyway) retrieve the more than $1,200 in my account -- sitting there to help pay for the next printing bill. Now I’m sure that once I get all references to Paypal off my website, that the money will be forth-coming but resolving all this is a mini-crisis of sorts.

The major crisis that is hidden in all of this is a malignancy we won’t cure. Cure? Hell we hardly even talk about it. Haven’t seen a workshop on the topic for a long, long time, if indeed I ever have. There’s no stories about it in the New York Times, never heard about it on the radio, seldom ever seen a movie about it, and you certainly don’t see any hospitals or health organizations doing anything about it. What’s it? Our negative attitude about sex.

As far as I can tell, Paypal shut me off because they think that my writing about relationships between consenting adults is salacious, dirty, shameful, illegal, immoral, and pornographic. I think it’s just 100% natural.

Now this isn’t just a Paypal thing, though they’re the ones who’ve set me off to writing this morning. Negative attitudes about natural human functions permeate our existence and sex negativity, as far as I’m can see, tops the list. I’m not in favor of rape or the sexual molestation of children or animals. I’m not in favor of spreading diseases through intimate contact either.

I am also opposed to the self-hatred, the repression, and the psychoses perpetrated by an outright deception about the beauty, appropriateness, and sacredness of sexual expression. It is as simple as that. Still we do damn little about it. We are held captive by puritanical mores and morals that dictate what we can and can not do with our bodies.

The old-fashioned Judaic-Christian standards rule our lives: virgins come first, then widows, and wives are a far third. Sex is for procreation and marriage is allowed just so we won’t burn. That’s a quote as St. Paul wrote “It is better to marry than to burn.” (I Corinthians 7:9, KJV) All of this, of course, isn’t limited to Christianity. As far as I can tell, all the major religions place a pall over sexual activity and the ones that didn’t have long since disappeared from public view. The temple prostitutes in Athens or Thebes haven’t been seen in centuries, to name just a few.

It’s not just a Judaic-Christian thing either. We are besieged with the Platonic idea that Idea is better than body, that somehow matter is evil. When will we return to the thought that creation is good rather than see all this as a “vale of tears?”

Hidden in all of this ranting is a serious question. How do we overcome our fear and loathing of sex? How do we purge from ourselves the millennia of training that echoes that sex is dirty and shameful? That demands we hide genitalia, not teach the truth to our children, engage in sexual acts only furtively?

When do we proclaim that masturbation is a good and healthy activity? That sex is for solace, for comfort, for pleasure, for bonding, for friendship, for exploration, for enlightenment, for itself without bounds and reasons? When do we honor our own bodies as beautiful and that our own bodies and those of others are real dwelling places of the divine? When do we respect both self and mutual gratification? When will the roles we take sexually be seen as equal and complementary rather than top (better) and bottom (not as strong)? When will gender roles disappear?

Basically when will each of us become authentic? How can we free ourselves from the “shoulds” that have been drilled into our psyches since the day we were born? When can we let go of the expectations imposed upon us by those who said “I know what’s best for you?” We are, after all, many drives and many talents. We have many possibilities before us. When will we be able to attain not our parents’ desires, not the propaganda of church, school, or state, but the goals of our highest and most authentic selves? When will we be free to us?

This is, after all, more than just about selling a few books. It is about the health of the individual, every individual. Starting there, it goes beyond the individual to society and the planet. It takes healthy individuals to create a healthy society and a healthy society to insure a healthy planet. Environmental disaster, after all, is caused one person at a time.

So my rant comes back to myself. What can I do to become healthier? How can I rid myself of self-loathing, of the echoes of the “Thou shalt nots” that rise up from my past? How do I become free to be me? Then, and here’s the hard part, how do I help liberate my fellow men and women to be themselves as well? It’s not, after all, about Paypal but about each and every one of us doing the work, the hard work, to become authentic.

Authenticity is not an easy way to live. It demands we be honest with ourselves and that we recognize the ways we pollute, negate, and deny our real selves. It means that we ask hard questions and then work hard to answer them honestly. It means that we take time for ourselves to improve ourselves, that ultimately we are more important than our schedules, our careers, our families, and our society. It is not that we forsake any of those but that we live knowing that a better self insures a better schedule, a better career, a better family, and a better society.

The process of being authentic means that we have to evaluate our priorities. We can’t dismiss as unimportant the work of personal growth, of reflection, of learning and probing, of doing those things that that are most helpful and (here’s the rub) giving up some of those things that maintain an unhealthy status quo. Growth as a couch potato is not the same as growth as real person.

Sometimes we have to choose between healthy activity of the mind and body and the same old status quo of relaxing and zoning out.

Right now, though, I have to take Paypal buttons off my website. After that I’ll be able to think about what I’ve asked. Don’t hold your breath for answers but join me in asking them of yourself anyway. "

Not a bad article- and it also hit on one of my favorite buttons, sexual freedom of action for consenting adults. But more about the morals police in another post at another time.

Back to Payhell!




A small quote from the site Pay pal sucks:
" PayPal's SPP: The Seller Punishment Policy

PayPal's Seller Protection Policy is a farce, and at least one PayPal employee admits it.
By PayPalSucks.ORG Created 10/19/2005

PayPal made a huge mistake when it published one of it's pages on the web with some internal comments still included. The comment was, "too strong I think given the limited ability to comply with SPP." (Referring to the PayPal SPP, i.e., Seller "Protection" Policy, but we call it the Seller Punishment Policy.) It's supposed to help sellers from being ripped off. However, it doesn't work because it's impossible to comply with all the requirements of the SPP. For some reason, there was only a little media coverage and it focused on the mistake, not the admission or what it meant."

All in All, I think I will continue to avoid Pay Pal and use money orders or my credit cards directly-- after all, the credit companies make it possible for everyone to dispute charges and items- and don't freeze every dime you have.

Chocolate Chip Cookie

It may be hard to believe, but before the 1930s no one had ever had the pleasure of biting into a chocolate chip cookie. Why? The sweet world-famous treat had not been invented yet.

Ruth Graves Wakefield was the woman responsible for coming up with the concoction. Ruth graduated from the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924. After graduation, she worked as a dietitian and food lecturer. In 1930, Ruth and her husband Kenneth Wakefield purchased a Cape Cod-style toll house located halfway between Boston and New Bedford, on the outskirts of Whitman, Massachusetts. The house had originally been built in 1709, and at that time it had served as a haven for road-weary travelers. There, passengers paid tolls, changed horses and ate home-cooked meals.

More than 200 years later, the Wakefields decided to build on the house's tradition, turning into a lodge and calling it the Toll House Inn. Ruth cooked home-made meals and baked for guests of the inn, and as she improved upon traditional Colonial recipes, her incredible desserts began attracting people from all over New England.

One of Ruth's favorite recipes was for Butter Drop Do cookies. As she prepared the batter one day she discovered she had run out of baker's chocolate. She found a semi-sweet chocolate bar that had been given to her by Andrew Nestle, and so she cut it into tiny bits and added them to the dough, expecting them to melt as the cookies baked in the oven. However, the chocolate did not melt. Instead, it held its shape and softened to a delicately creamy texture. Needless to say, the cookies Ruth had created became very popular with guests at the inn, and soon her recipe was published in a Boston newspaper, as well as other papers in the New England area.

Meanwhile, Nestle saw sales of its Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar jump dramatically, and Ruth and Nestle came together to reach an agreement that would allow Nestle to print the "Toll House Cookie" recipe on its packaging. Part of this agreement included supplying Ruth with all of the chocolate she could use for the rest of her life.


Nestle, meanwhile, began scoring the Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar, and packaged it with a special chopper for easily cutting it into small morsels. Then, in 1939, Nestle had a better idea, and began offering Nestlé Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels. The rest is "chocolate-chip" history. Ruth continued to cook up a storm, producing a series of cookbooks including "Ruth Wakefield's Recipes: Tried and True," which went through thirty-nine printings. She and Kenneth sold the Toll House Inn in 1966 to a family that tried to turn it into a nightclub. In 1970 it was bought by the Saccone family who turned it back into it's original form. The Toll House burned down, however, on New Years Eve in 1984.

Ruth Graves Wakefield passed away in 1977.

Here is a great chocolate chip cookie recipe from the net. It makes 3 to 4 dozen delicious cookies.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt, ideally with a wire whisk, and set it aside.

In a large bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, and white granulated sugar with an electric mixer to form a granular paste. Add eggs and vanilla extract, and mix at medium speed until thoroughly mixed.

Blend in the flour mixture, then the chocolate chips (and optional walnuts), at low speed until the ingredients are well distributed.

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 17 to 19 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand for a minute or so, then remove to wire racks or other cool surface with a spatula.

Enjoy!

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/tollhouse.htm
http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateChipCookies.html
http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=18476
http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/results.aspx?keyword=chocolate+chip+cookies
http://www.chocolate-chip-cookies.info/Results.aspx?query=Chocolate%20Chip%20Cookies&sessionid=1d3sdy55zs4skgqapuf5kwju&cc=us&ns=1&eas=pFTf-vkejlGwzQ1CjJfVDA..&epsi=USy6f4oq5dE.
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/9-14-2005-76776.asp
http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=76488
http://www.thinkingfountain.org/c/chocolate/chocolate.html
http://www.premiersystems.com/recipes/desserts/cookie-chip.html
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blchocolatechipcookies.htm
Chocolate Chip Cookies:

6 ounces brown sugar
6 ounces sugar
9 ounces softened butter
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
13 ounces bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
12 ounces lrg chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 F. Cream the butter, sugar and then the eggs and vanilla. Sift the flour and baking powder and mix into the batter. Once combined add the chocolate chips.

Using a spoon or scoop place on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Once slightly browned around the edges remove the cookies from the oven and cool.

The largest crystals in the world are in Mexico, sitting in a cavern chain over 400 feet deep where the average constant temperatures are over 150 degrees.



These amazing natural wonders are being preserved for all time by the folks who found them. "In what has proved to be the discovery of the largest known crystals on earth, work is underway to document and preserve this historic find. While some minor damage has already occurred in the primary cave and a secondary cavern, called Cave of Dreams, iron doors have been installed by the Peñoles company to prevent damage to the giant, magnificent crystals. While investigations are underway the mine is closed, but with the newly installed lighting system, it is expected to open in the fall 2001. "
Check out this amazing find at: http://www.canyonsworldwide.com/crystals/index.html

Fat Boy Saunter is "On Notice!"

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, there was this *guy* walking along...
we can call him "Fat Boy Saunter", for that is the title of the post I wrote about him to my neighborhood community chat list.
I will repost it here to explain:

(open letter on the list to the one man I met today)

You probably won't read this, but this is for you...

It's 3:25 and I am sitting at the computer when your dog runs into my gated yard and all over the place.. and you saunter down the street, that leash in your hand, with NO attempt to put a little FAST in your movements, no showing concern that your pit mix is lose inside my yard, or what children might live here, or that you are even doing anything WRONG.

I come out to my porch and ask you if that's yours, and you say yes as you saunter on by, and when I tell you that you better get than animal on a leash and keep it out of my yard, you shrug and look unconcerned, and when I tell you that there are leash laws you say I should mellow out. My mention of cats or kids is unnoticed or just doesn't phase selfish you.

Guess what yahoo boy? You are about 40, overweight, dark skinned and walking in the Broadway Avenue area. You are now on notice that all my neighbors are now aware of you. This is the notice.

Dog owners want to be liked? Well, this kind of selfish "doggie is better than any of my neighbors" attitude by dog owners that are rude and stupid is EXACTLY why us pet lovers (or haters) are so angry about dog walkers. Why we stare at you as you pass (Will they let their precious baby pee all over the plants there? Will I get to SMELL the pee when the weather warms up? Do they really think that their doggie should be allowed to do things that bother humans?), and why we take umbrage at having our PRIVATE yards treated like your rights are above ours.

Most of us have pets too... we just have better manners about how those pets should interact with our neighbors than you do.

My yard is MINE, and from now on, this particular doggie owner is on my shit list. I don't care if it turns out that he is the biggest philanthropist of all time, some brain surgeon that works on disabled children for free, or the next Mayor. This guy- and anyone else that doesn't work HARD at acting like they CARE about my feelings- is not getting any respect from me. The dog loose was rude. The saunter unconcerned was stupid. The ATTITUDE you exhibited was a big old red flag to me and got my *attention*. Most small children know that getting moms NEGATIVE attention is a bad thing.

Your pet is NOT a human, nor it it *your child* (surrogate maybe). It is a trained animal that is going to act exactly as polite as you train it to. It is going to REFLECT your attitudes about yourself and your neighbors, even more than children do.

If your pet is quiet and on a leash, doesn't squat every chance it gets, and is friendly to everyone, you and your pet will be welcomed by many if not most of your neighbors (those not allergic or already gun shy of dogs). If you pet barks and whines when you are gone and makes life a living hell for the people near you who want to hear their OWN televisions and children and phone conversations rather than YOUR dog, well, you will understand why they give you dirty looks and don't call the cops when they see your care get broken into. Human nature tends to be like that. Your pet should leave it's poopies in your yard. It needs to walk for exercise, not to drop markings everywhere. You CAN train it not to- the first step is to NOT SLOW DOWN when it does that... dogs find it very hard to poop when moving.

And to YOU Mister Fat Boy saunter...... I look forward to learning where you live. Your dog didn't have a license on it, and I AM going to turn you in. I cannot change the attitude that your mom and dad instilled, but I can sure get a little bit of joy at your misery over the ticket you get.
You picked the wrong woman on the wrong day to treat like your servant rather than a respected home owner.

Rennaisance....not enough chocolate in the whole WORLD today.

So, after I wrote that, most all of my neighbors wrote me off list supporting, laughing, and generally being sympathetic (except for one jackass, but ya know, there will ALWAYS be that one kid that just hates everyone who is fun).

Then one of my neighbors wrote me and said that my post had pushed "FAT Boy Saunter" to the top of the list....

http://denisvengeance.com/WGOnNotice.jpg

Now THAT IS ENTERTAINMENT!

Get Kinky

We are now going to get serious. Stop looking at that woman. She is just a nude beauty that millions of men adored in the 50's from the *artist* (pornographer of evil!) named Vargas.
She makes you hot doesn't she. She gets you excited and if you aren't careful you are going to rip off your clothes and jump all over the person in the cubicle next to you, or drive your truck off the road or masturbate until you go blind.

Naaaaaw.

It's pretty. It's SEXY. It's exciting to some (YAWN to most of us these days, but the Amish would find her downright devilish). Its interesting and fun and hot.

Just don't bring it anywhere NEAR anyone with a child. Or a womb. Or a heartbeat. If ya do, you are EVIL and immoral and awful and just tryng to destroy the fabric of humanity and America and Apple Pie and safe streets.

In San Francisco, you don't even have to SHOW people sex- just knowing it's going on is enough to destroy the neighborhood according to the activists trying to stop Kink.com from producing BDSM adult movies in the abandoned Armory in the Mission District. According to these folks, the Mission District's "gate way structure" should not be occupied by pornographers ("Gateway of the Mission"? Geeze, haven't they SEEN their neighborhood? It's the MISSION district in the *old bad end*. It's drunks and whores and pimps and kids breaking into cars and people smokin' weed right out there on the street and you can see LOTS of wee wee's when the homeless pee pee everywhere- it has all the charm and appeal of a sweat sox after the foot race. The poor, the underpriveledged, the 3d world immigrants and the illegals who live down there with the eclectic and the artistic and the poor have NO problem worrying about the Gucci bus mistaking their street for Rodeo Drive).

The building has been vacant for over 30 YEARS. Sitting there. Vandalized occasionally (but hell, how can you vandalize an armory with 3 foot thick walls and few windows?), graffittitd often, and a great place for the rats in the area to live comfortably.
But several of the "loving neighbors" complained about this change of owners.
When you sit and hear some *very serious* neighborhood activist rally against Kink.com and call them "fly by night" losers that are not going to stick around, you KNOW the "good neighbors" are on crack- the guys that own Kink.com have been in SF for over 20 YEARS within the same 6 block area, have never had ANY problems with the police, contribute to charities regularly, throw parties, clean up their streets, and hire more full time people with benefits than this nut job KNOWS.

A nice old lady comes up and starts ranting about how Kink.com puts out videos of women getting "tortured" with electricity to their genitals--- trying to equate those videos with battered women, Abu Graihb, and a dozen other horrors. She is of course, either frigid or jealous.

SEX is not bad when people consent to it, find joy in it, get off on it, like it, watch it, need it, revere it, and ENJOY it. When the rabid animals gather and start screaming about how the largest users of "porn" are boys 13-17, I am laughing LOUDLY and HOPING that they are RIGHT. Just where the hell do they think these poor horny boys are supposed to find some release- Jesus camp?

Get REAL. The armory is a HISTORICAL building that would NOT be better off being turned into "market value" condominiums, torn down for a parking lot, or torn up for a retail mart. THAT IS NOT BETTER THAN SOME GUYS MAKING MOVIES WITH HAPPY PAID MODELS AND ACTORS AT SCALE BEHIND THREE FOOT THICK WALLS YOU MORONS!
This has nothing to do with battered women--- women that get beat on by ABUSIVE men are not what KINK.com stands for. They produce great adult entertainment that is raw and hot and raunchy and --- well, we used to call it "rough trade" when I was a wee child.

So let me ask you...when your husband pats your fanny on the way by the kitchen, is that love or violence? TECHNICALLY, he just HIT YOU! But you LIKED IT. Some people like it more...and harder:)
You just made love with your partner and she was on top? OH MY GOD- you have committed illegal sex in 3 states. She just DOMINATED you too! YOU are SICK-- or are you just glad to be on your back and watching the view?
When you get your hands held over your head, when you grab your partner with your legs, when you do ANYTHING other than lay there (either partner here), you are doing something that is illegal and can be interpreted as BAD.

There are people out there that, just like you, want to feel, to laugh, or orgasm- and their way of getting their joys is NOT the same as yours. Some are Amish. Some are Hindu. Some are quadraplegics who don't have limbs. Some are gay and some are lesbian and some are into percussion play and endorphin rushes or being nekkid in public or screaming and laughing and thrashing. Some of them want to have 3 people in their bed.

It is really NONE of your business. If you don't like sewing, don't read sewing books, if you don't like your sex raunchy with a lot of public nudity, then great- don't come to the nude beach in July.
Morals are what we make of them, and pushing adults to stop being human with specious claims about how "the children will know" is so *bogus* (the children GOT HERE because of sex stupid!). Kids- people- have been having sex in all it's varieties since there was a people more people than ape- and we have been having a percentage of us be gay, or kinky, or celebate, or stupid.
Those numbers won't change. It's human nature. Thank you Kink.com for being nice people that give to your neighborhood and support charties even though you don't have to. I apoligixze for the stupid ones amongst us.
Enjoy the armory.