11-15-01

Hey - check out my gallery page! I finally added my four most recent pieces at the bottom of the section. I also started the "underpainting" on my new painting tonight. I'm going to do it gradually, a bit at a time. It's hard to be patient…

This is the third month anniversary of writing this journal, and dammit, I've stuck with it. Way to go, me! In honor of this day, I'd like to share with you two Signs of the Apocalypse. Yep, things are going to hell in a handbasket. Or at least in a purse. Heck, they're going to hell in a Samsonite.

U.N. Says Planetary Plundering Threatens Earth
Reuters Nov 7 2001 LONDON

The human race is plundering Earth at an unprecedented rate. "More people are using more resources with more intensity than at any point in human history," the U.N. said in its annual world population report for 2001.The world's population, which has doubled to 6.1 billion in the past 40 years, is projected to surge 50 percent to 9.3 billion within another half century, with all the growth in developing countries whose resources are already overstretched. "By 2050, 4.2 billion people (over 45 percent of the global total) will be living in countries that cannot meet the daily requirement of 50 liters (11 gallons) of water per person to meet basic needs," the report said.

CATASTROPHIC WATER USE It said water was being used and polluted at catastrophic rates. At present 54 percent of available fresh water supplies is being used annually -- two-thirds for agriculture. This figure is set to surge to 70 percent by 2025 due to population growth alone, and 90 percent if consumption in the developing countries reaches the levels in the developed world. Water was being used at unsustainable rates in many places, with water tables under some Chinese, Latin American and South Asian cities dropping by more than one meter (three feet) a year and water from seas and rivers being diverted with disastrous results. The report said 1.1 billion people already did not have access to clean water, and in developing nations up to 95 percent of sewage and 70 percent of industrial waste was simply being dumped untreated into water courses. Vital rain forests are being destroyed at the highest rate in history, taking with them crucial sources of biodiversity and contributing to climate warming, thereby boosting already rising sea levels. The seas continue to be massively overexploited and erosion is taking a rising toll of plant species -- one quarter of which could be lost forever by 2025.

Woman Gets Life for Skinning Boyfriend
Reuters - Nov 09
CANBERRA, Australia

A woman began a lifelong sentence behind bars Friday, never to be released, for murdering and skinning her boyfriend in a cannibal orgy.

A court was told former abattoir worker Katherine Knight stabbed her partner John Price at least 37 times with a butcher's knife, skinned his body, cooked his head and served him up in dishes with nameplates for each of his children.

Knight, 46, became the first woman in Australia whose file was marked never to be released from jail after pleading guilty to butchering 44-year-old Price in his home in Aberdeen, 200 km (124 miles) north-west of Sydney, in February last year. New South Wales Supreme Court judge Barry O'Keefe, handing down the sentence, said Knight, in a new black night gown, showed Price "no mercy" when she attacked him after the couple had apparently had sex, according to media reports.

Price's attempt to escape the frenzied attack -- planned 48 hours earlier--culminated with him getting out of the house only to be dragged back in by Knight.

O'Keefe said Knight, who had worked as a meat slicer in abattoirs, skinned Price with such expertise and a steady hand that his skin, including that of his head, face, nose, ears, neck, torso, genital organs, and legs, was removed to form one pelt.

"The excised parts of Mr. Price were then taken to the kitchen and at some stage, after she peeled and prepared various vegetables, she cooked Mr. Price's head in a large pot with a number of vegetables she had prepared so as to produce a sickening stew," he told the court.

"The gruesome steaks were then arranged on plates together with the vegetables which she had baked and left as meals for the son and daughter of the deceased accompanied by vindictive notes."

O'Keefe said Knight's evil actions came from resentment arising out of her rejection by Price after a six-year relationship, her impending expulsion from his home, and his refusal to share his assets with her, particularly his house which he wanted to keep for his children.

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