Opening my mailbox last night, I found a package from reader and tweeter @dhsmith. I love getting stuff in the mail that doesn’t say “overdue,” “final notice” or “eviction” on it, so thank you David!

There were two CDs in the package: Joanne Taylor Shaw’s White Sugar and BlackTop Road by Angela Easterling.

Naturally I opened them up, ripped them to iTunes and had a listen. When you reach a certain age, and no longer listen to the radio (so. many. ads), you stop discovering music. I have neither TV nor radio in my home, so any music I hear about is purely by accident. Or in this case, by gift!

Shaw’s White Sugar is very evocative of Joss Stone, which is great. And Easterling’s BlackTop Road is kind of an old country style, before country became pop. I love it! Folksy (though with the inevitable modern tune about white guilt, which is annoying), kind of sad, it’s music I can really sink my fangs into.

Thanks David, for adding to my music collection!

The devil, you say!

A teenager was shot dead as he ran through a housing estate trying to escape the gunman, neighbours said.

But, but… there’s a LAW and stuff!

Also:

The two blocks are a short distance apart, close to a mini football pitch and basketball court.

Wait, what? I thought we built basketball courts and banned guns to keep these kids alive! Sigh. I’m so disillusioned.

Musta been a loudmouthed, gun-toting, Russia-from-my-house-peering American.

President Obama thinks it’s peachy that Michael vick was so warmly welcomed back into the NFL after torturing and killing dogs.

Tucker Carlson thinks Vick should have been “executed” for his crime.

They’re both idiots.

By embracing Vick back into the fold, the NFL has sent a message that so long as you are talented at your sport, rules do not apply to you. Kind of like the way Hollywood fêtes Roman Polanski, despite his admission of child rape. And the President of the United States is all warm and fuzzy about it. That’s not acceptable. Vick’s experience has shown that there’s little to no repercussion for doing what he did, and the President is validating that perception.

Carlson, on the other hand, is calling for the death of Michael Vick for killing dogs. Dogs. Please try to keep that in perspective, when we consider how many (black) sports stars have been on trial for rapes and even murders, with no consequence whatsoever. It breaks my heart that someone was engaged in dog fighting to the detriment of innocent animals, but a human life is worth more, and if it’s ok for sports stars to rape their groupies and murder their ex-wives, then in theory it’s perfectly fine to kill a few dogs.

The President, Tucker Carlson and all of America need to get their priorities straight over this.

A notorious Muslim fanatic has been accused of fiddling the benefits system by working while claiming jobseekers’ allowance.

Abdul Rehman Saleem, known as Abu Yahya, is working on a market stall at the same time as collecting the £60 a week benefit, a friend of his estranged wife claimed.

The 35-year-old was freed from prison last year after being convicted of inciting racial hatred during protests in London against cartoon depictions of the prophet Mohammed.

Yahya is thought to have been claiming benefits while working on clothing stalls in both Stratford, East London, and another outlet at London’s New Covent Garden Market in Vauxhall.

At the same he time, he has failed to provide any maintenance for his five children with his former wife Kay.

In the comments, one person asks why this Islamic fanatic is so willing to take money from a christian country. It’s called jizya. And dude, England is no longer a Christian country.

Thousands of products made from the skins of cats and dogs are being offered on China’s largest retail website, sparking outrage among animal lovers, state media is reporting.

Search results and sales records from Taobao.com showed the most popular items were trousers and hats made from dog fur, which is touted for its ability to ward off the cold, AFP found after searching the website.

Animal rights activists said dealers usually targeted stray animals, selling their skins to fur traders in the country’s east and the meat to restaurants in the south.

Fat as I am, my self esteem has never gotten quite this low:

A New Jersey woman who hopes to become the fattest woman in the world got 30,000 calories closer to her 1,000lb goal with a festive feast that could have fed dozens of revellers.

46-stone Donna Simpson, sitting in a reinforced metal chair, chowed down on the world’s biggest Christmas dinner as she ate for two straight hours on Saturday.

The single mother-of-two tucked into two 25lb turkeys, two maple-glazed hams, 15lbs of potatoes (10lbs roast, 5lbs mashed), five loaves of bread, five pounds of herb stuffing, four pints of gravy, four pints of cranberry dressing and an astonishing 20lbs of vegetables.

She makes a living from being fat, getting paid to make public appearances and keeping a website where people can pay to watch her eat.

For those of you not following along on Twitter, you probably haven’t heard the latest on our friend Andrew Lawton.

A little over two weeks ago, his family wasn’t sure he’d survive emergency surgery. But thanks to the care of the staff at Victoria Hospital in London Ontario, as well as the prayers and well wishes of his friends, Andrew was off the ventilator on Christmas eve, conscious, and semi-coherent. At one point he was even sitting up in a wheelchair.

He’s not out of the woods, but he will be leaving Critical Care in a matter of days. Currently, his body is fighting off a few infections, and his fever has been fluctuating between high and really high. However, compared to where we were a fortnight ago, we know that we have been delivered of a Christmas miracle.

Please keep Andrew in your thoughts and prayers over the coming weeks, as his body makes the slow recovery back to whatever normal he will come to know. And thank you for the love and care you’ve shown so far for my friend.

Muslims, on the other hand, aren’t so friendly about your religion or mine.

Fanatics from a banned Islamic hate group [count up the redundancies in that phrase... - ed.] have launched a nationwide poster campaign denouncing Christmas as evil.

Organisers plan to put up thousands of placards around the UK claiming the season of goodwill is responsible for rape, teenage pregnancies, abortion, promiscuity, crime and paedophilia.

They hope the campaign will help ‘destroy Christmas’ in this country and lead to Britons converting to Islam instead.

In other news, Kathy has a clip up from one of my favorite movies, which the gentleman and I watched just a couple of weeks ago.

From the cult of sex and death.

More than 100 Canadian-Arab Christians are listed on an al-Qaida affiliated website, apparently targeted because of their alleged role in attempting to convert Muslims.

Some of those named say concerned Canadian intelligence officials have contacted them.

The Shumukh-al-Islam website, often considered to be al-Qaida’s mouth piece, listed pictures, addresses and cell phone numbers of Coptic Christians, predominantly Egyptian-Canadians, who have been vocal about their opposition to Islam.

In a forum on the website, one member named Son of a Sharp Sword, says “We are going to return back to Islam and all of the Mujahedeen (holy warriors) will cut off their heads.”

Three pages of the fundamentalist, Arabic-language website titled “Complete information on Coptics” sets to “identify and name all of the Coptics throughout the world who hope to defame Islam,” The website calls the Coptic Christians living abroad “dogs in diaspora,” a derogatory reference in Arabic.

Among those named on the Shumukh-al-Islam website is Samuel Tawadrous, a Coptic Egyptian living in Quebec.

“This is a direct threat against our lives,” Tawadrous said in an interview.

“They are trying to inform each other in hopes that someone can carry out this threat. They could be in Egypt and they could be here. Our names and our pictures are listed.”

Tawadrous’s picture and cell phone number were listed on the site.

Don’t worry though - threatening the infidel is part of their culture, and we take people’s cultural beliefs very seriously here in Canada. Same with raping and killing of teenage girls. If it’s part of your culture, it’s all good.

These poor Copts come to Canada to escape the Islamic nonsense in their own countries, and instead, they are hunted around the globe by these 6th century mutants.

Islam is evil, and civilized countries should ban it outright for the death cult that it is.

Geez, I wonder what those reasons might be…

Obviously it was the podcast.

Here’s the latest: Doctors have stopped one medication and decreased others, and Andrew has had no adjustment problems. He remains stable. This is a baby step in the right direction. Doctors are letting him rest, and testing sporadically to give his body time to adjust to each new addition or subtraction.

On the down side, the ventilator is still on and necessary.

Please keep Andrew and the Lawton family in your prayers during this difficult holiday season as they slowly bring Andrew back from the brink.

Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada [you just knew this had to be Canadian, right? - ed.], found non-Christians feel less self-assured and have fewer positive feelings if a Christmas tree was in the room.

“Non-celebrators” reported fewer positive feelings and less self-assurance in the Christmas room. Christians were mostly cheered by the tree.

The scientists conducted the study using 77 Christians and 57 non-believers, including Buddhists and Sikhs.

The participants did not know the survey was about Christmas, and were asked to fill in questions about themselves both when a 12-inch Christmas tree was in the room and when it was not.

Um, how do I put this…? I. Don’t. Care. Christmas trees make me feel good. So do menorahs. So do those pretty Chinese dancers that come out for the lunar New Year. The only thing that doesn’t make me feel good is the Islamic crescent, and that’s only because Muslims insist on blowing shit up.

…about Saudi involvement in the Ground Zero Mosque.

Attorney Dudley Gaffin is claiming King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia might want to buy shuttered St. Vincent’s Medical Center and transfer the mosque to a new Islamic cultural center he would build on a plot at the site, say sources who have heard Gaffin’s pitch.

Hands up, anyone who is surprised by this!

It was a year ago today. I was standing on the subway platform at Broadview Station, waiting for my gentleman friend. Our plan was to go to the theater in Yorkville to see George Clooney in Up In The Air. He would meet me on the platform at 2pm, and we would catch the next train in. The 1:58 came, and he wasn’t on it. I hoped he would be on the 2:03.

My iPod was in, listening to Christmas tunes. The Long Blonds were singing Christmas is Canceled, and it was a quiet part of the song as the lights of the train came through the tunnel into the station. I heard it more than saw it. The ear is quicker than the eye, though the brain took a moment to process the thud. It wasn’t until I heard the shrieks and cries of those around me that I realized what had happened.

The conductor - a pint-sized readheaded woman of about 30 - came out of her booth, crying, asking who had seen what happened. She became hysterical, looking to me like she would be the next one down onto the tracks. That would do no one any good. I and a few other TTC patrons with cool heads shepherded her up the escalator where there would soon be dozens of police waiting to take her statement. They could deal with her hysteria better than I could, especially away from the not-as-gruesome-as-I-expected scene below.

People were crying around me as the TTC staff moved us all up to street level where shuttle buses were being readied. The subway would be shut for a while to clean up the detritus of desperation below ground.

I felt nothing. The place I was in at the time - both physically and emotionally - had dulled my senses. The only thing I could think at the time was “Good for you!” I was a little envious, but in no way horrified or disturbed. It was what it was. A week before Christmas, despair had gotten the best of yet another dweller of this overburdened city.

Oh, as an aside, my gentleman friend wasn’t on he 2:03, either. Tardiness is a sin, dear.

He called while I sat not far from where the police were comforting and questioning the conductor. The phone rang, and I answered it “It wasn’t me.”

We met on the street, and walked the rest of the way downtown, through the cold and the human Christmas traffic.

We pulled Brass Balls Radio out of mothballs for one very special episode, in the hopes that it will touch our unconscious friend.

Click to listen, or right click to download.

Many thanks to Josephine for the artwork we used this week - Andrew the Imam. Inshallah he’s going to fully recover from this.

Cards and letters can be sent to Andrew and the Lawton family at the address below. No flowers, please.

Andrew Lawton, Patient
Victoria Hospital, Critical Care Unit
800 Commissioners Road East
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5W9

The Good News: Andrew will be going into surgery at some point today or tonight (I will advise later) to have his blood oxygenator removed, as he no longer needs it. His blood is getting enough oxygen now through natural means + the heart/lung machines.

The Bad News: Andrew is very weak, so any surgery is a risk. Spare an extra-super-duper-double-shot prayer with sprinkles on top for him today.

I’ll update on Twitter when the OR has been booked.

A Show for Andrew

Jerry Lewis has his kids, and we have Lawton. Andrew and his family don’t need money or gifts or anything concrete at this point - they need hope and prayer. So I’m re-joining the crew at Take That Media for a reunion show and impromptu prayer/well-wishes show which will be recorded on Friday night. Mike Williams, my old producer, has opened up the Take That hotline for anyone wanting to leave a message of hope and prayer for Andrew. Your well-wishes will be included throughout the show.

717.892.0353

Lines will be open all day today, tomorrow and till Friday at noon.

I just spoke with Andrew’s brother. Andrew is still mechanically dependent, and the machines had to be turned up again today. Not to worry, apparently, because it’s natural for the body’s strength to fluctuate.

For those of you asking about flowers, this is what I found out from the hospital:

No flowers are permitted in ICU, but cards are welcomed by the family:

Andrew Lawton, Patient
Victoria Hospital, Critical Care Unit
800 Commissioners Road East
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5W9

The family has started a separate Facebook page, because they do not have access to his passwords. The link is here. Please show your support. The family will attempt to provide updates, but their schedule is rather harried, as you would expect. Keep checking in with myself here and on Twitter (@RightGirl).

Yes, I’ve sadly neglected this blog while getting ready for the holidays, working two jobs, adopting a rescue puppy (more on that later)… blah blah. So I haven’t had much time to blog. Yet none of that seems to matter in the face of what’s happening to a friend.

Andrew Lawton of Strictly Right was admitted to the hospital last week and remains in critical condition. Some of you may know that Andrew had a stroke at the tender age of 21, and he’s now just 23. He pushes himself hard, with television appearances, speaker promotion, he’s writing a book… the boy is busy. But his body doesn’t agree with the grueling schedule he has set for himself. His body isn’t as strong as his spirit.

Without getting into the gory details of what the past few days have put Andrew through, I merely want to ask for your prayers for him and his family. I want you to pray that his heart is strong enough to beat on its own. I want you to pray that he comes out of the coma with his brilliant mind intact. I want you to pray that his family has the strength to endure this difficult holiday season of hospital coffee, delayed celebrations and constant fear.

There are no comments permitted on this post today. I’ve already seen too many comments elsewhere about how he deserves to suffer because he feels Canadians are getting a shitty deal with our health care system. Let that shitty health care system prove Andrew wrong. In any case, assholes don’t get the right to talk about my friend here, when we don’t even know if he will live to Christmas Day. Suffice it to say, Andrew wouldn’t be shocked by the behavior of the loony left. Nor would I be, but I’m not letting you befoul this space.