The Life & Times of Allison Jane

Pencil sketch, text added in Photoshop

I was reading about eugenics last night, and made a little discovery. John Harvey Kellogg was apparently a big believer and proponent of this faulty science (he was also a believer in some other faulty "sciences," but is nothing compared to this). Eugenics is the idea that humans can control their own evolution through selective breeding. Generally, it's not a good idea to treat people like domesticated dogs. This dangerous, flawed idea led to such things as forced sterilization, laws prohibiting mixed race marriages, and immigration restrictions in America. In Germany, however, the Nazis took it to an extreme (as they were known to do). The influence of eugenics can be seen in most everything the Nazis did, but my interest really comes in where Hitler started. Institutionalized disabled children and adults were the first to be targeted by the Führer in a program called "Action T4." The mentally ill, developmentally disabled, and the physically handicapped were gassed, poisoned, or just left to starve. When families asked about their missing loved ones, they were told that they had died of natural causes and had already been cremated.

Okay, getting back to Kellogg... He was a pretty early supporter of eugenics. He started his Race Betterment Foundation in 1906, and held conferences on the subject at his famous sanitarium in 1914, 1915, and 1928. He had huge influence in his time, and I just wonder how much this seemingly benign eccentric contributed to the future evil done in the name of eugenics.

My idea for what the Ouch Podcast mug could look like.
Illustrations done in Photoshop.
Ouch! and BBC logos belong to the BBC.

I've heard it mentioned that some people don't really like the mugs they give out now, and wish the the hosts faces were on them. I also decided to put the braille for Ouch! at the top. At least I tried to... I don't know for sure if I got it right. The braille is at the top because I figured if it was at the bottom, with hot coffee or tea in the mug, they wouldn't need to read the word to say "Ouch!"

Graphite and colored pencil sketch
The caption is an excerpt from Joseph Geringer's Crime Library article. It reads: "But, underneath, waiting to explode, Hell smoldered" - Jos. Geringer

Andrew Cunanan killed five people in a span of three months in 1997 before killing himself. He had no history of violence and nobody will probably ever know for sure why he snapped.

Pencil sketch of Devendra Harne, the Guinness World Record holder for the most fingers and toes (25).
The caption at the top reads: His name is Devendra Harne (he has five extra phalanges)

I plan on turning this into a painting sometime in the next few months.

4"x4", all work done in Photoshop

"Rosemary Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy, was given a lobotomy when her father complained to doctors about the 23-year-old’s moodiness and growing interest in men. The procedure was personally performed by Dr. Freeman. Instead of producing the desired result, however, the lobotomy reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent and staring blankly at walls for hours. Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. To avoid political scandal, the nature of Rosemary's affliction was hidden by her father for years, described to the public as the result of mental retardation. Her sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics in her honor in 1968." -Wikipedia

"For his first transorbital lobotomies, [Walter] Freeman used an actual icepick from his kitchen. Later, he utilized an instrument created specifically for the operation called a leucotome. In 1948 Freeman developed a new technique which involved wrenching the leucotome in an upstroke after the initial insertion. This procedure placed great strain on the instrument and often resulted in the leucotome breaking off in the patient's skull. As a result, Freeman designed a new, stronger instrument, the orbitoclast.

Freeman embarked on a national campaign in his van which he called his "lobotomobile" to demonstrate the procedure to surgeons working at state-run institutions; Freeman would show off by icepicking both of a patient's eyesockets at one time - one with each hand. According to some, institutional care was hampered by lack of effective treatments and extreme overcrowding, and Freeman saw the transorbital lobotomy as an expedient tool to get large populations out of treatment and back into private life." -Wikipedia