A New Global Myth

THE OBJECTIVE & MORAL RESOURCES

2012-02-02T11:29:00.001-05:00

Feb. 2, 2012 By Gwendolyn H. Barry of A NEW GLOBAL MYTH (http://newglobalmyth.blogspot.com/ and Jack Jodell of THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST (http://jackjodell53.wordpress.com/).

We are continually buffeted ny a corporately-owned mainstream media which either tells us outright lies, fills us to the brim with worthless, gossip-filled celebrity NON-news, completely omits important bits of REAL news, or marginalizes it and puts its own pop-culture, corporate spin on it. Like a modern-day DIOGENES, we have justifiably become cynics in serach of an honest person (or, in this specific case, an honest MEDIA source). For if all we shine our lanterns on is a steady diet of CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX "News", we are bound to be disappointed and deprived. After all, they are thoroughly controlled and influenced by the 1%, and, in varying degrees, actually try to keep us UNinformed or MISinformed.

Thankfully, we have a number of sources we can usually rely upon for accurate reporting.Some are television sources; some are magazines; some are blogs; some are online news sources. ALL are worth a look or visit. They will help dispel any confusion or delusion you may have about what's really happening around us. Wnenever possible, we have hyperlinked these sources for you below, so you will always be able to view them easily with only one click. WE ASK THAT YOU BOOKMARK THIS POST so you can always refer to it. We also ask that you copy and paste this post and send it to whomever you think will need or appreciate it. For TRUTH and KNOWLEDGE is power, and the only way we in the majority 99% can ever hope for victory in the battle against the lies of the 1% is to confront them with it as often as we can. This, of course, is by no means a complete list of factual sources. However, it is a good start. We encourage you to supply us with other reliable sources we may have overlooked in our comments section below. Please include hyperlinks if you can.
Thank you, readers, for sharing our dogged determination to persue truth in media. Below are the sites we recommend:
DEMOCRACY NOW! with Amy Goodman (http://www.democracynow.org/). This may also be seen on LINK TV, channel 375 on DIRECTV or channel 9410 on Dish Network, as well as at http://www.livestream.com/democracynow.
COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann. Available on CURRENT TV, channel 358 on DIRECTV, channel 196 on Dish Network, channel 107 on Comcast, channel 102 on Verizon Fios, channel 103 in NY and 143 in LA on Time Warner Cable, or try http://current.com/shows/countdown/.
THE NATION (http://www.thenation.com/) is a superb magazine featuring some of the best progressive writers around. Contributors include Kristina Vandenheuvel, Chris Hayes, and Naomi Klein, among many others. This link leads you to their online version.
THOM HARTMANN (http://thomhartmann.com/) is your online source for a man who often features news other sources often don't have.
CROOKS AND LIARS (http://crooksandliars.com/) is an outstanding digest of stories often ignored or underreported by the mainstream media.
POLITICS PLUS (http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/) is another not-to-be-overlooked source for a wide range of political information.
MOTHER JONES (http://motherjones.com/) is a great source for a wide variety of topical issues.
THE DAILY KOS (http://www.dailykos.com/) reports on a number of items rarely covered by network TV news.
ALTER NET (http://www.alternet.org/) is a tremendous source of thought-provoking info gathered from a huge variety of sources and knowledgeable authors. This resource is definitely worth frequent visits!
BBC NEWS (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/) gives you a wealth of worldwide news from outside our country, and even provides us with an insight as to how events in the U.S. are perceived by the rest of the wotld.

AL JAZEERA (http://www.aljazeera.com/) does much the same as BBC News, but gives us a unique Middle East perspective. English language versions can also be heard daily on LINK TV.

GOOGLE (https://www.google.com/) is a much used, highly valuable search engine that can lead you to vast stores of knowledge found anywhere on the internet. Just go there, key in a term or phrase, and you will instantly receive literally thousands of choices to choose from for virtually anything you wish to find out.
CBC NEWS (http://www.cbc.ca/news/) is THE site to go for comprehensive world and local news from our great neighbor to the north. You will find their coverage of events within the U.S., to be quite interesting and revealing.
THE GUARDIAN (http://www.guardiannews.com/) will give you world news and insights from the UK's greatest progressive newspaper about stories rarely found in our own TV or newspapers.
OPEN SECRETS (http://www.opensecrets.org/) is a goodie which reveals exactly who, and how much they have contributed to, the officeholder or challenger of your choice.
RUSSIA TODAY (http://rt.com)   offers unique news coverage, essentially an open and HONEST international coverage that is quickly becoming THE resource for several co-ordinate news services such as Young Turks, Countdown and Democracy Now. Apaer from regular news updates, yjis source offers valuable insights into Russian history, culture, and opinions.
THE REAL NEWS NETWORK (http://therealnews.com/) provides us with great international coveragevia independent objective video reporting of current events coupled with progressive / Left commentary.
RAW STORY (http://rawstory.com/) gives aggregate online news with sensational / objective coverage. They cover breaking news with an honest, progressive bent.
WIKILEAKS (http://wikileaks.org/) is an international online self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers.   Vital resource in deep research or the breaking news they can be singularly responsible for.   They represent a ground breaking free press for the new age.
TRUTH OUT (http://truth-out.org/) has ontemporary writers forming the Progressive push in the United States... Chris Hedges, Robert Riech, leading the way. Truthout provides an independent platform for in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis, to reveal systemic injustice and offer transformative ideas to strengthen democracy. _
ROLLING STONE -POLITICS (http://rollingstone.com/politics) offers edgy, accurate, politically corrective opinions via the Gonzo tradition!   Matt Taibbi, Tim Dickerson, David Browne....honest, competent coverage of what is really going on.
BUZZFLASH! (http://buzzflash.com/) BuzzFlash's model of progressive journalism is truly unique.  They don't just write about progressive change; they provide -- through the BuzzFlash Progressive Market Place -- a vehicle to create change. (I'll discuss our support of direct activism in a future blog, that is the kind of public demonstrations the Green Movement in Iran is engaging in). There is simply no other journalistic model we know of that helps create a new economy to advance progressive ideals and uses a small portion of those sales to finance progressive journalism!
GRIST (http://grist.org/) Grist has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a wry twist since 1999 — which, to be frank, was way before most people cared about such things. Now that green is in every headline and on every store shelf (bamboo hair gel, anyone?), Grist is the one site you can count on to help you make sense of it all.
OCCUPY WALL STREET (http://occupywallst.org/) Worldwide revolution! Daily Action reports from all over the US and the globe. Calender of Action events and coordinate Actions with sister / brother Occupy's global.
OCCUPY TOGETHER (http://occupytogether.org) American and international coverage of Actions / Events supporting the Occupy Movement.
MEDIA MATTERS (http://mediamatters.com) News correct! Watchdog news group reporting the lies and duplicity of the MSM.

PUNK PATRIOT (http://ounkpatriot.blogspot.com/) espouses Life, Liberty and Less F*****Up Government. The Punk does youtube, blogspot, twitter, tumbler and he brings up a new, edgy awareness of the day. Original promoter for and GA member of OWS. Commentary with intelligent insight and overview.ACRONYM TV (http://acronymtv.wordpress.com/) Dennis Trainor Jr.!!! Chronicling via video the worldwide revolution. (Formerly NoCureForThat.org). Opinionated, aggressive , and often funny, Acronym TV shines a seriously unserious, reverentially irreverent light on issues that are often ignored by the corporate media; issues of interest to the progressively-minded citizen of the world. ACRONYM, because you stand for something!

So.....Which Side Are You On? If you are interested in hearing the objective truth, consult the links above. They absolutely give a Progressive, Left leaning stance... they absolutely express just and equitable opinions concerning the vitality of a working economy, the health of environment and the social / political issues pressing us. Use discernment with all 'news sources'. Establish a few you are compatible with and hear a more honest, non corporate motivated recount of the events of the day.

Obama: the Bankers' Bitch __ welcome to campaign 2012.

2012-01-25T13:09:00.002-05:00

I'm a small (read itty bitty) maker (manufacturer). I heard nothing new in the President's speech last night that makes me think my country backs my maker ideals and values nor will it ever persuade the banking industry here in the USA to give me any kind of assistance in solidifying or building ... they think better to leave me to my own 'devices' or have my creative business strengths adrift in a fiscal sea of venture capitalism that will surely give me a 'living' / after gutting my making into whatever profiteering mass production and quality standard knock down for cheap will achieve. They are sharks. And this fraud in the White House supports that business model. Make no mistake, Obama is a Goldman Sachs boy. I represent the REAL / ACTUAL 'mom & pop' main street merchants and makers who are the strength of a community and the support of the larger (integrity abiding) industry therein. I've a secured / through consistent sales and standard of product / a customer list that slowly grows (OH so slowly) all through one of the worst Depressions since the last century. He touted dirty coal, fracking for 'natural' gas, more drill baby drill and lets see, did he leave out anything that is guaranteed to extinguish the species within a next generation? He pretty well kissed their collective big oil, big energy, destroy the environment asses. He should, they filled his election war chest. Along with Goldman Sachs. What a mouthful; "reclaim American values"... which are those? The brutality on those would stand up and be counted among those redressing the government for answers and account of their wreckage? Asking for accountability from this President is an errand we are opting to take... listen again for the sound of our feet coming this Spring! This guy signed NDAA on New Years' eve! You think there is no accountability in the offing coming up his campaigning ass come Spring? Hide and watch.

He's using shades of gray to get where he needs to be to fool folks into believing him... or choosing him the less of two evils. He touts millions in increase in jobs levels... he neglects to extend the truth in that fact; they were seasonal jobs that have since begun to evaporate. There are over 45 million Americans living at the poverty level in this country. I am one. Are you? The American workers who have attained jobs are working for much less than they used to... the middle class was drone-ed in the deal to keep automotive industry in the US. This 'great Obama save' came at the cost of labor wages and benefits. And the GOP was too stupid to acknowledge it! This is the caliber of intelligence in Washington. While some may have been excessive, the majority of those wages and benefits were the hull to the ship of industry and community in making a middle class. And he still expects you to pay up or go to jail for health care in the next two years. There were smoke and mirrors all through Obama's speech... he lied to get elected, he capitulates happily or lies to achieve anything in office and he's lying to stay in that office. The powers that be, ie: WALL FUCKING STREET FOR ANY POOR SAP WHO'S NOT GETTING THAT YET, are just as happy with him as they pretty much have been all the Presidents since Reagan. Can we get a happy pappy BOO YAH here in the cheap seats?

He lied about Iraq... and he prostituted the military! They absolutely kicked us the hell outa town in Iraq! He basked in a glow of violent corruptions! The flag carried by the SEALS who killed Osma bin Laden? That's his treasure after 4 years in office?!? An open war monger? Drone director? I have friends in Pakistan and Afghanistan! I am appalled at the murder (collateral damage) committed in my name. With the money I pay in taxes! That IS NOT WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE. All so Obama can ride some fence of yes I support the arrogance of the Knesset / Israeli government old fucks that the majority of the Israeli People do not (btw). Is he looking for the 'educated' Indy vote? Hey, newsflash: they all kind of still stick him in a "but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one", "not for my President" category, don't they? The only constituency that really ever would open their minds' to this President and is very one that put him in the oval office and he's done nothing more than piss on us like the corpses on the ground in Afghanistan, ala US Marine troops emulating X mercs our tax dollars pay for. Are you following me here? He uses the military as a campaign tool and 18 over used / abused among the throngs of homeless and jobless vets from THE LAST 11 YEARS OF NON STOP PROFITEERING FOR HALI BURTON, RAYTHEON, X, WACKENHUT, CHEVRON-EXXON-MOBIL-BP-SHELL, ETC. CORPORATIONS commit suicide every goddamned day in my country??? It's an outrageous hubris!

In his SOU speech the President spoke nothing of preserving the sanctity of life on the planet in community with all other countries...no. He spoke about the "opportunities for prosperity" = profiteering corporations to further despoil the planet and gear up to keep the hot smoking war machine on the ready for industry productivity and 'jobs plans'. He cares not at all for the environment.   On October 28, 2011 we reached Ahau 13 of the long count haab in the Maya calendar, T'zolkin. On winter solstice, December 21st, 2012, we will achieve an astrological alignment that happens only once every 26,000 years... when our life giver, the sun aligns directly with the heart of heaven, the black hole center of the galaxy. Our solar system has traveled through each of the constellation neighbors of the galaxy. Each constellation has represented an 'age' or 'era' to the known history of our species. We have come to the moment that our Ancestors saw with their very responsive and responsible cosmic vision, a place of planetary evolution. So, we are done with a time of 'belief' ... aka the Age of Pieces. We are breaking in to the time of personal, authentic knowledge / experience... aka the Age of Aquarius.   We are being asked to OCCUPY our Home with the cosmic vision of our Ancestors.
Obama took no responsibility for the brutality used in nationally organized force with metropolitan majors and police agencies together with Homeland Security's guidance and arsenal against OCCUPIERS. He just yoked the force and abiding service of our OWS message through innuendo. He has nothing more than outrageous hubris?   We are the standard setters, the teachers of the future. Whom else is there?   The question to ask: if not me, then WHO? If not Now, when?

"To be innocent in times like these___ is to be criminal."
Chris Hedges

Imagine We Are Anonymous

2011-12-22T16:07:00.000-05:00

Imagine We Are Anonymous.

Imagine there is no heaven. It's easy, if you try. No hell below us. Above us, only sky.
Imagine all the People, living life in peace? You may say I'm a dreamer.
But,
I'm not the only one.
John Lennon

Elouise Cobell, Indigenous Elder has crossed over.

2011-10-18T15:03:00.000-04:00

Elouise Cobell's Spirit has gone on to a new Journey She has become the midnight diamond, a bright and multifaceted twinkle among the Star Nations. She lived just long enough to witness the People rise up collectively across the world and then she took her new Journey.

Elouise stood unyielding before the U. S. Government and their imposing bosses, greedy corporations through a legal struggle in the courts that resulted in a landmark win (Cobell v Salazar), for Indigenous America. She won $3.4 billion in settlement for the raping and reaping of Native Land for its' natural resources... these bastards have committed these crimes against the Earth Mother for over 100 years... taking with impunity what they wanted. Yellow Bird Woman's wings spread over the land, protecting. Her rock was the Indian Trust Fund.

Elouise Cobell took personally the death of each American Indian who never saw a dime in the U.S. government's $3.4 billion settlement in a long battle over mismanaged land royalties, viewing each passing as another person who would never know justice.
Now she is among those who won't witness the final outcome after dedicating more than 15 years of her life to seeing through the largest government class-action settlement in U.S. history.
Cobell died Sunday at a Great Falls hospital of complications from cancer at age 65. The Blackfeet woman from Browning, Mont., was the driving force that guided the lawsuit through seemingly endless court proceedings and political bickering on Capitol Hill.
Even though she was successful at overcoming those obstacles — a judge approved the $3.4 billion settlement earlier this year — the deal faces still another legal hurdle.
Several potential members of the class-action lawsuit have filed appeals in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, promising to stretch the case into at least next year. Each has different a reason for challenging the deal, including allegations that the lead plaintiffs abandoned the true aim of the lawsuit — to finally have the government account for how much money was actually lost — in exchange for a cash settlement from which they would benefit the most.

Dennis Gingold, the attorney Cobell has worked with since the lawsuit was filed in 1996, said individual Indians have lost their greatest champion. But he hopes her death will unite people and get the settlement money to the estimated 500,000 beneficiaries before too many more die.
"Over the years, many elders and many sick class members have died. Elouise had been very concerned about that. That is why she agreed to the settlement," Gingold said. "Unfortunately, the settlement is two years old, and class members continue to die. When we told the court that time is of the essence, it was not hyperbole."
Thousands of potential beneficiaries across the nation died during the 14-year legal battle and subsequent negotiations in Congress that took an additional year. To Cobell, each death stung.
"We've lost three people in the last week here in the Blackfeet (Reservation in northwestern Montana) who were beneficiaries to this settlement, and it hurts," Cobell told The Associated Press back in November after the Senate temporarily blocked the deal.
Former Senate Indian Affairs Chairman Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said there would be no settlement without Cobell and her sheer force of will.
"It's a cruel irony that the woman who led the charge here all of those years, does not live know to see the benefits," Dorgan said. "Despite that, I know she had to feel a great sense of accomplishment with what she did."
The claims of those who died have been taken up by their heirs — as it will be with Cobell's heirs — and she took comfort in that, she said in an earlier interview.
"It's mainly their children or their grandchildren that benefit, which is fine," Cobell said in May 2010. "One thing that I've heard all the time that I've been working on this — letters after letters after letters — is that they want something for their grandchildren."
Cobell, a great-granddaughter of the famous leader Mountain Chief, grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation.Among her many notable accomplishments, Cobell served as the Blackfeet Nation's treasurer for 13 years and in 1987 helped found the first U.S. bank owned by a tribe, now the Native American Bank.
But she is best known as the lead plaintiff in the trust case that spanned three presidential administrations. She won a $300,000 "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1997 and used most of the money to help fund the lawsuit.
Cobell said she had heard stories since she was a child of how the government shortchanged Native Americans with accounts for royalties from their land that was leased for resource development or farming.
She became outraged when she actually started digging into how much money the government had squandered that belonged to Blackfeet people who were living in dire poverty.
She realized the amount mismanaged since the 1880s could be hundreds of billions of dollars. She said she tried for years working with two U.S. government administrations to resolve the dispute in the early 1990s, then decided to sue with four other Native Americans as plaintiffs when no progress was made.
FILE - In a Dec. 17, 2009, file photo, Elouise Cobell watches a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on the multi-billion dollar Cobell v Salazar law suit regarding decades of mismanagement of Indian lands in Washington. A spokesman for Cobell says the Blackfeet woman has died. She was 65. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) Close

The government dug in. Over the next 14 years, there were more than 3,600 court filings, 220 days of trial, 80 published court decisions and 10 appeals until the 2009 breakthrough.
Under the settlement, $1.4 billion would go to individual Indian account holders. Some $2 billion would be used by the government to buy up fractionated Indian lands from individual owners willing to sell, and then turn those lands over to tribes. Another $60 million would be used for a scholarship fund for young Indians.
Congress approved the deal and President Barack Obama signed it in December 2010, a year after it was first proposed. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan approved the settlement in June, calling Cobell a hero who has "accomplished more for individual Native Americans that any other individual I can think of in recent history."
Just a few weeks before those words, Cobell discovered she had cancer. She traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for surgery.
Cobell grew sicker, dashing her hopes to put the lawsuit behind her and work full time teaching young Indian adults how to manage their money and assets.
She said she wanted to prepare the next generation in hope they would continue her work. ABC NEWS

"There was no excuse for Native communities to live in abject poverty over the years other than pure greed and total disregard of human life. It was just another broken treaty, just another pack of lies with years of human suffering and abject poverty for the indigenous people across America. Though the award actually did not even cover the interest on what was actually owed the tribes of America it was better than nothing and we (Native American’s) owe a debt of gratitude to this Blackfeet woman for her efforts to regain some dignity in light of this colossal miscarriage of justice that was perpetrated over the years by the US Government." - Buffalohair - read more

Original pen and ink art by Steve Goins @ Stone Art Traders

MSM-media: HEADS UP THEIR ASSES

2011-09-22T10:54:00.001-04:00

True to their corporate masters, the MSM-media (including the MSNBC lineup) have all been ignoring the successful OCCUPATION OF WALL STREET by American citizenry (the 99%ers) fed up!

6 Days and counting!~ of OCCUPATION. Last night Keith Olbermann gave the first serious installment of news coverage to the event on Coundown over at Current TV.

The 99% (the OCCUPIERS) are scheduling a march to City Hall to address the billionare mayor, Bloomberg today. Engaging the mayor ought to bring MSM. Like a lazy catfish, MSM today is under skilled, over paid, hell... these folks don't generally even rate a 'hack' title. So, the poetry of this communique' from the group organizers is flying high and straight over their collective heads:

A Message From Occupied Wall Street (Day Five)
Published 2011-09-22 07:51:42 UTC by OccupyWallSt
at OccupyWallStreet.org
This is the fifth communiqué from the 99 percent. We are occupying Wall Street.
On September 21st, 2011, Troy Davis, an innocent man, was murdered by the state of Georgia. Troy Davis was one of the 99 percent.
Ending capital punishment is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, four of our members were arrested on baseless charges.
Ending police intimidation is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, the richest 400 Americans owned more than half of the country’s population.
Ending wealth inequality is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, we determined that Yahoo lied about occupywallst.org being in spam filters.
Ending corporate censorship is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly eighty percent of Americans thought the country was on the wrong track.
Ending the modern gilded age is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly 15% of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing.
Ending political corruption is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly one sixth of Americans did not have work.
Ending joblessness is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly one sixth of America lived in poverty.
Ending poverty is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly fifty million Americans were without health insurance.
Ending health-profiteering is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, America had military bases in around one hundred and thirty out of one hundred and sixty-five countries.
Ending American imperialism is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, America was at war with the world.
Ending war is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, we stood in solidarity with Madrid, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Madison, Toronto, London, Athens, Sydney, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Milan, Amsterdam, Algiers, Tel Aviv, Portland and Chicago. Soon we will stand with Phoenix, Montreal, Cleveland and Atlanta. We’re still here. We are growing. We intend to stay until we see movements toward real change in our country and the world.
You have fought all the wars. You have worked for all the bosses. You have wandered over all the countries. Have you harvested the fruits of your labors, the price of your victories? Does the past comfort you? Does the present smile on you? Does the future promise you anything? Have you found a piece of land where you can live like a human being and die like a human being? On these questions, on this argument, and on this theme, the struggle for existence, the people will speak. Join us.
We speak as one. All of our decisions, from our choice to march on Wall Street to our decision to continue occupying Liberty Square, were decided through a consensus based process by the group, for the group.

Can we put a little "get it, got it, GOOD" to this? And perhaps do some reporting on it?

Your involvement is essential too. As a satellite protester / occupier... there are supportive actions you can take! Keep up the call in’s to ask for cooperation with the occupation at the local precincts and the NY Police Commissioner and the Mayor’s office. Community Affairs @ the 1st Precinct: 212-334-0640 / 1 Police Plaza – the Commissioner – 212-374-5000 and the Mayor’s office: (212) 788-0010.

These patriot occupiers are fighting for 99 percent of us. Those who are unemployed, uninsured, underemployed and totally insecure in the face of ever increasing social and financial inequities. They are standing up for those who cannot be there right now.
Here’s the good news — you can help, right now today — no matter where you are.
1) Spread the word — there’s something going on. People have started a movement — they’re occupying Wall Street. Hundreds of people have been camped out in lower Manhattan for four days!
2) If you’re in New York and can only spare a little time or money: bring American flags, cardboard, markers, water, etc. down to Liberty Park.
3) If you’re in the New York area and have a day, a morning, an afternoon, go down there. The weather appears to be holding. Take the day off and just go. I know it sounds hard to believe but you will be heard. This is an open general assembly effort and you will get your say and be a real participant.
4) If you are a little ways from NYC, organize foursomes to go to NYC for the day. It will cost you the train/bus/car fare. Take nothing but some food and water and your body.
5) Too far to get to NYC? Sign this petition and I will read your name and comments in Liberty Park this week, I promise. Break Up Goldman Sachs Now!
6) Be subversive against the big money interests wherever you are and encourage others to do the same. Don’t give the banksters 4 percent of every purchase you make with a credit or debit card — use cash. See: UseCashMovement
7) Be subversive: max out your credit card on large ticket items and return them the next day. (This one is right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.)
Move your money from a big bank to a credit union.
9) Picket a local branch of a bank. When the press asks you what the heck you think you’re doing, tell them it’s in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.
10) Send food to the protesters in Liberty Park through a New York friend or go to the live stream chat for information on local eats that will take your order. (Yes, you’ll have to use your credit card, big spender!)
11) Do you know anybody who knows anybody who knows a writer, a celebrity, etc. who will show their face at the protest? Get to them now.
This is a GLOBAL ACTION…the mistake being made by the corporate politico’s and regimes (including the US Congress and White House) is in thinking that these protests / occupations are not working. Here are few things you can do to HELP: (via Alternet)

Do not forget

Activism under government observation.

2011-08-27T01:11:00.002-04:00

Community, loyalty, integrity… if we are squabbling amongst our “own” we are helping the ‘other’ divide and tear us apart, eventually sacrifice our activism in bringing a vital message to the community and speaking truth to power. If not for us… “us” would be every person who on their own accord take to a keyboard and type out an opinion, make a query to a given social network or community, tell a story or speak truth to power as you have discovered it… if not for us, the governments would run over the citizenry like a bulldozer.

A journalist only observes and reports. An activist, a blogger brings their truth to the community. Citizen journalist?… Not me. I’m a blogger. I am an activist. I have “a side” I’m on. I’m not in it for the “hits”, I’m in it to make a positive difference. And so when I think of the 1st Amendment,

In Congress: September 17th, 1787

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

My freedom of speech comes first, the press is a bystander with the same rights. So my opinion is protected with every intention of allowing me to speak to my community and to speak most specifically to my Congress and it’s leadership.

Can you say Patriot Act?

Present domestic spying grossly exceeds what the founders had in mind. The Patriot Act has opened the door to nearly every branch of government service (military, Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, state and local police …) and then there are the industries that are given access: medical, emergency responders, private security, all manner of government joint task forces against domestic terrorism… all privy to whatever dossier has been accumulated on a person, group, family, church, business, Facebook group, blog sties, blog teams, bloggers…the ability to access without a court order has exploded the government’s files to the size of Big Brother. Maybe you see where I’m going here. I have personally called (I began counting long after I started calling so this is the amount of times I recall and added to the diary I now keep of it) White House to give the President my opinion of how he is doing his job, approximately 343 times, as of today’s call. I may be just run of the mill, but I’m going to guess the Secret Service ‘know me’ … along with the local constabulary. “They” of the black helicopters might be the organizers of the government conspiracy to upload you into their files. Like they did Virginia Cody.

[Virginia Cody -- a retired Air Force officer and anti gas-drilling activist -- was shocked to mistakenly receive a bulletin from the Pennsylvania Homeland Security Director describing the monitoring of several anti-drilling groups. The bulletin revealed that Virginia and other anti-drilling activists who were peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights were included in state "anti-terrorism" reports.

Virgina's story is not unique. Similar law enforcement behavior has taken place in at least 33 states and Washington D.C.] source: National ACLU

Head’s up! [This surveillance activity is not directed solely at suspected terrorists and criminals. It's directed at all of us. Increasingly, the government is engaged in suspicion less surveillance that vacuums up and tracks sensitive information about innocent people. Even more disturbingly, as the government's surveillance powers have grown more intrusive and more powerful, the restrictions on many of those powers have been weakened or eliminated. And this surveillance often takes place in secret, with little or no oversight by the courts, by legislatures, or by the public.] National ACLU

Life is too short to be paranoid about this. However; a word to the wise is happily accepted.

Chaos baby, CHAOS.

2011-08-11T00:10:00.002-04:00

and then on she walks out of our lives and into Chaos.

A good friend passionately wrote today, addressing this very issue in her post, "Riots & The Right" *please read!* She maintains that there is a very good underlying cause for the riots in a class war than any other upset abroad. We are all under this class war status.... and I agree with her. We are being assaulted by the few 'up there' who Have. Their lives revolve in a comfort campaign to make sure we provide them with Having; and for us? We Have Not. There is no denying that there is reason and need for a complete shift in our planetary lifestyle ... the base of it being that this pursuit of comfort and materialism has cost the People of Earth their Home. That's first. All the other injustices fall beneath in a list of atrocity and insanity all for one reason... because somebody with plenty or enough wants MORE. I think the Hackney woman was equating that with her own community / neighbors and dismaying over it.

From London, Laurie Penny brings the equal measure to Diane Gee's intuit @ Wild Wild Left:

{In the scramble to comprehend the riots, every single commentator has opened with a ritual condemnation of the violence, as if it were in any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are ugly occurrences. That much should be obvious to anyone who watched Croydon burn down on the BBC. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, called the disorder 'mindless, mindless'. Nick Clegg denounced it as 'needless, opportunistic theft and violence'. Speaking from his Tuscan holiday villa, Prime Minister David Cameron – who has finally decided to return home to take charge - declared simply that the social unrest searing through the poorest boroughs in the country was "utterly unacceptable." The violence on the streets is being dismissed as ‘pure criminality,’ as the work of a ‘violent minority’, as ‘opportunism.’ This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. In one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart.

Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there. Unquestionably there is far, far more to these riots than the death of Mark Duggan, whose shooting sparked off the unrest on Saturday, when two police cars were set alight after a five-hour vigil at Tottenham police station. A peaceful protest over the death of a man at police hands, in a community where locals have been given every reason to mistrust the forces of law and order, is one sort of political statement. Raiding shops for technology and trainers that cost ten times as much as the benefits you’re no longer entitled to is another. A co-ordinated, viral wave of civil unrest across the poorest boroughs of Britain, with young people coming from across the capital and the country to battle the police, is another.} - read the whole post

The incredibly ugly truth is that the MSM / media is biased and controlled by the plutocrats that disallow anything they feel will awaken the community to nasty reality they provide for them. Generous with repression and poverty, as they are like to be. And a young man questioned in Tottenham responded to the reason for his rioting ... "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

And I am thinking that that's where this stands. Who would pay attention?

Exactly.

OCTOBER 6TH 2011 - Citizen Strike

2011-08-05T13:50:00.000-04:00

It's time to say NO. You'll be hearing this on several blogs and as it approaches on MSM outlets and with any luck, perhaps on Countdown. It's time to say I've had enough. I want the world to revive itself, I hope to EVOLVE as a human being with my community. It's time to say FUCK YOU TO THE CORPORATIONS HOLDING OUR VITALITY AND HAPPINESS HOSTAGE. It's time to gather together and hold Washington DC accountable.

Please watch:

They have taken Tim DeChristopher into on the spot custody and put him away for two years. It's outrageous. It's corporate America, telling you and me that if we DARE to stand up against them, this is the penalty. http://www.peacefuluprising.org/ Tim is a wilderness guide for troubled youth in Utah and environmental activist. He sets the standard. [The government wants to send us a message that we should be afraid; our response must be to show courage. What we see is a corrupt court system that is owned by concentrated corporate power and those who tried to illegally sell land leases to oil companies are not prosecuted. Tim stopped a crime in progress and he goes to jail. This is injustice.

From the Peaceful Uprising statement: "With our heads held high, we continue to stand on the moral high-ground – and will do what’s right, despite the consequences. We are not isolated individuals. We come together with our communities as groups of empowered agents of change who know our system is broken and does not represent us. Our communities represent us, and our vision of a resilient, just, and sustainable world that we are fighting for."

Tim has been a model of courage. Tim's call was for us to stand with him. Let his courage and this injustice make all of us stronger, more persistent, unwilling to give up to injustice.] Kevin Zeese

WE MUST FOLLOW OUR WAY HOME THROUGH THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' WISDOM:

How can we ignore the care of our GrandMothers and GrandFathers who call to us from our ancient past, all of us, and ask us to return to the Earth Mother and give her care? How can we rush headlong into species extinction for the bank accounts of a few old white fucks who care nothing for anyone or anything but themselves?

Cherri Foylin was arrested yesterday for criminal trespass against oil industry murders BP... they took her straight to prison. She has been released, however; she must face what ever charges and fines and court costs the state and big corporate interests see fit to levy against her. It's outrageous! She is peacefully acting to persuade us to act up and make the President and big oil, BP, be held accountable for the murder of the environment, the animal kingdom and now the people of the Gulf states.

THESE ARE AMERICAN HEROS. JOIN THEM. WE MUST.

Some summer tips: ACTIVISM~!

2011-08-03T16:53:00.000-04:00

CREATE A PROTEST:

1. Pick a location, date and time in your town. I’d suggest main street at an intersection with lots of traffic.

2. Tell your friends, family, co-workers and everyone else you know about the protest. Build an rsvp email list so that you can provide quick updates if something changes. You should also create a facebook group so that the group can communicate with one another.

3. Make 5-10 signs with legible slogans that send a clear message to the public and the media. Write in BIG LETTERS.

4. Call your local talk radio hosts and ask them to announce the location, date and time on the air for a few days leading up to the protest. Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper announcing the protest. Email the bloggers in your area and ask them to post a notice about the protest.

5. Write a press release and email, mail and fax copies to the local tv stations, radio stations and newspapers. Call the reporters that cover local events or politics and leave messages on their voice mail.

6. On the day of your protest, show up with your group, be loud, visible, happy and engage the public. Wave your signs, make lots of noise and move around to get attention. If reporters interview you, give them some good sound bytes for their stories. Stay on message and keep your answers short and coherent.

7. Bring sign-in sheets to capture the names, emails and phone numbers of everyone who attends the protest and/or says that they support what you are doing. You will then have a big list of people that can plan the next, much bigger and louder, event. Also bring handouts with one page of quick facts about why you are protesting in the first place.

8. Add your pictures, video and an after-action report to your facebook group, and send this stuff to the bloggers and reporters that you originally contacted. Ask them to post the photos, story and video.

9. Thank everyone who attended via email and phone, and set up a meeting to plan your next event. Now you have a list of people in your community that can help make the next protest huge. Encourage everyone to commit to bring at least one friend to the next protest.

10. Organize a carpool and go find a friend in your neighboring town or county and help them organize a protest there. You and your people are now veterans and should be able to keep the momentum going around your area.

CITIZEN STRIKING.

2011-07-16T20:02:00.000-04:00

Like a dying machine's furious pitch, the spitting fire and cracking into breakdown before our eyes that is Republican politics... astonishingly fascist, tyrannical policies planting the dictum's of disaster capitalism, shrugging off all rights and governmental responsibilities to their respective constituencies in favor of deregulated 'free market trading' or laissez faire economics.... these sparks come to be fires heading swiftly into smoke and ash... regards We The People. Abused and uncertain, common Americans watch it all slack jawed and gaping like bumpkins at the county fair while "conservatives" destroy the foundations of our civil rights: freedom to vote, to gather, to protest and to address injustice, endure a subversion of our capacity to earn and save fair wages or to address by chartered group / union / grievances against the ever neglectful 'corporation' and finally... closets us in FEARS of 'the other' or xenophobic transference to keep us hypnotized with daily survival via their propaganda machine, FOX NEWS.   All a combine of morally deficient greedy guts.
The latest, the National debt ceiling, a dangerously global repercussion is on the horizon. Or so we are scolded... isn't the news like that any more.... hey! come on, the news is on... lets get our daily scolding!

The EU is slipping into dire economic failure swiftly.   Greece has been hit very badly, while Spain, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Italy... France, Germany and the UK are having deep fiscal troubles also.

The thing is, protest and demonstration has become the new job of the jobless. But the larger the damage, whether by element or banking ... the disasters are mounting, globally.
Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" introduced us to the Chicago Economic teacher Milton Friedman and his brand of Free Market advantage via disaster capitalism. Insidious and brazen, Republicans backed by corporatist bastards like the Koch Bros and their political ilk like Karl Rove, are creating a stand off with the Presidential Compromiser whom most, local and global, feel will capitulate to them in the 11th hour. Hasn't he always?
There is a great reckoning coming. Perhaps this debt debacle will even the playing field financially? People do not believe their governments any longer. Corporatist politicians have dominated through conservative leadership placed in crisis and disaster circumstances around the planet. Their political dynamic includes the push towards climate change denial in order to preserve corporation profiteering. Neo-liberalism in EU and American / Canada continues to dominate the political moment. Crisis is a constant "loom on the horizon".

The largest rebellion comes as the ordinary citizen's strike. This time, there won't be people carrying signs demanding that the 'fuckers jump' on Wall Street. They will be carrying pitchforks and hammer handles. The citizens will strike. Because there is no other recourse, after all.

Give yourself some education.

Are you a Medicine Maker?

2011-06-03T22:15:00.001-04:00

Out of a bright sunrise, violet sunbeams flooded the land giving him passage onto Turtle Island and he began walking. He walked across the land through all the elements, his face growing careworn, his raven hair becoming silver white. He walked and walked, his purpose kept alone within his heart. He grew tired and ill, the starlight faded from his eyes, the mirthful smile began to droop. He came upon a village seeking comfort and then care. At the totem of the Hawk he asked for food, but they saw his sickness, became afraid and turned away from him. And so it was from the totems of Badger, Turtle, Wolf and on...until he came to the end of the village, to the totem of the Bear. The old woman cooked a fine smelling stew. Before he could speak she turned and saw him. He looked ill and tired so she asked him, "Would you like some dinner to fill you up?" He told her he would, and asked more of her, "Would you let me stay til I feel better?" The old Bear woman didn't hesitate, she took him in.

In the morning she could see he was worse and she fretted. "Tell me how I can help you?" The Old One smiled within and asked her to go to the wood and retrieve some plant allies to prepare for him. She did as he asked. He watched her prepare the plants and was encouraged to hear her speak to the plant allies, to nurture her preparations, to give care and thanks to them. He watched her movements, heard the prayers she sent, the pictures she made in her Medicine to bring him good health. He smiled openly and accepted the Medicine with humble thanks to her. In the morning when she woke, she came out into her lodge to see how the Old One has passed the night. She was astonished and joyful to find him healed. "You are well! You must be lonely for your family, will you leave me now?" The Old One smiled, his face shone as the starlight returned to his eyes, his hair shinned with a raven black luster in blue and the glow of GrandFather Sun surrounded him. The old woman was stunned, before her stood a beautiful blue Kachina from the Star Nations. And he told her, "When the Nations need healing, they will turn to the clan of the Bear for comfort and restoration. You carry a healing Medicine in your heart and all the Nations will know you for it. I will always be with you, Medicine Maker."

The story talks to us about honoring our hearts' and letting others judge. Seek out the right guidance! I've always found it within myself somewhere... somewhere past the judgment, the fear, the jealousy or the contempt. There is no tool that can substitute for right thoughts and right actions. Kindness, I think, especially now, matter most.

If you can honestly make that Medicine, you can heal anything.

The stunning artwork belongs to beings of such gifts... The masculine images K. Henderson. The Bear Clan Woman to Howard Terpning.

Shall we REMEMBER it ALL?

2011-05-30T11:43:00.000-04:00

*This is a picture of the dead, frozen body of Chief Big Foot at Wounded Knee. This Memorial Day I am mourning the loss of American Indians by the hand of U.S. military leadership. Can we look on ALL of it? They, too, have died in combat, made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, our country. Here is a petition entitled Metals of Dis Honor that addressed the atrocity(s) at Wounded Knee. Please read, click the link and sign? ty, ghb*

Under cover of the night on December 23, a band of 350 people left the Miniconjou village on the Cheyenne River to begin a treacherous 150-mile, week-long trek through the Badlands to reach the Pine Ridge Agency. Although Chief Big Foot was aged and seriously ill with pneumonia, his group traversed the rugged, frozen terrain of the Badlands in order to reach the protection of Chief Red Cloud who had promised them food, shelter, and horses. It is reported that both Big Foot and Red Cloud wanted peace. On December 28, the group was surrounded by Major Samuel M. Whitside and the Seventh Calvary (the old regiment of General George Custer). Big Foots band hoisted a white flag, but the army apprehended the Indians, forcing them to the bank of Wounded Knee Creek. There, four large Hotchkiss cannons had been menacingly situated atop both sides of the valley overlooking the encampment, ready to fire upon the Indians.

A rumor ran through the camp that the Indians were to be deported to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) which had the reputation for its living conditions being far worse than any prison. The Lakotas became panicky, and historians have surmised that if the misunderstanding had been clarified that they were to be taken to a different camp, the entire horrific incident might have been averted.

That evening, Colonel James Forsyth arrived with reinforcements and took over as commander of the operation. The Indians were not allowed to sleep as the soldiers interrogated them through the night. (It has been reported that many of the questions were to determine who among the group had been at Little Bighorn fourteen years earlier. In addition, eyewitnesses claimed that the soldiers had been drinking to celebrate the capture of the ailing Big Foot.)

The soldiers ordered that the Indians be stripped of their weapons, and this further agitated an increasingly tense and serious situation. While the soldiers searched for weapons, a few of the Indians began singing Ghost Dance songs, and one of them (thought to be the medicine man, Yellow Bird, although this is still disputed by historians) threw dirt in a ceremonial act. This action was misunderstood by the soldiers as a sign of imminent hostile aggression, and within moments, a gun discharged. It is believed that the gun of a deaf man, Black Coyote, accidentally fired as soldiers tried to take it from him. Although the inadvertent single shot did not injure anyone, instantaneously the soldiers retaliated by spraying the unarmed Indians with bullets from small arms, as well as the Hotchkiss canons which overlooked the scene.

(Hotchkiss canons are capable of firing two pound explosive shells at a rate of fifty per minute.)

With only their bare hands to fight back, the Indians tried to defend themselves, but the incident deteriorated further into bloody chaos, and the 350 unarmed Indians were outmatched and outnumbered by the nearly 500 U.S. soldiers.

The majority of the massacre fatalities occurred during the initial ten to twenty minutes of the incident, but the firing lasted for several hours as the army chased after those who tried to escape into the nearby ravine. According to recollections by some of the Indian survivors, the soldiers cried out "Remember the Little Bighorn" as they sportingly hunted down those who fled -- evidence to them that the massacre was in revenge of Custers demise at Little Bighorn in 1876.
(Recorded by Santee Sioux, Sid Byrd, from oral histories of several survivors.)

Many of the injured died of exposure in the freezing weather, and several days after the incident the dead were strewn as far as approximately two to five miles away from the original site. By mid-afternoon on December 29, 1890 the indiscriminate slaughter ceased. Nearly three-hundred men (including Chief Big Foot), women, and children -- old and young -- were dead on the frosty banks of Wounded Knee Creek. Twenty-nine soldiers also died in the melee, but it is believed that most of the military causalities were a result of "friendly" crossfire that occurred during the fighting frenzy. Twenty-three soldiers from the Seventh Calvary were later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the slaughter of defenseless Indians at Wounded Knee.

We are asking that these Medals of DIS Honor awarded to the members of the 7th Calvary of the United States Army for the murder of innocent women children and men on that terrible December morning be rescinded.

And that the Battle Pennant on the Flag of the United States Army be removed and destroyed. Please go to this LINK and sign this petition? The name of the petition is \"Remove Wounded Knee Medals of Honor\".

Strickly Speaking, Republicans don't have much class.

2011-05-26T10:57:00.000-04:00

Not that you can tell, anyhow. I was raised to assess character by word and deed, not by the size of a bank account or the gemstones on a woman's (or man's) hand. Republicans seem to put debt incurring stock in those details. Newt Gingrich, John Boehner or as evidenced by Scott Walker with the Koch brother phone call...all easily perform as lackies for the large money, their eyes easily captured by the sparkles Republicans have morphed into the most dangerous political incompetents in the history of our country. A country they are trashing without care for the consequences. They are not alone in it... there are Democrats following this lead in a UNI-Party demonstration whoring to big business; Corporate Earth.

District 26 in upstate New York includes the suburbs of Rochester, where my family's Republican roots still hold. I am the official "nothing dumber than a New York Democrat, young lady" portion of the family. Last night I "WOOOOHOOOed" Erie County Clerk Kathy Huchol's victory over Assemblywoman Jane Corwin with tremendous glee. Here's how she accomplished it:

The press has dubbed it the Medicare Election. [DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “I wholeheartedly congratulate Congresswoman-elect Hochul and her grassroots supporters for their hard work and dedication despite being outspent by a 2-to-1 margin. Tonight’s election result is not just a victory for Congresswoman-elect Kathy Hochul, it’s a victory for the residents of Western New York and for Americans who believe that our elected leaders should fight to protect Medicare and ensure that our government works for our seniors, working families and young people. Kathy’s Republican opponent, and those who spent a small fortune on her behalf in a solidly Republican district, found out the hard way that their extreme plans to abolish Medicare and slash Medicaid and investments in health care, education, innovation and job creation are wrongheaded and unpopular even in a district that should have been a cakewalk for the Republican candidate.] - NY Daily News

This Republican Agenda that the 2010 elections tumbled into play across the country is beginning to show signs of a palpably national buyer's (voters') remorse by the general public. Kansas Rep Pete DeGraaf proposes a dangerous agenda for women especially: [Outrage followed after Kansas state Rep. Pete DeGraaf compared being raped to getting a flat tire. During a House discussion of a bill that will ban insurance companies from covering abortion insurance under general healthcare plans, DeGraaf said women needed to "plan ahead" for being raped and possibly impregnated against their will. From the Associated Press: And Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican who supports abortion rights, questioned whether women would buy abortion-only policies long before they have crisis or unwanted pregnancies or are rape victims. During the House's debate, Rep. Pete DeGraaf, a Mulvane Republican who supports the bill, told her: "We do need to plan ahead, don't we, in life?" Bollier asked him, "And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with a pregnancy?" DeGraaf drew groans of protest from some House members when he responded, "I have spare tire on my car." "I also have life insurance," he added. "I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for." - Jen Phillips at MoJo] You have GOT to be kidding me? A U.S. State Representative actually compared the raping of a woman to getting a flat tire and the need for a woman to be fucking prepared for it? It's quite true, if men carried and gave birth... abortion would be a human right.

Here's another nice little accommodation the Tea Bagging portion of the Republicans has offered; their version of history. Riddled with lies and extravagant 'conservative' ideals for nation building; either Texas or Idaho will be publishing the text books for public schools? How does this happen? Civics is no longer a necessary subject, yet the anniversary week of our Constitution's signing while the public schools teach all about it... the idea is to supply the Tea Bagger version. [The Tea Party Patriots, Georgia-based but claiming 1,000 chapters nationally, are instructing members to remind teachers that a 2004 federal law requires public schools to teach Constitution lessons the week of Sept. 17, commemorating the day the document was signed. And they'd like the teachers to use material from the Malta, Idaho-based National Center for Constitutional Studies, which promotes the Constitution as a divinely-inspired document.] - John Miller, HuffPo

But here's the real shocker; anymore, it's a UNI-PARTY... Republican's and Democrats alike are whoring their votes out to big business; Corporate Earth and leaving their constituency on the side of the road... contemplating rape... classy, right? Take the UniParty applause erupting through Congress for that xenophobic old Jewish state rhetoric... does that just blow you away? That STILL, a state that is peopled by refugees from the most horrific modern genocide, embraces a new atrocity on Palestinians? I know young Jewish activists who live here and there... who are only interested in making it right with Palestinian neighbors and who resent the aging Kinesset and their demands on Israeli youth to give service to violence while repressing a rightfully free People. I think it shameful that more of our Congress doesn't realize this truth.

It's Memorial Day weekend. Here's my suggestion... as all this political calamity sustains itself, resolve to remember those who served and are still serving. I am doing it by claiming through out this weekend....

I AM BRADLEY MANNING.

Hochul beats Corwin in NY-26 (timesunion.com)
GOP Misogyny Watch: Kansas Rep. Compares Rape Pregnancy to Flat Tire (littlegreenfootballs.com)

So this is The End?

2011-05-22T13:02:00.000-04:00

It's remarkably like the culmination of the President's campaign promises... disappointing and empty. Looking around, not so inspiring, is it? Rapture came and went just as it has for hundreds of times in the last 2010 years... and those left standing there with judgement on their faces seem always so convinced that it will be here... just you wait.

Are we going down fighting the good fight? This is my side of the street... look close, that's me banging that old tambourine over there... my everyday job is to be challenging you to see beyond the veil. By the way, can you? On this side of the street, we are saying that it's intermission. We're in the zenith of a cosmic reboot. This is the just a planetary snooze alarm going off, cluing the many who are waiting for the Mothership to arrive and rescue their ass.

Yes, yes, Jesus is coming. But do you think he's pissed? RAPTURE!

Minority Rape.

2011-05-05T12:35:00.053-04:00

Do you remember how you learned what the meaning of the word “minority” was? I remember hearing it a good deal on the nightly news… those last few years of Huntley Brinkley and Walter Cronkite. Minority meant something coming up on the news feed about injustice in the south, or maybe some young Nazi emulator desecrating a synagogue in IL. It most often would refer to a specific geographical territory within a large metropolis or on the very fringes along urban sprawl toward the suburbs. More than a few times, news on minorities focused on how their customs or traditions were standing in the way of progress and how they needed to be ‘educated’ to what was best ‘for the country’. Yeah, keep as cool as you can, man. Minorities were a watch word for who mom would call the “less fortunate”, folks we needed to help out … you know? Get yo’ ass to Junior League or give two years to the Peace Corps kind of work, in ‘my neighborhood’. For my own part, I was always drawn to any of the “minorities” … their lives were rich in the unknown; cultural traditions that I was thirsty to understand. It has, in fact, become my life path, the very foundation of my personal and business life. Thank you Professor Campbell.
So when I begin to remember something about how I learned about “minorities”… it kind of freaks me just a little that now it’s my turn… I’m a “growing” minority. I’m and Irish / German white bread woman whose racial numbers are dwindling in America the Beautiful … and the white men who cling to a vulgar brand of leadership they anchored in my country are very well aware of it.

{Navy SEALs confirmed the death of bin Laden in Pakistan with the now-iconic transmission: "Geronimo EKIA," or "Geronimo, Enemy Killed in Action." But as the Washington Post is reporting, the use of "Geronimo" -- also the name of a legendary 19th century Apache chief -- in connection with the Al Qaeda leader's death has offended Native Americans, who call the decision both painful and insulting.

“I was celebrating that we had gotten this guy and feeling so much a part of America,” Tom Holm, a former Marine, a member of the Creek/Cherokee Nations and a retired professor of American Indian studies at the University of Arizona, said. “And then this ‘Geronimo EKIA’ thing comes up. I just said, ‘Why pick on us?’ Robert E. Lee killed more Americans than Geronimo ever did, and Hitler would seem to be evil personified, but the code name for bin Laden is Geronimo?”

As NPR is reporting, some uncertainty about whether Geronimo was being used as a code name for the mission or for bin Laden himself remains. But many say they are offended by the overall context. "Embedded within it is a message that an Indian warrior, a symbol of Native American survival in the face of racial annihilation, is associated with modern terrorism and the attacks on 9/11," writes Lise Balk King at Indian Country Today. "It equates being Native American with being hated, an enemy to the world, and someone to be hunted down and killed, and re-casts one of their heroes into a villainous role."
Adds Jefferson Keel, president of the National Congress of American Indians, in a statement: "To associate a Native warrior with bin Laden is not an accurate reflection of history and it undermines the military service of Native people. It’s critical that military leaders and operational standards honor the service of those who protect our freedom.” Meanwhile, the leader of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe has gone an additional step by asking for a formal apology from President Barack Obama, according to the Associated Press.} read HuffPo
… it kind of freaks me just a little that now it’s my turn… I’m a “growing” minority. I’m an Irish / German white bread woman whose racial numbers are dwindling in America the Beautiful … and the white men who cling to a vulgar brand of leadership they anchored in my country are very well aware of it.

What made the President allow such a 'code' to used? Insensitive doesn't seem to cover it.
Like Republicans redefining 'rape'... how are they thinking? Over 250 Congress-persons voted today to REDEFINE THE MEANING OF RAPE. This time the govt doesn't pick on the minority, women are the majority. Read this:

In a 251 to 175 vote this evening, 16 anti-choice Democrats joined every House Republican present in passing H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act. A chief weapon in the House GOP’s “comprehensive assault” on women this bill proposes some of the most radical and draconian restrictions on women’s rights. They include:

– Redefinition Of Rape: The bill sponsor Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) faced serious backlash after he tried to narrow the definition rape to “forcible rape.” By narrowing the rape and incest exception in the Hyde Amendment, Smith sought to prevent the following situations from consideration: Women who say no but do not physically fight off the perpetrator, women who are drugged or verbally threatened and raped, and minors impregnated by adults.
Smith promised to remove the language and while it is not technically in the bill, Mother Jones reports that House Republicans used “a sly legislative maneuver” to insert a “backdoor reintroduction” of redefinition language. Essentially, if the bill is challenged in court, judges will look at the congressional committee report to determine intent. The committee report for H.R. 3 says the bill will “not allow the Federal Government to subsidize abortions in cases of statutory rape” — thus excluding statutory rape-related abortions from Medicaid coverage.
– Tax Increase On Women And Small Businesses: H.R. 3 prevents women from using “itemized medical deductions, certain tax-advantaged health care accounts or tax credits included in last year’s health care law to pay for abortions or for health insurance plans that cover abortion.” In doing so, the bill forces women and small businesses that provide health insurance that covers abortion to pay more in taxes than they would otherwise. Both economic conservative Grover Norquist and the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce noted that the bill is basically a tax increase.
– Rape Audits: Because H.R. 3 bans using tax credits or deductions to pay for abortions or insurance, a woman who used such a benefit would have to prove, if audited, that her abortion “fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions.” Essentially, the bill turns Internal Revenue Service agents into “abortion cops” who would force women to give “contemporaneous written documentation” that it was “incest, or rape, or [her] life was in danger” that compelled an abortion.
– Bans D.C.-Funded Abortions: The most recent spending resolution contained a ban on abortions in the District of Columbia by redefining the D.C. local government as the federal government. Thus, health clinics in D.C. are banned from using public funds from D.C. taxpayers to provide abortion services. H.R. 3 “would enshrine the District ban into federal law.” According to the Office of Management and Budget office, such a restriction violates “home rule.” Read at Think Progress

Please email, call or FB your Congressional leader. Women can not allow this kind of repression to take hold again.
Call the White House, (202) 456-1414, let them know you don't understand how President Barack Obama could allow the designation of any thing / project / action to be disrespectful to any MINORITY or Peoples.
Now he ventures into a new league; ASSHOLE.

TODAY I MOURN.

2011-04-20T11:09:00.001-04:00

I MOURN THE GULF OF MEXICO AND ALL WHO OF US WHO LIVE WITH HER.

Father, Mother Ocean are dying.

2011-04-13T10:31:00.001-04:00

FATHER OCEAN: The Obama admin has opened up drilling in the Gulf again. They who and haw about safety regs but they've already gone and given out the permits. It's not just "baby dolphins" that have been washing up on shore... it's embryo's from bottlenosed dolphin mothers. Can you feel that?

(CNN) -- Dead baby bottlenose dolphins are continuing to wash up in record numbers on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and scientists do not know why.

Since February 2010 to April 2011, 406 dolphins were found either stranded or reported dead offshore.

The occurrence has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to designate these deaths as an "unusual mortality event" or UME. The agency defines a UME as a stranding incident that is unexpected or involves a significant loss of any marine mammal population. This is a government LIE. They know exactly what is killing these 'canaries of the sea' (like the canaries of the coal mines who's deaths signal disaster and death to miners). It's the crude oil and the poison the Obama admin ok-ed for use, in direct opposition to the EPA, for the BP "clean up" of the Gulf. What kind of moronic classification is that? Clean up? Fuck you say. Ask the folks in Gulfport MS or the people of Raine LA. How's that BP recovery and recoup going for ya? Better yet, go take a listen: HBM - blogtalkradio last Sunday. NOAA is lying to you because the White House has a 'lights out' on this... when's the last time you heard these bastards talking about the Gulf of Mexico or the People of the Gulf states and the everfucking recovery that BP is supposed to be doing? They ARE NOT. The BP commercials are nothing but lies. I said LIES. The people of the Gulf shoreline state no longer have any faith in the government of the United States or their state. They are especially let down by Barack Obama. A people who have been totaled out by Katrina and then by BP... how do you think they are handling it? Their wetlands, OUR wetlands are decimated and will not recover. They will bloom back up for a short time and then go away... as in never again in generations, ever recover. The oyster beds that generations of Vietnamese families have cultivated are gone. A culture and way of life is gone not just for them... for all of these shoreline families. I said a culture is gone. For profit and greed. Money is more important to the politicians of the United States than the people who preserve it's growth and abundance. You follow me here? We deserve better leaders. The whole planet does...

Please go to:

Get informed. Know the truth. Don't buy the hype. The commercials are LIES.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

MOTHER OCEAN: Fukashima Japan, yeah pretty much the same ole over there too... the government is lying to it's People and the world. Yesterday they came out with a grade 7 past Chernobyl in crisis of nuclear contamination.   WTF did you think was going on?   Think ain't never gonna effect you? Try again.    Residents and business owners forced to leave areas near the Fukushima Daiichi plant protest outside Tepco headquarter for compensation. The company's president, Masataka Shimizu, apologised during a rare public appearance and said he would compensate the tens of thousands of people whose lives have been disrupted by the nuclear emergency. You know, just like BP has promised to do in the Gulf of Mexico and the people of the Gulf states? "Safety officials have raised the severity level of the crisis to a maximum seven – the same as Chernobyl – although the quantities of radiation at Fukushima are one-tenth of those released by the Soviet plant. Government officials have conceded it could take months to bring the reactors under control." The Guardian UK   The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has assured the United Nations (UN) that the Japan government's jump in nuclear crisis rating from Level 5 to 7 does not mean the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant has worsen, the department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said today.
The DFA said that according to the Philippine Permanent Mission to the UN in Vienna, the IAEA briefed diplomatic missions yesterday and assured them that the raising of the severity level of the crisis at the Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima "does not imply that the situation has become graver now compared to the days immediately following the accident."
"It simply implies that there is more information now available to the Japanese authorities on the amount of radioactive release (owing to the more systematic monitoring in place) to enable it to make an assessment of the appropriate provisional rating," the DFA said.
We are being lied to.   The profiteers and leadership of serveral nations are out right lying to the public. They have always done this when crisis and emergency expands beyond their scope of how to contain the eventual destruction of it.
I feel like Vincent Gardenia in Moonstruck saying to Danny Aiello, "you should have eyes opened for you my friend".   Because folks.... it's bad out there. Both major bodies of life giving sustenance for the entire circle of life on the planet are now at risk. And collectively, our leaders are trying to keep our heads buried safely in the sand!

There is no denying that we have a dependency on crude oil - the fuel and product it has given us. We absolutely must NOW become independent of it. Develop new product that is necessary to replace the plastics that have given us such life sustaining and technological progress. We already have what we need to begin using sustainable / Green energy... any country or leadership telling us otherwise is a corporate hack or whore.

Japan is melting out of our consciousness.

2011-03-27T14:04:00.000-04:00

This information, that Fukushima is 10 million times more radiated, is now being disavowed by Japan. I will keep writing this: I think we are being lied to! On the 26th, the fist signs of radioactive traces were found in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Thursday, China's nuclear authorities said on Saturday.An infinitesimal amount of radioactive iodine-131 was detected in the atmosphere in northeast Heilongjiang Province. After conducting tests, China's National Nuclear Emergency Coordination Committee (CNNECC) confirmed on Saturday that the radioactive material was from the Fukushima plant.

In an extraordinarily similar or even corporate SOP fashion, just as after the first two weeks of the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill began to degrade in the national conscious, so too, Fukushima and Japan fades into a backdrop of war, politics and the urgency of money over the urgency of care for the Japanese people and Earth Mother. Shame. Shame. Shame. Japan is melting out of our consciousness and into the sea; quite literally.

On March 19, CNN reported that spinach and milk (for babies) 65 miles away from the melting reactors were found to be contaminated. On March 21, the Japanese plant caught fire and workers had to be evacuated since the grayish smoke is full of plutonium, which they now admit using in their reactors. And “one particle of airborne plutonium can cause cancer.” March 24, The tap water of Tokeo, population 12.9 million, is now unsafe for pregnant women, babies and children. March 25, According to an international scientific group monitoring radiation around the world, the Fukushima reactors are emitting nuclear toxins at levels approaching those seen in the “aftermath” of Chernobyl. Chernobyl had 180 tonnes of nuclear fuel on site. Fukushima has 1700 tonnes of nuclear fuel on site. The Chernobyl reactor spewed out at least eight tons of radioactive poison, about 200 times more radioactivity than was released at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By some estimates, its fallout surpassed the total released by all nuclear weapons tests up until April 19966. www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18223691.html . (At this rate, war mongers peopling our governments could point to nuclear holocaust as more humane, the every fucking carrion profiteering bastards!)

Representing in Des Moines this weekend, a line up of hate, fear, war mongery crouched in "national economic remedies / policies" and consumptive stupidity brayed forth in Tea Baggery and Rethugery. The real problems of world gone mad and the fate of the national community / common citizen was ignored in rehtoric and vitriol among some scrappy promises to make your take home pay larger through the destruction of Unions and to rid you of the immigrants that mean to ruin the "American way". Xenophobia is the hook with those who are called in this direction ... don't cha think? Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour delivered an all-out focus on economic policy and a point-by-point attack on the policies of the Obama administration. In his southern drawl, he lashed at the Democratic administration for growing government at the expense of the private sector. * Funny, it looks like Obama has been doing very very well by corporate America! * U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota issued a populist call for conservatives to rise up in 2012 and reverse Obama’s economic and social policies. “Don’t look to Steve King,” Bachmann said, referring to the Iowa congressman and House ally who hosted the daylong forum. “The preservation of our liberty is far too precious to entrust to any mere politician.” The forum was held by Rep. Steve King, the would be McCarthy of the new age. And what of the Obama policies for energy resources? "Clean" coal mining (after some of the worst coal mining disasters in a century taking place in this administration), oil drilling (with the BP fiasco still smoldering over 36 permits were issued in the last month to begin drilling anew in our dying Gulf of Mexico; the first was issued to BP! This would be the audacity of being a corporate hack, for the President.), natural gas mining ala fracking... the very dangerous and polluting process preferred by corporate mining companies now and (as Obama's heavy contributors would have it) nuclear power reactors! It's not cleaner... it's
fucking insanity~!

Chernobyl Survivor Natalia Manzurova, a nuclear plant engineer, one of the few survivors of the 800,000 involved in the cleanup of the 1988 Chernobyl catastrophe. She said, “The first symptom of radiation poisoning is feeling like I had the flu, then high temperatures and shivering. After suffering from a thyroid removal, sky high blood pressure, and epileptic like fits, the doctors called me crazy and wanted to put me in a psychiatric ward, but finally admitted it was from radiation.”
“It’s Nuclear Slavery.”
That is why she advised the Japanese to “Run away as quickly as possible. Don’t wait. Save yourself and don’t rely on government lies. They don’t want you to know the truth and are so powerful that executives aren’t accountable to the cleanup crews, finding ways to strip us all of benefits. It’s nuclear slavery. Because radiation stays in animals’ fur and can’t be cleaned, the 100,000 evacuees cried as they were forced to abandon their pets that all turned into dried-out mummies.”

What are you thinking about? Permaculture? Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that are modeled on the relationships found in natural ecologies. Sustainability? Sustainable development (SD) is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come (sometimes taught as ELF-Environment, Local people, Future). The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Japan is melting into the sea.

i like the video

2011-03-18T00:16:00.000-04:00

don't know if I'll subscribe to the magazine. but I sure like the feel of it...

If you're the praying kind.....

2011-03-07T12:45:00.000-05:00

Fat Tuesday~! Hey hey hey! Once in college, with old friends, we had a Winnebago where we watched Paul McCartney and Wings play in Lafette Park and we drank and drank and ate and drank and ate… and we went to the PARRRRRTAY~!

There is a wonderful series on HBO called Treme. It chronicles the syrupy slow ever taking recovery of culture and community in New Orleans since… well, you know since when.

In N’awleans having the properly made Sazerac cocktail is perfect prayer to the gods of Carnival.

[It is said that this drink was invented by Antoine Amadie Peychaud, a Creole apothecary who moved to New Orleans from the West Indies and set up shop in the French Quarter in the early part of the 19th Century. He dispensed a proprietary mix of aromatic bitters from an old family recipe, to relieve the ails of his clients (Peychaud's Bitters are still made in New Orleans and sold today, and are an essential component of any truly complete bar), and around the 1830s he became famous for a toddy he made for his friends. It consisted of French brandy mixed with his secret blend of bitters, a splash of water and a bit of sugar. According to legend he served his drink in the large end of an egg cup that was called a coquetier in French, and some say that the Americanized pronunciation of this as "cocktail" gave this type of drink its name.]

Up the McMillian~!
During the all influencing jamboree of joyful noise and bright plumage, everywhere the prayers are well sung, well ate, well drunk.

Tomorrow is FAT Tuesday! Cheers, NOLA~!

Pray me a good time! Says I. We sho' do need us some!
{And a prayer to the gods of the deep to heal the Gulf of Mexico.}

I wouldn't know what to do...

2011-02-16T08:46:00.000-05:00

If you removed my liberty to boycott, divest or sanction corporations, politicians (including certain unethical or just plain wrong laws), states or cities (including counties or territories) and more than once a public program or public institution... (whoa boy! rah rah rah be true to your school demonstrating colalition) well, gee, I guess I wouldn't feel very American any longer. It would cancel my Human Rights... and that's NOT American. Better yet, the tactics of the boycott, the presence of demonstration to compliment it's reasons, the sanctioning of other entities or peoples who do not boycott, or dumping any fiscal ties to the marketplace through stocks or other paper properties is my right.

Palestine has made good use of the BDS movement in order to heighten awareness within Israel to the plight they linger in. It is disappointing, in the least, to stumble on the latest Knesset bill that would criminalize this kind of political messaging / action by making folks who choose to descent in favor of Palestine's needs, criminals for doing so. It would seem Democracy in Israel is more of a fantasy than any kind of reality. With the whole international neighborhood anxious to bedrock Democracy as the leadership standard of the territory, why the hell would Israel do such a thing at this particular moment? It begs a question concerning the national authenticity of liberty and equality. Obviously Israel is burying its' head in the sands and hoping for a better outcome on 'home turf' than civil liberty and equality... but I guess we've been clued to this for ... well, forever! The BDS movement is challenging the Israeli status quo concerning the Two State remedy and primary issue of a Palestinian homeland. But! it's not just the question of the Palestinian homeland here.... it's about dissent in the Jewish homeland. What American can actually think that the Jewish homeland would put a cap on dissent? It's like the world had gone upsidedown! Combine that with the New York Jewish community's hedging alongside rightwingnuts in NYC over the Islamic Community Center AKA Park 51 center, well, I'm confused! Liberalism here and over there is pretty Jewish! (that's just a way of saying how important liberalism has been within the global Jewish community). And now, Israel is about to demonstrate how the occupation and suppression of Palestine is more vital than the Democracy of the state? I'm thinking that it's time to email or call the consulate and let them know, politely, how you feel .... myself, I'm so disappointed in the Jewish state. I've always thought / experienced better. The aged Knesset has outlived the growing and changing (very swiftly) world around them. Living and dying in fear is the strategy of the old, the outworn, the used up. There is a youth movement in Israel tired of being designated as soldier citizens, expected to yield their values, ethics and life for old, tired fears of the neighbors. They've made friends there. The old farts don't know how to bend like a willow. The youth yearns to.

Israeli Consulate Washington DC for contact click here!

Israel should join the new reality of world diplomacy

Who wants to deal with the peace process or dismantling settlements when the entire world is holding its head, uncertain how to act in the face of these budding democracies?

Haaretz Editorial

The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the demonstrations in Iran and Bahrain and the general feeling of an earthquake rumbling across the Middle East have thus far conferred a sense of deliverance on Israel, as it has managed to escape the spotlight. After all, who wants to deal with the peace process, dismantling settlements, marking the border between Israel and Palestine or defining security arrangements when the entire world is holding its head, uncertain how to act in the face of these budding democracies?
The government's characteristic policy of "We lived through Pharaoh, we'll live through this too" has once again been pulled out of the drawer. Yet the shock waves in the Middle East actually obligate us to quickly rev up our strategic thinking. For those same Arab publics that succeeded in ousting two dictators, and have not yet uttered their last word, will eventually demand that their new governments pursue a vigorous foreign policy - or in other words, reexamine their relationship with Israel.
(read the rest here)

SOLD OUT ~!

2011-02-07T17:04:00.001-05:00

Huffington Post creator Arianna Huffington has sold the Huffington Post online to AOL.

AOL has been nothing more than an account trap for millions. Savvy web surfers and techies discovered years ago how AOL attached all accounts with teeny tiny little robo attachements made for leaving a trail to who what and where concerning your online activities. AOL has guided online account activities into whatever search engines, sites or companies they have obligations to or business deals with. The robo's attached to your login are notoriously well known for steering your INFORMATION ACCESS / DOWNLOAD when you use AOL as your server ....

and now;

Arianna Huffington has chosen to tythe herself and her awesome free flow news access way of left leaning composure to these profit driven asshats?

The consistent commentary at HuffPo on this article is "there goes the neighborhood"... and it's apt. To be suspicious that Huffington has taken one large media integrity step backwards would probably be inaccurate, though. I think it's more like three giant steps to the RIGHT....into a present day "engulf & devour" corporate entity. Today as the news broke through other media resources, CBS referred to HuffPo as liberal, ABC referred to HuffPo as a liberal blog while NBC simply produced the term "online news site"...

{On Good Morning America, news reader JuJu Chang referred to The Huffington Post as a "top-ten news site" but accurately described it as being "co-founded by liberal commentator Arianna Huffington." The Early Show's Jeff Glor did not label the blog a news site at all and was the most direct in pointing out its ideological slant: "Huffington Post, a left-leaning site, was founded in 2005."
None of the network morning shows devoted more than one or two news briefs to the media deal and none suggested anything controversial about a left-wing activist like Arianna Huffington being put in charge of all AOL News content. Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2011/02/07/nbcs-today-leaves-out-liberal-label-huffington-post-aol-buyout-coverag#ixzz1DJNdQoKH }

Arianna Huffington will become overseer of all AOL content, in the deal. I don't doubt that Arianna H. is a liberal minded woman with strongly ethical journalistic intentions... and who knows, we might see a new Keith Olbermann presence in this forest of letters and commercials. But spot on vision says it's a "sell out" and the liberal community's viaduct of free flowing aggregation news is being fitted for a valve closure. When we consider the amount of usurpage and raiding going on presently by the corporate right wing... well, it's damn difficult to consider this as anything less than mutual power thrust and grab. $315million would turn my head too. But I think she a damn smart woman. I think she might have made a deal she feels does not usurp the integrity of journalistic ethics... THE TRUTH... with AOL.

So the question is;

has she been duped and is she that naive?

Does she know exactly what she's doing?

Stay tuned, eh?

Witnessing authentic HOPE & CHANGE

2011-01-28T10:16:00.000-05:00

Listen!

We are witnessing revolution by blog and social network in it's infancy. Mark it; like my friend Krell said, it's going to happen (was it only a few months ago?) and here IT is. Our Middle Eastern neighbors are doing their best to reflect to us, the pretenders of hope and change, the true meaning of HOPE & CHANGE... witness the persistence of David over Goliath: Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and now, perhaps even a beautiful dream of justice coming around to Israel. Gathering as David in the person of the combined populations to bring down Goliath in the persona of unjust and corrupt regiemes / governments / theocracies.

• Mohamed ElBaradei, one of Hosni Mubarak's fiercest critics and a former UN weapons inspector, has been detained after appearing on the streets in Cairo. Before he was detained ElBaradei claimed that Mubarak's regime was on its "last legs".

• Riot police fired teargas, water cannon and sound bombs to disperse protesters immediately after Friday prayers in Cairo. Teargas was also used in Alexandria. There are reports that a journalist from al-Jazeera and one from the BBC have been injured in the violence.

• The regime has closed down internet access and several mobile phone networks in an apparent attempt to prevent protesters mobilising. The UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon, human rights campaigners have condemned the censorship. WikiLeaks has released a new batch of secret US embassy cables that detail police brutality in Egypt.

11.32am: My colleague Simon Jeffery is currently going through the Wikileaks Egypt cables on his Wikileaks blog.

TWEET EGYPT.

Laissez-faire: The American Politic Placebo

2011-01-26T14:16:00.000-05:00

In his address, the President shifted from mid right to mid left so often I had to grab the deck in order not to be seasick. SOTU is, when all is said and nothing done, a speech about suggestions for use. Not any real policy changes or legislation. Reduction in spending suggestion. Placating the populace and the Right (did it?) ... look at a poll. That will tell about the next 24 hour collective mindset. The encouragement of innovation is admirable; with what money? Where ya gonna borrow it? No innovation for small start ups! Where ya gonna get the back up? Nice suggestion. Investments in clean energy and education? Who's zoomin' who here? Republicans are running a campaign on divesting 'clean energy' via cap and trade or green industry that cuts into the profits of those who are paying their campaign expenses and retirement funds. President Obama has been crystal clear with climate control and environmental policy... where ever the corporate sponsor wants him__ has been the standard set. Can you say COPENHAGEN? Another suggestion. This was all about showing equal pander to what is euphemistically called 'bi-partisan support'. And WHAT is clean coal? Are you kidding me.... these are so many campaign buzzwords to appease "liberals" while he panders politically / corporately to the right. Nuclear, natural gas (with it's fracking fast mining techniques) and coal ARE NOT CLEAN RESOURCES OF ENERGY. They only serve the profits of the corporate American plutocracy. And PAY TEACHERS FOR THEIR TRUE VALUE!

The very first thing that kept sticking me in the ribs, pushing at me; it's been a couple of weeks since an attempted assassination in Tucson and he's not jumping all over gun control??!! I kept waiting for it. When it didn't arrive I thought to myself, well gee, I guess he just used up the great PR of the terrible event and blithely went on his merry political way... didn't he? That's what I got from that one... he got his 'game' back!

Ditto with the lack of a word on the southeast and BP and the overall climate situation globally. Not a word. Not a fucking word for species extinction or the killing of the Gulf of Mexico and the horrendous aftermath beginning to manifest as devastating health issues swelling up along the coastlines of MS, LA, FL, AL. Unforgivable of him not to at least cast a little piece of 'gee it was a sorry event but o well' sort of nod... don't you think?

People are shocked and frightened by the incidents of bird, sea life, animal rising numbers of mass death across the planet while Catfish addresses the Gulf Horizon panel as they close it up without any real conclusions or responsibilities to place; still the President had nothing to offer us on the state of the global climate / environmental crisis. And CNN "POLLS" a positive response to SOTU? But the truth of 'polls' is, they don't really go no where, and they don't linger very long. For Americans to generally be so UNINFORMED... is a disgrace. Like the lack of critical thinking skills in our last two gens of college grads; we are sinking into "third world" status. To stand in front of us and propose educational progress without the expectation of implementing it is in the least ersatz commitment. A build up to campaigning... Obama is providing steerage of the 'ship of state'? Like the captain of the Exxon Valdez!

Immigration reform?? Let me tell you where I live; I live at corners of Papers Please X 3 and IF U AIN'T WHITE UR OUTA HERE! South Florida is perched at the edge of a politically edgy and probably violent contest to legislate a tougher SB10-70 law.

[BTW, those kids carrying the signs are from the Lake Worth / Nightheron Activist Center crowd including Amirah and CiCi! ~ TY!]

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles: "Although briefly urging congress to ‘take on, once and for all’ immigration reform, the President missed a golden opportunity to elaborate on how he will work on legalizing immigrants rather than deporting them, how he will protect immigrants and their U.S. born children against a flurry of anti-immigrant legislation at the federal and state levels, or how he will use any and all executive powers to help immigrant integration."

Ultimately what we heard on immigration was more of the same ole same ole from this President, dodging the ongoing crisis with a soft soap of 'if they are educated'. How genuine is that? He takes the populace for Faux News air heads? Hey, if you get an education, we want you! - For the 'left'. To hell with you if you don't have a green card! - For the right. No ballast port or starboard... plenty of rocking the boat.

[Other missing words: "unemployment," "unemployment insurance," "foreclosure crisis," "poverty," "financial fraud," "prosecutions." There's nothing about bank credit. The victims of the economic crisis have become invisible, it would seem.] - James Galbraith @ HuffPo
[President Obama said Tuesday night that "Americans’ paychecks are a little bigger today" thanks to December's tax cuts package.
But not everybody's paychecks are bigger. For the roughly 50 million workers who earn less than $20,000, the tax cut deal actually means smaller paychecks. That's because as part of the deal, the Making Work Pay tax credit was allowed to expire, and it was replaced with a temporary reduction in the Social Security payroll tax.] - Arthur Delaney

Somewhere this week someone said to me that it 'was about as exciting as watching a bathtub dry' ... and I think this SOTU is perfectly described as such. I mean, folks, are you watching and listening to what is happening around you, just in your community? Privatizing first responders; you know, if you don't pay for it directly... you house burns down or your mama gets murdered?...and prison systems is the GOP solution to that state cost bearing down on crippled communities. Sweet shit~!

And in the midst of this ongoing catastrophe of "leadership" we loose, for however long, the strongest media voice for liberal ethics and values we have, Keith Olbermann. These are challenging and interesting times. Keith tweets:

@KeithOlbermann Keith Olbermann 8:02P
Tonight's Final Score: Obama 22 Ryan 1 Bachmann -11,746. The Larry Sanders Show is next on IFC. No flipping. Seacrest Out
@KeithOlbermann Keith Olbermann 8:00P
@Blue5A91 She gave her speech while looking off to the right of the camera
@KeithOlbermann Keith Olbermann 7:59P
I haven't see...n anything like that since Alan Keyes' old tv show where he would look left and right, even though there was no audience
(I missed Bachmann's speech. Where was it shown?)

Restructuring the government? It's not the government structure; it's the people filling the seats of government that is the problem! Talk about a no-brainer! It's another patented Obama goal orchestrated speech designed as political slight of hand rainmaker for 'feeling groovy'.
Do you feel it? Just don't dream it's over....

Note: The phrase laissez-faire is French and literally means "let do", but it broadly implies "let it be", or "leave it alone." There ain't no motion in this ocean... is there? Meaning re: the post, same ole same ole.

The lie of political COMPROMISE.

2011-01-23T12:32:00.000-05:00

Really… the Bush Tax Cuts? Did you buy into that? If you did, pull your head out of your ass!

More deregulation is on the White House state of mind. While HCR is on repeal legally in six states (including FL), growing the economy through the old GOP remedy in planet destroying deregulation of such “energy independence making” industries as oil drilling, coal mining and natural gas fracking processes are on the re-election agenda for this right of center President. His ‘grassroots’ campaign to be elected was one of the most brilliant political tent shows’ in modern history… all of his Yes We Can’s were merely a means to an end to herd those drained and dispossessed by the Bush-Cheney catastrophe into the voting booth again while youth genuinely clung to the promises of Hope and Change. Tune into the Sunday morning rhetoric of Joe Lieberman to understand the completeness of betrayal to the original “grassroots” contingency who elected Obama to the White House and then drearily sat out the last election. Your Social Security is on the table… and ‘blue dogs’ (you know, the ones with their collective head up their ass?) who claim to be progressive, pooh poohing the notion that Obama won’t give up Social Security any more than he would Medicaid need to take a long look… Obama gave up Medicaid / Medicare with the gush of insular corporate medical insurance industry profits to be had through the HCR bill. [The truth on that is that is whether it is repealed or put into effect, HCR bill on either side makes huge money for medical insurance companies and pharma industry. Take a peek at the rising insurance rates!] The GOP move to “repeal” HCR is a political saber rattling exercise to keep a ‘base’ of ignorant, white, mainly Christian racist trash from screaming that the Rethugs aren’t doing enough to get Obama out of the White House. Tea Party or no, the nickels and dimes from those poor, dwindling middle class fear mongers account for 35% of GOP platform election funds. Something lacking since the tenure of Michael Steele. Wonder why? Keep in mind, too, that this is first time that Obama has had respectable "poll" numbers across the board with both Republicans and Democrats in collective response to his speech in Tucson. As numbers go, this is a fluke… one the President who wants to be re-elected is anxious to keep trending. If anyone thinks that these numbers have anything to do with ‘compromise’ among the Republicans… the results will wilt quick enough to genuinely reflect what People are worried about: true leadership… for instance __ loosing their homes, seeing the 'new homeless' with their children on the streets of large and small towns or cities....farms failing from crop manipulations for over 60 years! Have you watched the rising prices of groceries? It's not the fuel costs as it is the lost resources and the gov fix is Monsanto. The Gulf of Mexico has lost vitality in over 76% of bathos and that has shifted the patterns of the Gulf Stream thereby shifting weather patterns thereby creating greater need for fuel in western EU thereby... do you see where I'm going here? It's not just Faux News lying to you.... Obama is lying to you. Congress, those who know, those who suspect, those who are complicit, they are lying to us and to the world. No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I've just employed common sense as I've watched the state of the world. Fuck the State of the Union. The globe is screaming HELP.

Can I get a YES WE CAN?

The Congressional argument that JOBS JOBS JOBS are the way to win the nation… the President appoints the ex CEO of GE, a corporate hack whose reputation for centralizing and perfecting the outsourcing of jobs to third world industrial profit making destinations defies belief.

Is America fucking stupid?

Not stupid actually; afraid.

AFRAID, and all trained up to be! Corporate media disallows the truth; it uses information on a 24/7 cycle to push an agenda of consumerism, conformity to one flavor or another that is subsidized by them and to hear exactly what they want to be heard. To keep the numbers fluctuating and people against one another. I point to the non conforming integrity for truth represented by Keith Olbermann and his exit the very instant GE succumbed to Comcast. Rachel Maddow has been blue dogging for the White House for the last three months. One hopes that this is just a passing dalliance?

Take a look around. The planet Earth is in a state of decomposition. The natural elements, the voice of the planet, are screaming at us! Still, corporate profiteering takes precedence over any other consideration, most especially human or animal life. That’s the cost of Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheist “belief” structures… placing the significance of the Self into an outside ‘power’, a one eyed sky goblin who condemns and roasts’ your everlasting soul with this resolute war leadership mentality. This kind of sociology … crowd control has been working well for the upper tier of profiting western society … a small pack of alpha personalities, in an often persterpies hierarchy for all of 'published' history.

YES WE CAN

-Listen to WikiLeaks and shift the population / general knowledge.

-Search out credible media in social networks, linked blogs & rebuke mainstream lies.

-Develop our conversations... social networks provide us with the tools for gathering and forming or finding like minded groups to share resources and invite demonstration: boycotting

protest

email campaigns to leadership.

-Support peaceful dissent.

-Reach out across borders!

-Take whatever environmental action you are capable of.

-Stand up for your ideals and say what you think, who you support and why, peacefully.

Instead of just pounding out keys and bitching about how it's going or not, taking some responsibility by taking what actions we might according to our own specific ethics and values is called for.

There is hope and there is change.

It just hasn't been where we expected it.

And that can be an adventure... exciting!

We are capable of creating a healthy planet. Or choosing not murder one another.

Imagine that. Right?

My Hero.

2011-01-22T12:45:00.000-05:00

[At the end of his Aug. 30, 2006 show, Olbermann looked directly into the camera and spoke: "The man who sees absolutes where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning is either a prophet or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet." His blistering takedown of the defense secretary was a viral sensation. Millions of liberals were equally exasperated with the Bush administration; but few could express themselves as exquisitely and powerfully as Olbermann. They asked for more, and Olbermann gladly gave it to them; over the next few years, there would be dozens of “special comments,” each delivered in the same dramatic style.] - By Steve Kornacki
And KO has gone on, undaunted by threats of being fired or the threats against his life or the threats of having to listen to the endless decay from political banking substructure engulfing and devouring our liberty and our political vitality.... he will be back, I'm sure. It's going to lonely without him during the intermediate moments.

This kind of integrity and sincerity has been thrown over by Corporate America. Comcast. GE.

Colorless purple ideas sleep furiously.

2011-01-16T15:29:00.000-05:00

Don't they just?

In 1957 Norm Chomsky wrote that nonsensical sentence to illustrate a non viable, meaningless structure of words summing up not a damn thing. [I exchanged the color from green to purple with respect for Christina Green.] I introduce you to Sarah Palin, the "dummies/dummy" that all those For Dummies books apply to. And still, odds are, she doesn't 'get it'. Listening to Palin is often an exercise in the game of cadavre exquis, the old talent seeker for nonsensical sentence structuring! Norm Chomsky was not the first to toy with words into twists and dead ends. But Sistah Sarah, she has an off the cuff talent for it. Her most equivocal words to date refer to our "hopey changey" state of mind. Mostly she's a blowhole without any contextual (backup) information... take for terrible instance her rebuke of the sniper scopes over Democratic politicians on her website map of who to remove from office in the mid term elections. She stayed silent about the atrocity committed against Gabriele Gifford for days! Congresswoman Gifford had brought to bear the imagery that Ms. Palin employed with the sniper scope / targeting herself in the media, telling the country that there were 'costs' for such vitriol and image violence / the suggestion of violence as political remedy. And now we know how prophetic her observation was. When Caribou Barbie did speak out, it was with self absorbtion during a time of national wounding that requires it's leaders to encourage healing and forgiveness. Sarah Palin only gave us an 8 minute rant on why she wasn't to blame and then incredibly! she used a term shameful to any really conscious individual implying that the ancient slander against Jews has some term in all of this.... a racist slander that accuses Jews of using the blood of Christian babies to make their food. What the FUCK is wrong with this woman? And how in the world can a thinking individual think her even close to having a point to make other than horrible defamation and an unthinkable self servitude? HOW? To use such a term while a Jewish Congresswoman lays silent from the political remedy she intimated? We must quit feeding her media oxygen.... her addiction suggests killing good people (politically) and children get in the way. Shameful!

The Republicans, by and large, through this whole week, take no real responsibility for the words they have flung into the tempest.... while on the other hand,

kindness, the idea of forgiveness and noble attempt to LISTEN TO EACH OTHER sprung from the most Liberal sources....

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Tucson

2011-01-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

Funny how close we come... there is that 6 degree separation standard. It's dropped you know; it's down to 4 degrees. I read a great post today from the MacGreggor's over at SYNCHRONICITY that recounts Jane Robert's books of 'Seth Speaks' ... one on mass events, "The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events". Here's a personal epiphany; every time I'm reminded of the channeling breakthroughs of Jane Roberts... I'm dumbstruck by the fact that as she was doing it, and I was studying parapsychology up on Ithaca Hill, I drove right by her lonesome house off Rt. 14a in Elmira New York on my way to school. Daily. For years... the years she worked on her books. 6 degrees of subtle separation, for sure. But still, I drove through the resonance of her stunning work the energies and spirits infused within it every day for a long time. So Seth spoke about the effect of mass events on the individual. How they are bound to imprint us with time and place, who we are at the time it happens. How we behave. A unique group polarization process happens. It completely changes our reality. It has become just that. Through global consciousness... instant knowing, instant change.

Arizona... a state that has become polarized by events triggered in political vitriol and has taken the lives of folks waiting on transplants, folks who marginalized by a new kind of papers please racism.... "The death panels that Sara Palin and her ilk screamed about during the health care debate last year (they’re going to kill your grandmother!) are a reality now in Arizona--but not because of 'Obama-care.' Already, two of the hundred individuals who need these transplants have died."
Tucson is my favorite AZ town.
Tears.
This man was / is my hero, still. I think as much of his son. And as he said; today is not a day for politics. It is through walking into the darkness to define the Light for himself that Bobby Kennedy learned such compassionate wisdom. I dream of a world with Christina Green alive in it.

here's to ANONYMOUS~~

2011-01-03T15:40:00.000-05:00

Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.

When you observe the world around you, do you just look up or do you seek more information... do you get up and look outside your door? How do you 'see' your world? Is it the quiet neighborhood or throbbing bedlam of a great metropolis? A country far away? Is your world the one where your loved ones are? Do you include your online world, the very personal forum of where you go for your cyber-social? Do you browse the internet for the information? There are so many variables in what we perceive as our world and these descriptions do reveal information through our contributions... our ideas, values and morals tell who we are. Information is the currency of the future. How's yours holding up? Life on planet Earth left 'simple' in the dust at the advent of industrialization. Look where we are now!

I'm talking about integrity and personal commitments in living our lives... yeah, as we know it. How do you walk? Are you kind? Are you honest? Are you concerned about your neighbor? Do you value your community? You know, those are the questions I come up with when I begin to try to define myself. It's what I notice about my friends, local folks, politicians, the baker, the grocer, .... my community, too. And that includes my community online, my cyber-society. How would you describe yours? It all comes to bear on our idea of ourselves and what we might be doing here on planet Earth, like ....
Why was I born? Where did I really come from? Do I have a higher purpose? Who or what guides my higher purpose? You know, that' hopey / changey stuff. The stuff of cosmology and ethics. Purpose. Cause. Physics... you follow where I'm going? Sure you do. What kind of difference do you make in the world... as you see it?
What is the form and function of who you are?

Who is "Anonymous"? There is a good deal of discussion concerning them, and clearing up the distinctions of who is and isn't the Anonymous loosely affiliated group of hackers online supporting Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is important. The origins:

[Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is a term used in two senses. As an Internet meme it represents the concept of many on-line community users, or the on-line community itself, acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal. It is also a label adopted by anarchistic amalgamations of hacktivists who undertake protests and other actions under the notional title "Anonymous," which derives from the same meme. It is generally considered to be a blanket term for members of certain Internet subcultures.^[1]]

That's a Wikipedia first paragraph. Look, here's the groundbreaking, innovative, evolving nature of this online cadre', they individually take it upon themselves to 'do little chores' via the internet in the name of Anonymous for a variety of different 'causes'. The truth is, you don't know WHO is a cadre member... hell, you could very well be reading the words one of them has written! They do their 'good works or deeds' anonymously save the attribution to the cadre.   I'm convinced that the use of Anon is a re-catchphrase for anarchist.

Recently they have been busy bees keeping the coinage currency funneling into WikiLeaks for Julian Assange and his project. They have done other deeds ... too. Other than shutting down the likes of Amazon, MasterCard, Paypal, individual Senators and Congresspeople... chutzpa! Eh? During the holiday season of '06 these individual shut down the site and radio show of Hal Turner! ROLF!!! Mr. Turner didn't seem to have a supreme white solution for Anon. They cost him loads of $. The very thing Mr. Turner worships most highly. Anon has been accused of being 'internet vigilantes'... but as fan of more than one "Vigilante" I can only praise them for their targets... the likes of Chris Forcand, in Canada. Online child abusers and pedophiles are high on the Anonymous targeting list. There is their famous ongoing project to destroy Scientology called "Project Chanology":

The idea that a collective online Guy Fawlkes can make the difference enabling INFORMATION might have never occurred the collective 2% of Profiteering Corporate Greed globally, but it's a primary source of worry for them now. Governments are just the tools of these gossamer CEO's / banksters and the tools are being sharpened for cutting off Anonymous, WikiLeaks and any other organization dedicated to making more socialized changes in the global course of the planet... a large monkey wrench in 2%'s plans.
Like Mr. Assange's intentions, for all the glory hounding and vanity he displays, the Anonymous 'message' is about caring for the masses. As in We The People kind of masses. Anon has ensured mass demonstrations in 98 cities across the globe in the last three years. That's making a difference! Many netroots among these masked folks. Now, not all clean and without blemish, Anonymous has been accused of several nasty online tricks.... they in turn, volley it back into Scientology's court with the claim that they are returning fire for the protests against Church of Scientology. Like the online attack of Epilepsy Foundation...
Following allegations of vote rigging after the results of the June 2009 Iranian presidential election were announced, declaring Iran's incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner, thousands of Iranians participated in demonstrations. Anonymous, together with The Pirate Bay, launched an Iranian Green Party Support site Anonymous Iran.^[64] The site has drawn over 22,000 supporters world wide and allows for information exchange between the world and Iran, despite attempts by the Iranian government to censor news about the riots on the internet. The site provides resources and support to Iranians who are protesting.
2010 was a big year for Anonymous. They tangled assholes with Australian government over what is and isn't porn and whether it's old enough... Then they did a regular two step with the long tongue of KISS who touted to all artists to litigate, to sue, Sue, SUE the bastards, etc ... so Anonymous responded by shutting down his site and the record label's site.   They let off a while and Gene S. came back at them with SUE SUE SUE. So they just took him OFF LINE.
Then there is WikiLeaks: In late 2010, the document archive website WikiLeaks (used by whistleblowers) came under intense pressure to stop publishing secret United States diplomatic cables. In response, Anonymous announced its support for WikiLeaks.^[85]^[86] Operation Payback changed its focus to support WikiLeaks and launched DDoS attacks against PayPal, MasterCard, Visa and the Swiss bank PostFinance, in retaliation for perceived anti-WikiLeaks behavior under the codename of Operation Avenge Assange.^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] Due to the attacks, both MasterCard and Visa's websites were brought down on December 8.^[93]^[94] A threat researcher at PandaLabs said Anonymous also launched an attack which brought down the Swedish prosecutor's website when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London and refused bail in relation to extradition to Sweden.
Including: Operation: Leakspin was conceived by the Anonymous group, with the purpose of sorting through recent WikiLeaks releases and raise awareness of potentially important and previously overlooked cables.
WikiLeaks is still operating. This is Jan 3, 2011.
Anonymous is still declared yet unveiled.
So I would ask you.... what difference do you make in your world?
What is the form and function of who you are?
Valid question.
More so than what is in your bank account or who you know or how much you spend or what part of the community your house is in.
And I often wonder how many of us are capable as Anonymous... who of us is demonstrating that quality of character? Achieving higher purposes, in karmic collectivity, without personal applause.
These folk are my kind of HERO.

in a Hazy Shade of Winter....

2010-12-28T13:31:00.000-05:00

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"Time, time time... look at what has become of me... While I looked around for my possibilities. I was so hard to please... " Paul Simon

So here we are ... our imperialism and economy is on it's ass. The Western Worlds' economy is on it's ass, for that matter. Pollster's (most of whom I don't think have a clue as to the real numbers or issues) are claiming that as of end of 2010 over 65% of America believes (they don't KNOW nuthin' but they are o so willing to 'believe') that the country is in a 'state of decline'. It's a 'follow the leader' into political madness, and I've ceased to be stunned. I just comfort myself in trying to hold a light close to the wrongness in it. Cultish, media mongery, lies perpetuated in a 24/7 cycle of talking agendas, disappointment in my chosen leadership that breaks the heart and all the damage! So I do my best to speak it out... blog it out and still I go mad with the frustration! There has been damage to people, places, traditions. FEAR is the American addiction and dangerous politico's are feeding a mainline into society. Conspiracy theory holds sway over the masses while the reality of a polluted, dying planet slip under the last clean wave rolling ashore. The destruction of the Gulf of Mexico portends new weather patterns for either side of the Atlantic and it's not so sunny. The roving dead zones widened deeply throughout bathos due to the BP spill. And still they toss it aside... no matter, BP's profits are way back up! The job market abroad for American industry is up.... not here, THERE. And this President just handed! Corporate America a boon of tax breaks! Our small banking institutions teeter on the edge of full collapse... those neighborhood thrift's that have supported and encouraged the community while behemoth banking entities who bulldozed the American dream into the sewer take bows to each other on the largest profits in decades. What the fuck went with Anit-Trust?

It is a hazy shade of winter simmering with the memory of how we allowed Helen Thomas to be tossed aside last spring. Where is real journalism is left? Rolling Stone! (MoJo and The Nation or FDL or one of another countless yet non hyped liberal media...) America seems to be convinced that like the political blight of McCarthyism long before, Rep. Pete King's proposal to hold hearings on the "radicalization" of American Muslims is a fine idea, sans any decency. While Maddow is drinking the White House Koolaide, Olbermann and Schultz hold up the banner of illumination refusing to back away from the obvious political calamity in spectacle before us; daily. There is Google's "blogspot" and Wordpress. There are blogs by individuals offering unique analysis of the dilemma in being an American. Stories, new truths and oh! yes.... WIKILEAKS.... someone offer a drink this new year's eve for Julian Assange. As good friend Krell points out, there is no 'writing of history left to the victors" any longer. Truth is virtual. News is indisputable for those interested in finding it and acknowledging it. The thing is; many don't want any part of it. They would rather have a cleaner mainline of lies... Fox News. The great experiment in mind control has finally been introduced to a society and those who are aware of it are in the minority. The NY Times has lost it's credibility as has many of the old main political / news magazines in their hasty clinging to life via a Faux News approach ... take for example the NY Times Sunday magazine story on the 'BP Oil Spill' in which they take credit and claim a singular news service on the facts of the Spill in the public mind and the actual facts concerning the event. AP has countered their claims as FICTION in order to cling to validity as a newsource. They are, after all is said and set on the presses, corporately manipulated in the moment for corp profits and on the back end for validation. And their claim of authenticity with this Spill story is laughable.

And then there is this lack of Leadership: I should be clear about this: I do not think that the President of the United States, Barack Obama, is a fool or is hatching some kind of evil plan. Though when I critique him, many seem to think I am saying so. I am not.
The President just doesn't happen to be the fellow I campaigned so hard or voted for. I voted for the 'candidate', unfortunately... the 'candidate' and the fellow in the Oval Office are not the same person. Nor do they espouse the same Democratic values or ideals. Mr. Obama has demonstrated a more 'corporate' politic than anything else since taking the "lead". The style of his leadership is very vague on Democratic strengths or values and more capitulating to corporate interests re: nearly every MAJOR bill he has done his best to enact. I have little respect for the Health Care bill that 'reformed' (and that has yet to advance to significant demonstration of said reform!). I have less respect for the "Wall St or banking" reform bill... that's a fucking joke, that is! Throughout all of these catastrophic political quagmire's the President approached with a timid, heartless professorial demeanor that asked us to think best of him as a gentleman statesman as he dealt away all the goodies and gains of the proposed bills coming to him from a Democratic congress (marshaled by Speaker Pelosi!)... he publicly bent over and said 'sure, fine, whatever' to the very coalition that was all but calling him a 'nigger' publicly while they applied character assassination relentlessly against him... the 'candidate' evaporated and we have been left with a slick, corporate dogma espousing 'compromises' even before opening negotiations! Done while he is assaulted by lies and corruption that is none of the President's own, but only political agenda of the Republicans, who spearheaded each nasty media wave churned by Fox News. What, is wrong with the man?
The truth sits before us... Hillary was the candidate who held the big guns in the fight!

And that is where I began this nearly end of the year angst I feel as a liberal American... a somewhat intelligent woman who Hopes for the community and makes personal Changes as best I might. It isn't easy being green... because a true liberal or neo-liberal or quasi progressive or progressive is just plainly SOL these days. The Obama apologists or die hards simply buy into the "so much has been accomplished by this congress" dope or the "look at the progress in bringing us out of the downturn" absolute lies!!! ... there is just so goddamn much to criticize we loose our asses giving it a go! "Where do I begin?~!"
I begin and end, as always and still, with HOPE as I say farewell to a politically disappointing year.

Thanks to DAB, the very famous TLH & friends / virtual and real world / for their relentless support through 2010... the most stressful year... LOL Without my family and friends... like us all, I'd be gone. And you my reading buddy....

Obama's tireless work for Corporate America & the Republicans.

2010-12-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

This says it all:

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These are not the Bush tax cuts. They are now the OBAMA TAX CUTS. The Grinch who punked America and allowed the 99-ers to fiscally perish.
It's over.
I hope my Democrat Reps in the House go down or up fighting this hypocrisy.

A twisted Christian!

2010-11-21T16:12:00.000-05:00

It's been quite a while since the American Medal of Honor has been bestowed. In between the nastiness of partisan politics and the ongoing longest wars in our history as a nation... there have been no decorated Hero's to provide the archetype for us, and it hurts the war effort, it contracts the morale of our service corps... it's bad business practice during wartime. Right? But here's a worse practice, to belittle this very special and isolated honor with claim that it has been feminized because it was not bestowed for "killing the enemy" but for saving the life of a fellow solider. For the record, the Medal of Honor has been notoriously bestowed on those who DO SAVE LIVES... not for inflicting death. They may have to butcher and wound to accomplish the task, but it is for "coming to the rescue" of those who lay defenseless, disabled or without choice and "bringing them home". One of the best examples' of this is our latest Medal of Honor winner, Afghan war hero Army Sgt. Salvatore Giunta. I man who thinks he deserves it not and worries still over the plight of those who step into harms way every moment in Afghanistan.

(sic) "Mr. Bryan Fischer, a columnist for the American Family Association who has often provoked headlines and consternation with his commentaries, read the narrative as hardly the sort of thing American soldiers were once known for."

Our service men and women are there to foremost: preserve the peace. That's their first job... no matter what this asshatt says. To exclaim "Christian ethics" and to foster aggressive, deadly force is what I was taught by the penguins and padres is decidedly UN Christian behavior. This fellow, Fischer is a first class hypocrite. But, that's the fashion these days, eh? I'm no Ghandi; I would indeed act with violence, if necessary, to defend my family, friend or neighbor__I would submit that Ghandi himself was prone to a verbally abusive temperament against others to express his natural human polarity.... that's it: we have choices!

I think the classification of "feminization" is a step towards the Light of evolution.... a ground of the Goddess energy we so deperately need to survive. For the survival of the planet.

have you heard about The Political Carnival?

2010-11-19T22:49:00.000-05:00

I was on the phone with my buddy @jennyablue over on The Twitter when she told me that there was a great blog where @gottalaff posted. The posts are incredibly funny, she insisted and she told me I should be contributing to gottalaff's "blunts" ... which happen to be video collages of current events / issues where several of my tweeting friends and polyblogger friends have been sending vids or audio's ... to help make these:

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/blunt/

http://www.youtube.com/user/BluntCastChannel

The blending of humor / satire / politically serious issues is perfectly executed! Get on over there! It's great stuff. Kudo's to GottaLaff and Paddy! Good job gals!

Samhain shona daoibh, a dhaoine uaisle - Happy Samhain

2010-10-31T09:27:00.000-04:00

Though in celebration... I usually miss my Ancestors so much... the tears go by. My mother would not approve, on All Hallows or any other day... she would smile, admit that things might not be as we wish but as the saying goes, "laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and your sorry old ass is hanging in the wind"... she was a better woman than I am. I struggle to mimic her grace, dispense her sense of humor, give with her generous nature... I wish to reflect her inner beauty that far exceeds any bittersweet photo that remains. She shone like the full moon in the evening and bright as new brass on the bow during the day... such is the gift of Gemini...duality that sometimes succeeds on both sides of it all .... ah, but they snap back with double helpings of troubles, too.

I think today of GHB... the real version... not the junior sized version who is scribbling. I have to say, undiminished, I can see her smile, hear her voice and feel her laughter... I catch it unexpectedly in the mirror... or look it straight on when looking at my sister. Most of all... I'd give anything to have just one more 'piece of whiskey' with her as the sun closes up business and the evening begins to trouble you with your memories. And she, sitting in the good leather across from my bench today, phishes my lack of motion into the Now. She arches an eyebrow and wants to know why I don't cherish the life left to me and laugh more than just now and then. Like my good friend, the famous TLH who today probably lets slip a tear or two for Mary, I am still grieved at her loss. And I am done with thinking something regressive for it. This one day, perhaps a Christmas Eve or two, a leftover Sunday morning... after 20 years, still, I miss you mom, every bit as I did that day you decided to become forever.

BUT! I see that smiling face with ready humor and I'll get by it. I'll get by dad, your mom, his dad, my GrandFather Spotted Calf... good ole Yellowbear, Murhpy's mom, TLH's Mary, Asa's Uncle Willie, Teddy Kennedy and the good who have left us through the year...

Cocktails at 4pm. Dinner at 8.

I know none of you will be late.

zombieland ~~~ o beautiful for bank account

2010-10-17T17:01:00.000-04:00

The Gulf of Mexico is dying.

[You wouldn't know that except the blogosphere has dessiminated several local newscasts and independent blogs that are keeping accounts and keeping watch. BP commericals on tv are insulting lies thrown in the face of suffering fishing families, misunderstood oil riggers and the general coastal population. It's been six months and the Gulf shore dwellers feel abandoned. So they took the situation into their own hands as much as they might:

So in early October, local community groups and environmental organizations decided it was time to join together and come up with a plan that calls attention to the ongoing environmental, economic and public health threat posed by 200 million gallons of BP crude that still threatens America's greatest fishing ground and life sustaining delta estuary.
Altogether, 46 national organizations and Gulf coast community groups gathered at the historic Beckwith Camp and Conference Center on Alabama's Weeks Bay determined to come up with a call to arms. Nearly 100 people broke into four groups to hash out the major public issues confronting public health, marine life, coastal environment and communities impacted by this disaster.] Please follow this link to read the complete report with the Week's Bay Principles. So the worlds' fourth largest profiting corporation, BP petroleum ... big motherfucking oil ... is getting away with basically walking away... can you see saying bye bye? Like Exxon did in Alaska. Haley Barbour is happy with his pay offs... the likes of fishing folks and little gal like Linda St. Martin, who stand up for the community and demand more responsible accountability and action to help... they must depend on themselves... the Obama White House and local / state government has been bought and paid for. The economy is encouraged to look to renewing oil rig operations and to fend of itself in all other areas of concern. Those fucking BP 'accountabilty' commercials insult me awful. The Gulf coast is doing it's best to heal itself. HooRah.

Science denying Republicans are infected with stupid; a contaminate spread throughout the party, the miserable grasp of greed in the face of species suicide by ignoring global warming and devastating pollution. Corporate greed pushes the agenda ignorance grosser than ever... dubbing the politico's who support denial "climate zombies" (Miller over at Daily Kos). Flag groups for this kind of asshatt stupidity, like Freedom Works or Americans for Prosperity, are stumping for no climate taxes and to reject cap and trade. While the Gulf of Mexico goes dead as it's sustaining current, the Gulf Stream, fades as dead zones halt the flow of our Gulf Stream into the Atlantic... thereby disrupting the usual weather patterns between the Atlantic and the two continents between it. EU scientists are seriously worried and raising a concern about the trigger of a new ice age due to lack of Gulf flow. Let alone the life cycles of millions of species of sea life now either shattered from existence or not able to make it's flowing pilgrimage through tropical seas into the Bearing Sea. And this is just the asshatt climate denying greed specialists called "incumbents" in the Republican Party / GOP.
Take a look at what passes for candidate in the NEW and GROWING Republican Party:

In upstate New York some kind of turbulent lunacy unleashed a back door money making thug who's claim to fame is his stupidity and insensitivity! Carl Paladino .... can you believe this asshatt? Emails depicting bestiality, homophobia in the heart of NYC, lies are his basic campaign strategy... but hell, that's the basic strategy of all 'conservative / Republican' candidates and it includes nearly every incumbent. My mom used to tell me that there 'was nothing dumber than a New York Democrat'... unfortunately she didn't live long enough to experience the epitome of it's irony: a Republican back door real estate thug from Buffalo bought himself a nomination with angry rhetoric on TV and a dumb base of voters. Yep, home state, I said that. A small corporation in the politic world, but evidently, very potent in the new American campaign policy.
The American Chamber of Commerce has accepted foreign monies to dump into buyable candidates... and they are plentiful in the land. Then you can tip your hat, yet again, to the Koch brothers and Dick Armey, Jack Kemp, Glen Beck, Newt Gringdrich.... the Hate trolls of American society... for the likes of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware...
The practice of Palin as campaign advisor? Could we kindly say.... that's just stupid? And still, Democrats are taking the 'high road'. Will it kick 'em in the balls, yet again? Not to mention the Sharon Angle, Rand Paul, Michele Bachmann and rest of the batshit crazy camp....

And while our world goes frighteningly mad; the banking industry goes pop. Mortgages were denied renewal or readdress by rote and now there is a massive smack down ... as it was said, "I been down so long I don't which way is up".... A halt to all foreclosures do exactly what for the bankers and elite ??? With the Chamber of Commerce exposing the political reality of our nation to "outside" influences ... aw, hell they're just larger corporate investors... and BIG CORPORATE MONEY is as nation-less as it soul-less!

Where is the positive this week?
Here is it is courtesy of C.H. McDermott

John Lennon for President

2010-10-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

I'd like to be able to give it try ... to convince John Lennon to run for President.

I keep looking for someone who is honestly channeling him! But so far, so blank. It's pretty real that anyone can run for anything... this being the land of freedom and opportunity, it's always been true. Or has it? We're all fairly aware of the new corporate dynamic, from the recycling of the old or making what was once illegal and unethical to now pretty near perfect in 'getting away with it' by blessing of the SCOTUS. Geesh.

With elections on the national level coming round again, we are left to wonder... how do we make any change when we were just duped so easily?

So, I point to John and Yoko and their example.

Wall Street is screwing us and the "trickle down" from that is overwhelming financially for everyone.

President Obama has danced away from serious changes, while creating many, none come close to what is needed since Bush's damage and the awful reality of global warming and environmental devastation. There is a great social miasma in bloom; uncertainty - xenophobia gone political chic - ignorance, fear and corporate profiteering is being fostered as integrity and governance. Take the case in Tennessee, where 'in certain parts of Tennessee, there is a $75 subscription fee for firefighter services. Gene and Paulette Cranick of South Fulton, Tennessee, learned the hard way that that subscription fee is not a joke. A group of firemen arrived to an emergency call, then watched the Cranick’s house burn down. The Firefighters were ordered not to put out the fire because of an unpaid subscription fee. When the fire spread toward a neighbor’s house, the firefighters did step in. The neighbor, of course, paid the subscription fee.' This is so unbelievable and cruel and exactly the kind of world our conservative Republican friends suggest would make America 'great'. Especially within the Tea Party candidacy. Unbelievable!

Homes are being swept away. Banking has already rebounded in new unreasonable fee making and outrageous charges. Our children are being bullied to the point of suicide as people continue to embrace "Christian values" that urge the murder of abortion activists and docs along with shaming or blaming homosexual youth. The Republican candidate (a joke of a man) walks into a NYC orthodox Jewish center and allows a prewritten statement / speech against homosexuality to thrust into his hands and he reads it. It's to cry over.

It's a bloom of deadly, awesomely putrid social flowers ...

There has been demonstration / demonstrating, done via media... and I'm thinking WE are doing a good job and it's just not enough. Apathy is collecting up amongst stalwart companions on the blog ...

isn't it time to take to the streets again?

The Stifling Oxygen of 24/7....

2010-09-18T12:01:00.000-04:00

Yes, yes, it may be totally unfair to bring praise to a Republican with awful hindsight glaring on him... but WFB would probably smile. He would denigrate social networks and Netroots and independent bloggers... because the kind of demand he imposes on all political opinion is pretty dang strict, even if unkind. Bill Buckley was erudite and exacting, he expected you to be ready to understand and ready to respond with equal measure. What has happened to that kind of clear, well considered opinion among 'conservatives'? At one time not so long ago, the founder of the National Review (once upon a time, a not so bad sampler of solid conservative values and political demonstration) gave as good as he got in moral compass and political tradition. His last commentary proceeded the 08 election of Barack Obama. His was a classically educated and developed mind... something even the askance of among current Tea Party candidates would cause hesitation just to understand what was being asked. Dumb fucks, yes. Dangerous stupidity given an endless supply of oxygen by the 24/7 news cycle on cable. It's just a reckless indifference that passes for Republican politics now, aligned to the motivational greed blessed by the Supreme Court 'conservatives' for big corporations on the troll for politicians... we are headed ever deeper into this environmental and economic wasteland of xenophobia, self serving greed and ignorance with a seriously twisted be-Jesus moral compass. Like Buckley, [who could never resolve himself to the mistaken-ness of supporting McCarthy and his outrageous lies and antics,] those old school Republicans who sit it out traveling the down bound train of the Party of No ... they are making it up as they go.

And the performance of the Democrats, with damn few exceptions, has been to follow the lead of the last 50 years - interpreting the statesmanship of a newly elected President ... all basically helpless to stand to or man the lines ... cast adrift on a sea of Tea!
AZ's SB 1070, exposed as 'get rich quick' scheme by Gov. Jan Brewer through investment in the new private prison facilities that will hold illegals as they await deportation hearing and deportation. All state and federally funded facilities ... yet to be built! But built with state and federal funds. Hypocrisy runs throughout the 'conservative' agenda from Tea Party to GOP institutions.... Micheal Steele is just a glowing example of how deeply flawed and ignorant their strategies extend. Freedom Works and the Kock brothers are examples of the manipulative corporate strategies of greed being settled into Republican foundations. They sure aren't my Mother's Republicans... they aren't anywhere close to WFB's either. I suppose the only consolation is in their authentic stupidity and the hope that the majority will not agree with such political agendas as returning the status of women to that of chattel ... my great great GrandMothers marched in Rochester and New York to break on through to the other side and give me the right, hell! gave O'Donnell the right! to vote and champion women's issues in our country. Fuck her. Time to dust Gloria off! I am a Yankee woman in disposition and political ideal.... nothing dumber these days than a New York Republican which brings us to the Gov.'s race in New York... OMfG!

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I'm not usually someone who puts great value in anyone's 'credentials' or 'props' ... as they say ... yet the conservatives have always used these 'channel markers' to support or dismiss politico's. Well, until the last two years! Tea Party candidates are nearly all what we used to call academic pikers ... folks who didn't 'cut it' in higher education ... and still listen to this crowds' fundie WHITE SUPREMACY THEME for the latest staged event for wingnutters..."Values Voter"

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I'm standing at the helm of my own in heavy seas .... here. It's a bad day at sea..... all I can manage are the light nautical metaphors. I'm so dumbfounded! And that scares me, because stupid is the virus going around....

To the Salt of the Earth.

2010-09-06T17:25:00.001-04:00

So let's drink to the hard working people!
Today is Labor Day 2010. We're toddling into a 21st Century massive global reality of, 'them that's got shall get, them that's not shall loose' .... a basic old white man philosophy promoting a Darwinian progression and demonstrating a monotheistic religious control couched in moral fear mongery under the threat of "the other" to herd us all towards corporate profiteering as we spoil our Earth Mother. Aren't we sick of it? 26,000 years of orbit through each successive constellation bordering and influencing our galaxy suggests we are ready for a new planetary momentum, a global fucking wake up that will embrace each of us... all the billions of us to become aware of our individual contribution to this collective power that is humanity. The 'control' is being dropped down by less than 2% coddling their large subjective wealth. And it has brought us our own species extinction. In less than three generations there will be no more 'generations' ... back to the microbial seas roiling with mutant saline and hungry, rancid bacteria waiting to brew! The legacy of Corporation Earth.

Raise your glass to the good and the evil:
Last month in East Point, out of Atlanta, over 30 thousand people raced to be able to fill out the applications for government housing. In the tell a vision news you could not find a white face. Though, it should be said, plenty of whites in Atlanta are without jobs, under foreclosure and trying to secure a steady anything to fend for their families too. This downfall of Labor is without race boundary and without collar boundary... white, blue and pink collars are falling quite ecumenically.

[The massive event sometimes descended into a chaotic mob scene filled with anger and impatience. Some 62 people needed medical attention and 20 of them were transported to a hospital, authorities said. A baby went into a seizure in the heat and was stabilized at a hospital. People were removed on stretchers and when a throng of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said. read it all] People are being informed, nationally, that jobs are scarce and those upcoming will fit a specifically skilled description or be common labor... as if there has even been anything common about anyone who works by the 'sweat of their brow'.

Lets drink to the uncounted heads.

Lets think of the wavering millions, who need leaders but get gamblers instead.

The advantages of a Democratic House, Senate and White House have been busted down by the fear mongery and lies of a completely disreputable group of politico's still holding on to the title of Republican. They are not my Mother's Republicans. College students, the babies of the Netroots demographic, are unhappy with lack of campaign agenda from a sometimes seemingly more than centrist President. He simply is not going to stoop to the kind of political fight back that it is might save the House. Seems we are well on our way to a "conservative" authority in the House demonstrated by a boozing, fear born moron who goes to get washed down with orange dye once a week. Kind of extols 'phony', don't he? The vote in November could largely be up to the college crowd... and they are simply disappointed by the economy, so much so that they are willing to buy into conservative rhetoric blaming Obama administration policies... which is pure crap. [How and whether millions of college students vote will help determine if Republicans win enough seats to retake the House or Senate, overturning the balance of power on Capitol Hill, and with it, Mr. Obama’s agenda. If students tune out and stay home it will also carry a profound message for American society about a generation that seemed so ready, so recently, to grab national politics by the lapels and shake.] NYTimes

More becomes moron in unhappiness with the White House centrism and despising of progressives and liberals. Lets see them hold their ground without us supporting or working for them... when you think "grassroots" ... it's a bet you might be thinking of rainmaking for whomever shows to be a decent choice outside of the current President. Gosh that hurts. As in fucking, OUCH. But there you have it, Rahm and his Oval office cronnies have done it again.

I am an American maker. I conceptually craft and then create by hand, sans any idustrialized innovation, using human hands that care by employing people - not machines, everything that comes off my bench or out of my kitchen. With the technical help of my Mac to print my labeling and information, I keep my prices down and I keep my product quality higher than the standard for my marketplace (demographic). This is what I make.

I meet and work with so many independent 'makers' and artisans and service providing people who are struggling to just keep lights on or to make it month in such an epidemic proportion as I've never witnessed before. I'm 54 yrs old. It doesn't matter the educational standard among Americans any longer... where once the 'middle class' was firm territory for anyone with a college education... it's simply gone now. And the little corporate shits who need to be coddled along in corporate office positions? My thinking is that any competent office manager might be hiring skill and experience vs youth and no bennies, by now. Because business has suffered under the load of the "feed me" plastic culture of 'i want to be famous' - reality tv college grad, who too often gained their merit on huge grade / learning curves. Corporate incompetence shows up quicker these days. Some folks who were downsized will find work again, as soon as the corporate mind figures out the fiscal losses of "feed me" generation.

Let drink to the Salt of the Earth. And hope they get out to vote.

A high power has dominion. gee

2010-08-29T16:15:00.000-04:00

A HIGHER POWER HAS DOMINION:

Yesterday Glenn Beck's self help come religious reclamation and NON political big splash ad for upsales of gold coins / ingots captured a crowd of 85-87 thousand people. The majority came from surrounding Virgina, West Virginia, Maryland, buses provided by Dick Armey's "Freedom Works" to bring 'em in from New York, New Jersey (you mean they had Jersey baggers?) and points northeast and points southeast from the Carolina's and Georgia. Whew! It was a hot and fuzzy day! Peaches, anyone? Washed in the love and forgiveness of the Lord by God, no politics intended, Sistah Sarah sang a chorus and the niece of Martin Luther King regaled against those who will not hear the word of God ...not to do this and not to do that or be burned in hell. It IS right, AMEN. Beck began this weekend organizing top conservative religious leaders - mostly evangelicals - into a fledgling group called the Black Robed Regiment. (Thanks to Jess @ MMA for the video)

America demonstrated some supreme tolerance towards the intolerant yesterday. A mock jock took the stage and soft spoke the crowd with visions of America come to glory under the power of the a true devotion to GOD. The very same diversive enchantment the KKK uses to say it's all right, we just care, don't pay no mind to that murder over there. It's a time honored rhetoric. Beck uses it in his mediums of communications... radio, television and merchandising (I can not seriously call it publishing) to draw attention to whatever he is hawking today. Like some kind of lost carrier pigeon he keeps circling the same set of diverse, yet fear based, messaging looking for the exact right one to light on consistently. He can't even seem to remember the fuddled histories he's been selling in his bound pamphlets, he keeps claiming opposite factoids from his previous factoids a week before. Nothing different yesterday. A miracle promotion of the event, Mr. Beck is now characteristically fuzzy about the message, this morning he rebuked himself several time with Chris Wallace on Fox Sunday Morning. The message is miracles through the week lead in, claiming he is going to change the country (he 'borrows' a great deal of 'language' from other charismatic speakers like President Obama) then query as to it's effect by Wallace, Beck is momentarily stunned, "don't you?" Really, if you want the low down, read Jason Linkins.... it's a hoot!

There seems to be a disconnect going on.... between Beck in last week and Beck in the event and Brother Love's traveling salvation show or the conservative Freedom Works break away from all present government so we might make a new one. On the bones of the old, yeah... that's ok. Mr. Beck presented a softer toned Amy Semple MacPherson version of a political rally; something that the common attendee was happy to attend; Brother Beck's salvation show. The overall message is that "we must put our faith in God"....
that's the God that's better than the God of Mohammad, right? The God that resolves conflicts with pain, pestilence, war, bloody death... that' God? Same one, yes, that's right. He IS a righteous God, that God. During his commentary yesterday Mr. Beck exclaimed; "Look forward. Look West. Look to the heavens. Look to God and make your choice," he said.
In most indigenous cultures, looking into the west indicates endings.... the setting of the sun. I just find it amusing that Mr. Beck is becoming subtly symbolic? Perhaps evoking the 'end days' scenario... another ploy to sell gold? As usual with this idjit, I'm confused as to what his message really is. I do 'get it' that he's looking for attention and money.... he gets fuzzy on all the rest.

"This country was created by God, our creator. The problem is, the country is becoming Godless," said Greg Rinehart. "[Beck] said that a lot of people have lost Christ. The country is on the verge of becoming chaotic." - your typical Beck supporter.

The United States of America was founded on a separation of church and state with the guaranteed right to say and practice whatever faith or philosophy you desire... and find some happiness doing it, too.

I've read the Declaration of Independence. I had civics in school. I've read the Constitution.

The only 'higher dominion', seems to me, our collective forefathers wished us to observe was the collective one we all exhibit as voters in this democracy. Can you feel me?

I think it's encouraging to remember that there are roughly 308 million citizens in the United States. 3 million watch Fox News. 1.3 million of them watch Glenn Beck. (All 3 million watch O'Rielly while less than who watch Beck watch Hannity) ... Say 500 thousand wanted to attend the 'rally for honor' come religious revival; 87 thousand showed. That's a lot, yes.
Here's comfort:
When Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, over 2,300,000 attended the event in the freezing cold.
I'm warmed by that exposition of the voting public.
It's always going to be about the majority. Right? You can see where I'm going here....

Wind! in your face.

2010-08-27T23:42:00.000-04:00

My father, H. Pomeroy Barry, drove his sTuTz BearCat in the first US Grand Prix in 1936... winding through the streets of Watkins Glen, New York. Some folks beg to differ and say the first official US Grand Prix was in 1959 in Sebring FL. Lots of race fans who'll tell you like I am it began in Watkins Glen.
My dad was from Rochester. Here's what his car looked like, a 1932 sTuTz BearCat. [He was in his forties when I was born....geesh!] My dad crossed over when I was seven. I remember today what he smelled like. I think I might know his voice, his eyes. But none of that can compare to the hero he was to me as a fatherless little girl eager for wind in the face. Truth... always excited by mothers' convertibles. Sat in her lap steering. But I made a great hero out my dad who loved to race cars, fix cars, work on cars... did I tell you he was a lawyer? Yeah... never entered a courtroom once, never had a client. He tinkered in the garage and then took a job as manager of the local Cadillac dealership's garage. He adored it. Then came the war and he joined the army to work on tanks. He did that from the desert to hills of Italy for Patton. He loved wind in the face.

I ended up my last year of prep school in Watkins Glen, New York. You might say I 'transferred from Troy'. I stumbled onto the racing museum and saw the roster on the wall for the first Grand Prix and there was my dad's name. Big and bold with his driving stats. He crossed the line 11th. Not too bad. That's my dad sitting on the bumper of that old Ford in 1932. That's my Dad. Pommey. I made him my hero and he's made me a risk taker. That happens, ya know. The dead reach out to us and help mold our lives whether we are aware or not. I continued school in upstate New York, enrolling at Cornell in Ithaca. I bought a little red house in Watkins Glen. I lived straight up the road which these cars are coming down into the south turn onto Route 14. I drove several cars through Watkins Glen and even bought one brand new in Ithaca, my favorite, a 1976 TR-6 Triumph British racing blue with a black convertible top. I kept that car and that house for nearly twenty years. The Triumph suited me. I had a great muscle car, a faster more road tort savvy Porche and finally a Cadillac Coup de Ville. But I still long for my the little blue Triumph. Solid little strutter.

It was cars cars cars, a surfboard, cars cars cars for young years. I had the Formula One's right there in Watkins Glen. I was a Funny car, Fueller and Alterred kinda gal, too. I was really a Parnelli Jones and Mario Andretti, Don Garlits kinda gal. Andretti's spin against Jackie Stewart was always good from me. In 1975 while home for Spring break I went out to the dragsters / funny car events and witnessed a spectacular event: Shirley Muldowney.

Do you know about dragsters and funny cars? Holy shit man! Heart in your throat! Exciting... well, I thought so. Shirley is about 11 yrs my senior.
Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney... but the word is that she really didn't care for the "Cha Cha" bit. Condescending, who can blame her? Still, the name meant excitement at the races. I saw her drag race four times. Only once in the north at Oneida. She made a big impression.

This thing is, wind in the face. I love it more in a Boston Whaler out at sea. I think it's a legacy my dad left me. It feels very good to think so.
Nowadays I don't leave a large carbon footprint with fossil fuel burning. I rent or car pool. I'm serious about doing right by my Earth Mother. A rumination of a post, granted. But the simple message is; I'm willing to curb my jones for wind to bring good health to the community. simple.

TAXI !!!

2010-08-26T09:54:00.000-04:00

I used to contribute to a local blog called:

I wasn't prepared for the new reality that cab driving thrust me into! It was very "seedy" on most evenings, and I drove all the shifts. I was one of two women in the county actively driving a cab last year. I lasted quite a few months... the slice of life hacking serves is adventure filled and danger edgy. I didn't realize it to the extreme, while I was driving. You develop your skills of intuition clearly (I use them in every walk of my life... but you know what I mean!) or you risk being violated. Robbed is the most common violence cabbies face. Cabbies are very easy prey. Especially in this economy. Anxious for fares, a cabbie will break their own instinctive rule in order to make the dough ray me. And while in NYC it's a chunk (compared to most rentals) it's always been fairly good money for actors, writers, struggling artists, entrepreneurs bridging their finances while waiting on big money, you can see where I'm going here. That is just an old and stable demographic among hacks. Then there is the immigrant population, newly arrived and raring to go! I have to admit, with immigrant cabbies it's feast or famine! Can you feel me?

Well, great... can you feel Sharif, a 43-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant who's driven a cab for 15 years? He's the victim of Michael Enright... hater.
I said HATER.
SLASHER.
AMERICAN BORN, AMERICAN MADE.
On Tuesday evening Michael was drunk and determined and he hailed a cab. He is responsible for his actions... and so are those who stoked his misguided hatred.

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(It's nice to see KO sharing a story with his galpal...) and there you have the result of a 'wedge issue', a lie gone rancid from the mouths of xenophobes in the political spectrum. And here is a response to the HATE:

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Join the conversation, out there. You make a difference. These are not easy times and profound changes in our society and culture are taking place.
Silence, inaction.... not speaking your truth when the moment comes to you is unacceptable. The result of silence is
HATE
VIOLENCE
CRIME.
That politicians, those who would call themselves leaders among us who have ultimately provoked this kind of insanity... bear a responsibility.
Kudo's to Ms. Marsh O'Connor and her wisdom.

The other side of the WAR.

2010-08-23T11:04:00.000-04:00

Here is the OTHER side of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are facts... certainly presented with idea of saying America has been wrongful. Many soldiers agree with this.
It makes me cry.
Many of these crimes are committed by private mercenaries.
These wars are wrong.

Helicopters tries to land at Wounded Knee

2010-08-15T15:44:00.002-04:00

May, 2010 - Updated.
The message is a bit late in the day. Still, it shows how far our politico's have NOT come in respecting or honoring People. Especially Indigenous People. Let alone our animal and marine animal brothers and sisters. Shame on the current White House for this ... At WOUNDED KNEE???!!!

Medicine Woman Song Warrior - No NO Keshagesh

2010-08-13T16:29:00.000-04:00

When GrandMother Truth comes home, you must make her welcome__ because there can be no escaping Her.

The Florida Panhandle beach where the Obamas are going to spend the weekend to boost tourism in the region is indeed pristine and oil-free.
Panama City Beach, where the White House has announced the first family will be staying Saturday and Sunday, was spared the worst of the BP oil spill, sullied only by sporadic tar balls that were easily cleaned up.
Starting just 80 miles to the west, from Pensacola Beach and on to Alabama, the beaches were hit a lot worse. And a University of South Florida scientist told HuffPost those beaches, thanks to a "superficial" cleanup job by BP, remain contaminated.
An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland.
Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes – and any collision could do untold damage. In a worst case scenario, large chunks could reach the heavily trafficked waters where another Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912.
It's been a summer of near biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wildfires, heat and smog in Russia and killer floods in Asia. But the moment the Petermann glacier cracked last week – creating the biggest Arctic ice island in half a century – may symbolize a warming world like no other.
"It's so big that you can't prevent it from drifting. You can't stop it," said Jon-Ove Methlie Hagen, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo.
Few images can capture the world's climate fears like a 100-square- mile (260-sqare-kilometer) chunk of ice breaking off Greenland's vast ice sheet, a reservoir of freshwater that if it collapsed would raise global sea levels by a devastating 20 feet (6 meters).
The world's newest ice island already is being used as a powerful emblem in the global warming debate, with U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts suggesting it could serve as a home for climate change skeptics.

FORECLOSURES RISE WITH UNEMPLOYMENT: Nearly three million homeowners received at least one foreclosure filing in 2009. As of July 2010, one in seven mortgages is delinquent or in foreclosure. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, one in 10 homeowners missed at least one mortgage payment between January and March, which is an all-time record and a 9.1 percent increase from last year. The number of homes foreclosed upon set a record for a second consecutive month in May, while banks had an inventory of approximately 1.1 million foreclosed homes as of March. According to the latest report from Realty Trac, foreclosures rose in 75 percent of the country's metro areas during the first half of this year, and about 3.5 million homeowners have stopped paying their mortgages, but have yet to be foreclosed upon. "We're not going to see real price appreciation probably until 2013," said Realty Trac Senior Vice President Rick Sharga. "We don't see a double dip in housing but we think it's going to be a long painful recovery for the next three years." And while subprime loans drove foreclosures early in the crisis, now high unemployment is the culprit behind missed payments. "Look at a place like Salt Lake City," said Sharga. "The foreclosure rise there appears to be entirely related to the economy." At the same time, almost 25 percent of homeowners are underwater.
HAMP DISAPPOINTS: The Obama administration's signature foreclosure prevention program -- the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) -- was meant to keep 3 to 4 million troubled borrowers in their homes by lowering their mortgage payments to a sustainable level. However, according to the latest data, fewer than 400,000 borrowers have received a permanent mortgage modification, while more than 500,000, 40 percent of the total, have dropped out of the program. As the Huffington Post's Shahien Nasiripour and Arthur Delaney laid out, HAMP "has fallen short of its goals -- rather than significantly and permanently reducing home foreclosures, it is only delaying them," as borrowers make lower payments for a few months but ultimately get dropped from the program. "HAMP has not put an appreciable dent in foreclosure filings," noted a report from the Special Inspector General for TARP, the program that funds HAMP. "Foreclosure filings have increased dramatically while HAMP has been in place, with permanent modifications constituting just a few drops in an ocean of foreclosure filings." HAMP's problems stem from banks' inability to process enrollments in a timely manner and a lack of incentive for banks to ensure that borrowers successfully complete the program. So far, only $250 million of the $50 billion available for HAMP has been spent.
MAINSTREAMING THE FRINGE: While previously relegated to the margins of the right wing, Republican policymakers are now embracing the extreme viewpoint and bringing the "anchor baby," anti-birthright rhetoric into the legislative arena. After crafting the draconian SB-1070 law, Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce (R) has set his sights on an "anchor baby bill" -- because granting citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born on U.S. soil is somehow an "outrageous" "violation of the 14th Amendment." Despite the twisted logic, Pearce's idea echoes a burgeoning trend on Capitol Hill. Since 1995, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) has tried and failed seven times to pass legislation that would repeal or reinterpret the 14th Amendment. Reflecting growing popularity, Bilbray is receiving help from senior Republican Rep. Lamar Smith (TX), whose legislation to deny birthright citizenship has 93 cosponsors, including House Republican Study Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Price (GA). While these efforts have precedent in the House, the notion of 14th Amendment revision is now taking hold in the Senate. Once thought to be a proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced last week that he is considering a constitutional amendment to overturn birthright citizenship because that constitutional right is "a mistake." Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) supported congressional hearings into the amendment that would question whether citizenship is "a reward" for "illegal behavior." And Sen. McCain (R-AZ), who once preferred a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants over "pleas[ing] the political extremists," joined his colleagues in calling for hearings against the amendment. In embracing a traditionally radical idea, these senators have moved to the right of outspoken immigration hawks like Lou Dobbs, who insist that "the rule of law" requires recognizing children of undocumented immigrants as "citizens of this country."

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It all begins to run on.... doesn't it?
I'm standing with the GrandMother; Medicine Woman Song Warrior. Buffy Sainte-Marie is an activist and scholar. She is an Academy Award winning song writer. Most importantly, she bringing the message she has always sung to us... stop, look, listen. Make a stand.

Chumped~! by Obama... home owners lied to for benefit of banks.

2010-08-04T13:39:00.000-04:00

How terrible is it to be targeted by banking / mortgage corporations, firstly; in predatory lending that was unethical and yet allowed by the national and local governments? And then; a new President promises you civil help and restoration of fair, manageable mortgage fees? His policy is called a "care" package. And for almost two years whatever bank that takes control of your predatory loan gives you this option, collects your money on a new monthly fee basis and then abruptly cancels the deal to begin foreclosure proceedings? Without the option to appeal... they determine whether or not you may appeal, without the option of time to address it? Just up and out of the blue... you are disapproved and your mortgage is due in total, old figures re-applied and fuck you very kindly. Period. It tells you something about the mood of the home / farm / business owning community that once applauded the like of John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde in taking from the rich. Don't it? Please read:

[President Barack Obama's signature plan to combat the housing crisis has fallen short of its goals -- rather than significantly and permanently reducing home foreclosures, it is only delaying them.

The administration unveiled its Making Home Affordable plan in February 2009. Obama vowed in front of an audience gathered at Dobson High School in Mesa, Ariz., that MHA's signature effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program, would "enable as many as three to four million homeowners to modify the terms of their mortgages to avoid foreclosure."
The $75 billion initiative -- $50 billion from the bank bailout, $25 billion from government-owned mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- was designed to induce lenders, servicers and investors to modify distressed mortgages through a series of cash incentives.
It's not working.
In its first year, 1.5 million people were invited to try HAMP. About 40 percent of those who tried it have been kicked out of the program; fewer than that have been given an actual shot at keeping their homes.
When President Obama took office, it took an average of 319 days to complete a foreclosure, according to Jacksonville, Fla.-based data provider Lender Processing Services. Now it takes 461 days.
Extending the process by which homes enter foreclosure allows banks to continue carrying the loans on their books at full value, delaying loss recognition. That allows unhealthy banks to appear healthy, staving off costly bank failures.
As a result, fewer homes hit the market in a distressed state. Home prices stopped their free fall.
"Extending and pretending was the right thing to do last year," says John Burns, a housing industry consultant based in Irvine, Calif. "It pains me to say that, but that's the situation they've got us into. Throwing these people out on the street and selling their homes would have depressed home prices."
The strategy has achieved stability for the housing market, but not for the people inside the houses. Families are merely given more time to wonder when sheriff's deputies will finally pile their belongings on the curb.] There are four more net pages of why this program was really created and the damages it has begun to ensure throughout communities.

It is not hard at all to understand how a nation can become polarized and diminished under the pressure and pain of this kind of turnaround. Lied to and dejected, home owners are being dispossesed daily, yet again. Shame on the White House. Shame on the Obama administration. In one quick week I was determined to stave off my disappointment in the President and restrict my rejection of him.

That didn't last long.

The homeless, in many cases now facing no credit status to even rent.... will be on the streets. I call these new communities .... OBAMAVILLES.

A Story so many have worked to Tell.

2010-07-31T13:57:00.000-04:00

FINALLY~!
The Tribal Law and Order Act was signed this week into law.

If you'll notice, Ta Wacinya Waste Win (aka Lisa Marie lyotte) .... carries her blanket over her arm, the pipebeads of her tribal ascension around her neck, but her ceremonial fan, the feathers of the totem bird tribe she belongs to and her tool to communicate her prayers to the Great Mystery or Great Spirit... she does not carry that. It is a signal to her People that her prayers have been answered on this subject or issue. It is a major step in her life personally as well as the major step in making a profound difference in the treatment of crime, especially the crime of rape, on the reservations. Those who don't know; law on the reservations is subject to tribal law but too often met with the Federal Law dysfunction of casting aside the dignity, rights and quality of life for American Indians. For years and years this law has struggled to find it's way beneath the ink of conscious President. On Thursday this week, it did. Please watch:

Lisa has become an advocate for women who suffer rape and violence... of which there is no shortage on the res. Many times committed by outsiders. Left unattended for the discard of their basic human rights. On Thursday a very large shift took place in our Nation. This shift was a new law that will make a large difference in how the women and the men of the Tribal Nations of this Nation will be treated and the observation of their human rights. Their dignity. Their feelings. Their bodies. No longer can the Federal Authorities deny any member among the Nations their civil rights. It will be a crime not to. “The new law requires the Department of Justice to collect and share data on crimes that happen on tribal land that U.S. attorneys decline to prosecute. The new law also increases the maximum sentence that can be handed down in tribal court, now up to three years, and it provides more training to law enforcement officials on how to collect evidence in cases of sexual assault.”

You and I ... we might take this for granted in our communities. On the reservations of our country, the Tribal Peoples have been abused by the neglect of their government... one I hasten to add, is IMPOSED upon them since birth. This is a very large stride towards equal rights for America. To all my old friends there, Mitakuye Oyasin. A Lakota prayer which declares that we are all related on this Earth Mother. I am proud of the President... he has fulfilled a campaign promise. He brought honor to his Ancestors and ours in doing it.

And this weekend Ta Wacinya Waste Win (Lisa Marie lyotte) sleeps with some healing.

Sunday School....7/10

2010-07-25T16:10:00.002-04:00

Netroots to neigbhorhoods: Obama has let us down.

2010-07-24T12:51:00.000-04:00

China is the new leader in clean energy and it's China where the new 'superpower' money will anchor in industries dedicated to non carbon energy technologies. Windmills, solar paneling and probably the funding for national level American entrepreneurs who have created The Bloom Box and other technologies that power by green and clean sources. Goodbye yellow brick road... the streets of China is where the coins will lay on the streets and the People will slowly claim a new kind of political freedom in the ability to spend money they make. Which, in the USA, is the opposition effect. On energy, industry and politics... at this point, Chairman Mao's little red book is looking better than the mangle the Congress and Senate have made of our ethics and values and who have assisted a new President to fence walk half assed changes that turn out to be not much change at all for legislation. And keep spending that money on useless, goal-less, American killing war.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In this world, money makes you free. Period. It used to be that students leaving for college, when asked, would speak of dreams to heal and be a doctor, to make new inventions or build new designs, to learn to teach children, to create great art... and some would insist on studying law to make a fortune. Well, the only money making any longer is in banking or politics. Ask the kids! They'll tell you! So, our corporate politicians are leaving any kind of energy reform to languish... waste away with the atmosphere and spoil like the oceans where dead zones are the new geographical bets on the boards in Vegas.

Shame on us America!

Shame on the leadership of America.

What should be heard....

2010-07-22T20:08:00.001-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This guy is always my hero...and his sidekick too!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sand Dumping Cover Up by BP

2010-07-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

This is an older vid of the sand dumping in LA in Grand Isle. In a shocking interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on June 29th, Allegiance Capitol Corporation V.P. Fred McCallister said that BP is deliberately sinking oil with the toxic chemical disbursant [sic] Corexit, to hide the size of the oil spill. By sinking the oil before it can be collected, BP won't have to pay fines on it.
McCallister said, "Everybody in Europe, where the standard practice is to raise the oil and collect it, is scratching their heads, and quite honestly laughing at what's happening in the Gulf." He added, "Everyone is looking at us and wondering why we're allowing this to happen." The Examiner

This is one of my suspicions confirmed. Using dispersant never seemed to make sense to me. I could see using it near the well, where it would clear the water and improve visibility, but using it elsewhere just made no sense to me. It's not like dispersant makes the oil "go away."
And this isn't the only way BP is trying to cover up the damage and hide the oil. They seem to be trying (and thankfully, failing) to literally bury the story under tons of sand. BPoilslick.blogspot.com

The sheer magnitude of spoilage, poisoning, murder of wildlife, the assurance of cancer causing pollution seeping into our state aquifers, the ongoing spew... though there is a cap, there is still leakage and it all asks each of us southerners the quiet, solitary question; how can we sit still for it? How could any of us apologize for our government past or present? They have allowed this to persist with corporate criminals in charge of the whole incident and resulting needs for accountability and clean up. As if BP can find a proper solution! How can any who hope for a family legacy, for children and grandchildren, how can anyone on the entire planet sit in passive silence day by day without erupting with the screaming inner terror and anger? How can you? If you can excuse the profiteering that corrupts the well being of our country, our personal health, our character and moral / ethical goodness... if can excuse any of it... shame on you.

How can BP or the USCG even hope to hide the hugeness of this with sand dumping ... which can only last a few weeks at best... a strategy that sends untold numbers of summer beach goers to the emergency rooms (as it is right now on west coast FL beaches?) BP seems to be thinking 'out of sight out of mind' and our government is back this play? How fucked up is this? From Barack Obama's White House? Bad shit, man. It's as if the cutting corners policy in profiteering standard at BP that is responsible for this ecocatastrophe is the strategy for 'clean up' efforts and our government is standing along side either twisting their hands in procrastinating delusion or complete collusion. Fuck. The President has lost my vote if any decent replacement steps up to the occasion. Done.

Those who would stand aside from this and pooh pooh the event, are complicit as goddamn fools.

[The following excerpt from a blog by the BPoilslick blog]
1. The beaches look great because there was a massive clean-up that took place all night the night before with heavy equipment on the beaches. Lighting was set up and dozers worked all night to cover up the oil on the beach in sensitive turtle hatching areas.

2. They worked almost up to concert time to keep the touristas unaware of the oil that is just under the fresh sand brought it to cover it.

3. Just down the beach in West Gulf Shores, (out of range of your send button) this is what the beach looked like.

4. People were in the water because the politicos said it was o/k. Not one MD has signed off on such statements. Governors are screaming come on down the water is fine... NOT.
We are calling it the Jaws syndrome. "We can't close our beaches during tourist season... Someone must die before we loose money!"

5. It matters not if there are large mats of oil on the beach, the dispersant mixes the toxins in the water column making it very difficult to see but it is there. The water has a pinkish hue to it and the surf foam is reddish brown.

6. Since the 4th weekend, there have been many complaints registered at local clinics with rashes, respiratory, and eye burning complaints. The mainstream media is not covering that. (no, I will not research the info for you and post links, no time, do it yourself)

7. Of course you are seeing and hearing the for profit media saying it is safe... The oil and coal industries are the highest paying customers they have. I can see where you would want to believe them but you really are blind if CNN or Fox are your sources.

Here is the real story...
A child's play bucket with seawater taken from the Gulf just 5 minutes before this photo was taken. There is oil in the water but the parent said he could not see it while in the surf.

The dumpsters full of contaminated sand was well out of sight of tourists.

Just a short boat ride across the bay on Dauphin Island these signs are posted but not on public beaches where tourists are, down on the West end where it was fairly deserted. I am not sure how they can claim the water on one side of the bay is contaminated and the other not.

I bought a new pair of tennis shoes on 06,06, 10. I wore them to Mexico then back to the beach. No problems until the week of 07/04. Weather kept us from flying so I worked the on beach for a while. On 07/07/ when I got in the truck and kicked the Bon Secour sand off of my shoes, I found gaping holes in the shoes. The tops were letting go from the soles and the rubber was soft as if being dissolved.

You believe the oil advertisers who say it is safe. I will continue to tell folks to come and bear witness to this disaster but STAY OUT OF THE WATER!

The return of The Baez System- JUST DO THE RIGHT DAMN THING

2010-07-14T11:55:00.000-04:00

Mr. Landry is pure American. Ms. Baez, so long ago, brought attention to the downtrodden masses with her guitar, successfully. Three days ago, Mr. Landry mimic-ed her methodology successfully in front of several politicians whom he graciously accounted for as 'caring'. But do they? Does the White House really care, either? BP is still running the show in the Gulf.... clean up? What exactly is the clean up? BP is hiring contracting services that will work at cut rates. Piling sand over large spates of beach to cover up the oil gluts on the shore line... so fucking stupid! As the tide comes and goes it reveals so clearly how the layer of sand cover up and height that BP took it to.

Hundreds of workers in the Gulf Coast cleaning up BP’s oil disaster have reported symptoms of nausea, vomiting, nose bleeds, and headaches, but those “almost all have been heat related,” according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab.

Republican corruption and corporate handiness rules: The natural instinct to “do something!” when in danger has run up against the cold hand of reality. Bobby Jindal thought he had this great idea to spend countless amounts of money – all of which he funneled to a wealthy campaign contributor – on building sand berms to stop the oil in the Gulf from reaching the Louisiana coast. Scientists told Jindal the initiative could harm more than it helped, but he didn’t care, using the lack of an Army Corps of Engineers sign-off to his political advantage. The federal government gave in, and allowed Jindal to go ahead with the sand berms. And they washed out. Firedoglake
Charlie Crist is using the oil spill to strategize his campaign against the machine of wingnutter Rubio: I suspect the goal of painting Rubio as a radical played a role in Crist using his gubernatorial power to call a special legislative session to put a constitutional ban on offshore drilling on the November ballot. Due to the BP oil disaster, support for offshore drilling has collapsed in Florida, shoving Rubio’s pro-drilling stance far outside the mainstream. Sticking the measure on the ballot will keep the issue front and center until the election.
Now, batshit crazy moron's (opps, that's morans!) are accusing the President of using the oil spill to 'push a new energy bill' through the legislature. Fuck... ya know, if this oil spill and it's disastrous effects do not spur, galvanize this country to take a major step into an OIL FREE America... then we are truly captured by stupidity, manipulative fear based morals and point me towards Bimini. Michelle Bachman has capitalized on the oil spill in shoving out more moronic themes of leadership than than Truman Capote ever rolled syllables.
Upper Floridan aquifers are being slowly polluted by Gulf of Mexico waters. Soon there will be crude oil stains in the Okeechobee. It's so intolerable. And there is this video, since removed by BP buying it up from the network: BP employee whistle blowing
And here in FL, NOAA researchers are accused of hording spill demographic information. Yeah, well, they do / are its against the law. I realize we are choking on this steady diet of fear, disinformation, inequity INEQUITY!, spoilage, pollution, corruption, corporate crimes, yet we have to wait for the commissions and government to speak. Not like we can storm the castle with our pitchforks and hammerhandles. We vote in those who are supposed to be doing that. If any point finds any clarity in all of this ... it's be careful who you support and vote for. I feel chumped myself right about now for all the work I've done in the last two years for the Democrats.
NEW ORLEANS (Associated Press) - The plan to start choking off oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico was suddenly halted as government officials and BP said further analysis must be done Wednesday before critical tests could proceed.

No explanation was given for the decision, and no date was set for when testing would begin on the new, tighter-fitting cap BP installed on the blown-out well Monday.
In the meantime, oil continued spewing into the Gulf. AND YOU JUST WANT TO SCREAM!

A hopeful avenue opened up less than a month after the spill: I have assembled a team of the top law firms in the country whose combined experience, knowledge and proven success are available to assist you if you have been impacted by the BP oil spill. Please contact my colleagues at Levin Papantonio at 1-888-435-7001 to discuss your situation or email my law partner, Kevin Madonna, at kmadonna@kennedymadonna.com. / Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s website gives you options if you are Gulf resident ... Gods.... slouches in our direction ... and I am grieved awful.

And what the hell is UP with Al Gore? The best he can do for any kind of leadership on this is to NOTHING? I even googled his name with gulf oil spill and not a goddamn thing rolled up until a page of links later.

And don't ever forget....

2010-07-05T13:32:00.000-04:00

I'm for no more war.
No More War.

Today belongs to The United States! America America

2010-07-04T15:43:00.000-04:00

Today we enjoy our family rituals of summer activity and meals...Who, What, Where... is your America?

I've driven back and forth, up and down, the eastern coastline of America since I could drive. These original states became and remain the roads of my life. I know the most of these states as though they are my friends. I remember how they look and smell... the grassy fields of Massachusetts, the salty, sometimes smelly paper factory turn of the road onto the Georgia coast by Savannah or the cherry blossoms in Farragut Park on the bay side of East Boston, oh! I know these states. The hybrid table grapes from upstate New York and the apples, every kind of apple. I driven through the whole of the country... made a Medicine Wheel journey of it not so many years ago with my friend Asa. The Pacific Coast Highway on the west coastline of California is the most delightfully surprising drive! I call it the "whoa!" "Wow!" ride. The northwest of the country brings us into territories that remind us of how we never seem to allow ourselves to be held back: the pioneer days still echo along the highways out west. Tucson AZ is one of my favorite towns anchoring that ideal. Then there is the fabulous Monument Valley... really, even though so much movie history captures the "Four Corners" of the country... it's the great Spirit of Place, personally, in MY America. Canyon De Chelly is a very special place to me... and it has everything to do with the American Indian histories that live between worlds there. America has traveled far. We made it to California and then along came a dreamer who invited us to reach for the stars ... to at least walk on the moon. And we have. History has a way of loosing the shades of gray that trigger sweet detail and personality that might truly reveal character and quality belonging to our historical citizens... but the land, it holds our memories.

This is my own Home.

btw, it's not actually 'sea grass'... it's Dune Grass.

More than any other place on the planet, HERE is where many people run to, seek out, ask for help or precious amnesty. The United States of America. We are nation of immigrants. I challenge anyone to ask themselves where their Ancestors came from. (In my case, several of my good friends can claim First American status, yet still:) We are a nation of strangers seeking, in essence, what is most free, most fair, most supportive, most upright... still. Still we think of ourselves this way... whether it's true or not. Overall, I hold on to my own truth that our country has made a more positive difference on the planet than any other ever before. Or as the Divine Miss M once remarked; "America is the last, best hope for the planet."

And we come to the essence of my America: HOPE. I vote for Hope. I always have; the first time it was Jimmy Carter. This last time is was Barack Obama. He's Who America is, right now. I'm grateful that Hope is still young within me. Like my country... young and Hopeful.

Happy Independence Day.

Today, more so than any other so far, the 75th Day of that crude oil atrocity gushing black death into our Gulf of Mexico and spoiling the coastlines of our southern homes.... I send a prayer of Hope. Hope for clearing and cleansing.

Our Sea is a dying HELL of fire, smoke, foulness and OIL.

2010-07-01T12:31:00.000-04:00

We are fighting against vicious, big profiteering oil ...it's like swinging away in the dark. We make our stand with Mother Nature. We are trying not to fade away as it plays out before us__ helpless, no outcry, as big corporations crush our humanity and savage our animal brothers and sisters, the planet in pursuing profits. They consume our relations! Is this the future we create for our children? We live in the midst of a family of living creatures, in eco-systems... refusing to share our world. This relentless murder of our environment diminishes us; morally. Our souls are in atrophy! What makes us human is becoming Unseen. Industrialization rules us, we don't rule it. We rape the Earth Mother who cares for our existence in silent constancy, world without end. We are reaping what we have sowed. And we might now understand en masse that there is a world with an end. A filthy, dirty, corrupted ending choking on our 'comforts', ..... this is day 73 of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico without end and coastlines suffering deeper in the oncoming high tides of Hurricane Alex.

A very large thank you to Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen: BPoilslick Blog

The video he filmed shows us too much for some to bear. There are those who refute it as lies. Yeah, they hired the dolphins and that sperm whale to star in an eco-disaster film... How can people be so heartless and cold and purposely blind?

......{But when that spill occurred two months ago, it soon swamped the Marine Spill Response Corp.
MSRC "has never had to deal with anything even remotely this large and chaotic," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which is suing BP for damages under the Clean Water Act.} Washington Post read it all here

Overwhelmed and standing still, the agencies and stop gap facilities big oil corporations and our government had 'in place' to 'handle' this kind of eco-disaster is failing miserably. There is no in between or 'ongoing effort' here ... there is only failure. The Gulf of Mexico is a dead zone in the making and there is nothing, no response, no plan, no tactic being used to stray from this course.

Today: The oil that's spewed for two and a half months from a blown-out well a mile under the sea is expected to surpass the 140 million gallon mark, eclipsing the record-setting Ixtoc I spill off Mexico's coast from 1979 to 1980. Even by the lower end of the government's estimates, at least 71.2 million gallons are in the Gulf. As the Gulf gusher neared the record, Hurricane Alex whipped oil-filled waves onto the Gulf Coast's once-white beaches. The government has pinned its latest cleanup hopes on a huge new piece of equipment: the world's largest oil-skimming vessel, which arrived Wednesday.

The tanker / recycler "The Whale" has been brought in to scoop and recycle surface crude oil in the Gulf. It is a huge vessel, a floating city! It takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea.

Meanwhile,
A lawsuit filed on Wednesday says BP is violating the Endangered Species Act and other laws with their "controlled burns" in the Gulf of Mexico.

The complainants, Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Centre for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Animal Legal Defence Fund, have asked the Federal court for a temporary restraining order to stop all burning activities "until...mechanisms are implemented that will prevent any additional sea turtles from being burned alive."

"It is horrifying that these innocent creatures whose habitat has already been devastated by the oil spill are now being burned alive," AWI president Cathy Liss told the court in Louisiana.

Containment efforts put in place since a BP-leased offshore oil rig exploded April 20 unleashing the worst oil spill in US history include "controlled burns", in which oil is gathered by ship-towed floating booms and set on fire.

"Endangered sea turtles, including the Kemp's ridley, one of the rarest sea turtles on Earth, are caught in the gathered oil and unable to escape when the oil is set ablaze," the animal welfare groups said.

They said some 430 sea turtles from endangered species have perished so far in the oil spill.

$$$$

In his first appearance before Congress since taking on the job, Kenneth Feinberg on Wednesday criticized BP's (BP) process for compensating those who have lost their livelihoods in the spill's wake. The oil company has paid out almost $130 million so far on 41,000 claims -- but more than 80,000 claims have been submitted. "It is not sufficiently efficient. It is not paying all that many small business claims," Feinberg said in testimony before the House Committee on Small Business. Instead of the month-to-month emergency checks going out now, Feinberg plans to have his new entity, the Gulf Spill Independent Claims Fund, send out six-month lump sum payments "to give small businesses more certainty." Exactly what constitutes a "legitimate" claim is still being determined, but Feinberg said that he envisions limits.

That $20 billion seems to be finding it's ceiling!

Elsewhere: The President has NOT put a moratorium on oil drilling. Since the spill, 17 new offshore oil drilling projects have been permitted. Even the six-month deepwater moratorium was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge June 22, leaving it void if not overturned on appeal or reinstated on different legal grounds. (Nevermind that the judge has invested in Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded, Halliburton, which handled the faulty cementing of the well, and about a dozen other companies involved in offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.) And Obama has always been a supporter of offshore oil, though some of his environmentalist supporters seem to have forgotten that; he made good on a campaign promise shortly before the BP oil spill started and proposed opening additional offshore waters to oil and gas exploration – in the Gulf of Mexico, along the Atlantic coast and off Alaska. (Permits to start drilling in those new waters have been suspended temporarily.)

It's touted that boycotting BP gas stations makes no difference to the big oil corporation as they are individually owned and __BP disinvested in its U.S. gasoline chain in 2007, leaving independent owners invested most heavily in local stations. They pay BP a licensing fee and may (or may not) be more likely to carry BP gasoline, but the economics of wholesale oil and gas is such that BP, Britain's largest company, is unlikely to suffer much from a retail gas boycott, but BP the local station owner could. Anyway, what's the better alternative? And unfortunately, oil ends up in a lot of products other than gasoline, under a lot of different brands, making it difficult to avoid one company's product. You know what? If we boycott BP successfully.... who the heck is going to do business with them? It doesn't matter... it doesn't affect them? Horseshit! Another reverse psycho-babble from big corporate PR for you to fall for.

The U.S. imports 57% of the oil we burn, and two-thirds of those imports come from politically unstable or hostile countries. As a nation, we spend more than $700 million a day on imported oil (the figure was more than $1 billion as recently as 2008, when oil prices were higher). There isn't enough oil offshore to offset that imbalance. An analysis by the Energy Information Administration, the most credible government voice on energy issues, predicted that new offshore oil drilling would result in a whopping 3-cent difference in the price of gas by 2030.

There are those who claim this incident is isolated.... unusual to the deep water off shore drilling community. More bullshit! The facts keep piling up showing negligence – or at the very least, bad decision-making – by BP, and many of those decisions and conditions may be unique to BP, which has been criticized before this for a culture that put profits far ahead of safety and environmental protection. But disaster preparedness by other oil companies drilling in the Gulf, and oversight by the government, is virtually identical.

Just how many barrels of oil are spilling a day? BP doesn't want that to ever be calculated.

_______________________________________

Many people, lots of them taking an active part in protest or clean up with wildlife, are overwhelmed by the film of ongoing atrocity the oil spill is triggering. Many can not watch the films ... there are some who "poo poo" it all as lies or 'nonsense' or bullshit. Just as BP would have it. As long as you know that sticking your head in the sand, the oil soaked sand, is another small 'win' or victory in the fight for big corporate oil. We must witness what is happening, we must not fade away from this! The people in Mexico, during the Ixtoc spill in the 70's, were too afraid of the police, politicians and big corporate oil to say a damn thing. It was international groups that appealed to the world for a justice for nature.... which, for the most part, was ignored. The demographic of environmentalists, conservationists and green defined Americans has swelled vastly. Our voice can make a difference. Our outrage can mean the difference! Please don't turn away in apathy! Please continue to voice you outrage and to urge your local politicians to do the same and to make a political / fiscal difference where it is needed in the 'clean up'.

This made a big impression on my life. I still feel it. I hope you do too. How many know that this commercial was 'thought up' by a few young Republicans who first peopled the Environmental Protection Agency?

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The return of The Baez System- JUST DO THE RIGHT DAMN THING

And don't ever forget....

Today belongs to The United States! America America

Our Sea is a dying HELL of fire, smoke, foulness and OIL.