my Thinking spot

wow.

2010-02-15T01:03:00.006-06:00

i should be studying. or sleeping. who knows at this point.

i just poked my wee head back in to have a look-see, after surprising myself by remembering my user name and pass word... i imagine i might feel the same way upon returning to my childhood home that i left when i was little and never saw again. it kinda rocked me, in a sad sort of way.

the first thing i noticed was that date of my last post - september 21st, 2008. then i saw that all these links were showing up as no longer available. so i cleared them off the template.

i started going through my blogroll and gave up after realizing that 90% of them were no longer active. i know it sounds crazy, but i practically lived here for 3 years after i had bebe. there was a community. a sanity. a sanctuary - all through writing. i met many people that i've still never metmet, that i adore to this day. and i miss every single one of them. so much has changed. i miss those days. i find myself longing for them a bit right now...

it's amazing, to look back at what i wrote, all of it, the day to day - the joy, the stresses, the pain, the fear, the hope, the memories - and have it all distilled down to a feeling of something that i miss a whole hell of a lot more than i thought i would. the feeling feels sunny and happyfuzzy. it feels content. it feels a lot like what i need more of right now.

the blog got back-burnered when i returned to work and grad school. and while i know it was necessary that i returned back to what i had always known, i feel like i've literally lost so much time. especially with bebe. he starts kindergarten this year. i will barely see him, compared to what i do now. i'm not sure exactly how i will get through that. our time here is truly so short and it goes sooooo fast. i can't seem to assimilate to the speed of this culture. and so my mind wanders off and all around...

i really need to study.

i just wanted to say hi. and i miss you.

word.

2008-09-21T12:12:00.001-05:00

This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/

dada/mail.cgi/archive/Soft_Skull_Media/newest/
9/13/08

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege,
or who are looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps
this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like
Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that
of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to
judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even
as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly
typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "f***in'
redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if
anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their f***in' ass," and talk
about how you like to "shoot s**t" for fun, and still be viewed as a
responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather
than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in
six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out
of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community
college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to
achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as
unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first
place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town
smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state
with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island
of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people
don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S.
Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means
you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words
"under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough
for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be
immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the
pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't
added until the 1950s--while if you're black and believe in reading
accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because the
Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school,
requires it), you are a dangerous and mushy liberal who isn't fit to
safeguard American institutions.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make
people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member
of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from
the Union, and whose motto is "Alaska first," and no one questions
your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your
spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with
her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's
being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers
and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of
women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end
to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if
you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month
governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in
college and the fact that she lives close to Russia--you're somehow
being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't
even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your
running mate anyway, because suddenly your presence on the ticket has
inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your
party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support
your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or
being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being
black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political
machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to
get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be
viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is
unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her
ready to be VP, while if you're a black candidate for president and
you let your children be interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you're
irresponsibly exploiting them.

White privilege is being able to give a 36 minute speech in which
you talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying
out no substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still
manage to be considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person
who gives an hour speech the week before, in which he lays out
specific policy proposals on several issues, is still criticized for
being too vague about what he would do if elected.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years
whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely
criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an
explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring
Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in
speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment
on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just
a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a
black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S.
Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of
U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its
effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates
America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when
asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for
asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely
refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly
means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly
intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to go to a prestigious prep school,
then to Yale and then Harvard Business school, and yet, still be seen
as just an average guy (George W. Bush) while being black, going to a
prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and
then to Harvard Law, makes you "uppity," and a snob who probably looks
down on regular folks.

White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your
college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.)
and that's OK, and you're cut out to be president, but if you're black
and you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you
can't be trusted to make good decisions in office.

White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she's
disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire
beauty queen (who you go on to call the c-word in public) and still be
thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you're black and
married for nearly twenty years to the same woman, your family is
viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other
are called "terrorist fist bumps."

White privilege is when you can develop a pain-killer addiction,
having obtained your drug of choice illegally like Cindy McCain, go on
to beat that addiction, and everyone praises you for being so strong,
while being a black guy who smoked pot a few times in college and
never became an addict means people will wonder if perhaps you still
get high, and even ask whether or not you ever sold drugs.

White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran
and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the
maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the
U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements
with them, makes you "dangerously naive and immature."

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW
has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being
black and experiencing racism and an absent father is apparently among
the "lesser adversities" faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin
explained in her convention speech.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could
possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with
George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is
skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and
the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because a
lot of white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya
know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more
years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

open letter to the asshat(s?) that shredded obama sign #2.

2008-09-11T10:51:00.000-05:00

dear jerk face pants head(s),

i think it is really really really AWESOME that you believe in free speech, democracy and pretty much everything this country stands for - you know, SO MUCH SO that you felt compelled to come into my yard AGAIN and rip apart the second obama sign we had strategically placed after you brutalized the first one earlier this week. you. rock. you are clearly very brave. you are truly one of america's heroes.

go you. you are a PATRIOT.

love,
kara

p/s: mccain is going DOWN. and you know it.

apocalypse meow!!!!

2008-09-03T04:45:00.003-05:00

...so we had our first meeting to begin planning a benefit for abby on sunday. the last thing that she needs to be worrying about while doing battle with inflammatory breast cancer is how the bills will be paid. there is a website set up now, as well as a facebook and myspace page...

i'm really excited! the response has been amazing so far, and the momentum is only starting to build!

i've also added a little widget over there to the right. if you have even a few dollars to spare, it would make a world of difference. every little bit adds up... the chip in site is super easy to use.

thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!

p/s - abby's blog is here.

the right to peaceably assemble

2008-09-02T05:24:00.002-05:00

"the state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. you were born with it - like your eyes, like your ears. freedom is something that you assume, then you wait for someone to try and take it away. the degree to which you resist, is the degree to which you are free."
~utah phillips

i'm pretty upset right now. and tired. be warned.

i've caught wind of several reports of protesters being handed their asses at both the dnc and rnc. typically those targeted are of the anarchist varietal. mostly because these folks act as sort of a protection for other protesters. they will put themselves in the line of fire, so to speak. my experience has always been one that is radically different than what most people think of when they hear the words anarchist or anarchy. i can at least see how anarchists make people nervous, given the misguided media representation that reigns supreme. that still doesn't give anyone carte blanche to commence ass kicking. that is called police brutality. period.

with the exception of a few people that can be found in most any group, the anarchists i have encountered are fairly peaceful people - and a lot like me. they believe the system is flawed. they believe that our foreign and domestic policies are harmful to living beings and the planet. they have faith in humanity - that we can lead ourselves - that we don't need leaders. they think it is messed up that natural resources that really belong to no one are harvested, repackaged, and sold back to us in neat little boxes. they believe that we don't own anything, that we borrow stuff until we die...

in all fairness, i have questions. ones i've tried to raise for discussion to no avail in the past with different anarchists, at different points in my life. being the virgo that i'am, i want to know what it would look like. how it would work. we tend to want to have someone in charge - after all, we've been raised with this cultural construct all our lives. this country has known leaders since we ripped it away from the native peoples of this land so long ago. and i go back and forth with humanity. reading mccarthy's 'the road' did nothing to help. sometimes i think that if some terrible shit went down, we would band together. some days i see how truly horrible people can be to one another and wonder if that is even possible. i also encounter a fair amount apathy that factors into the equation.

i love the idea of anarchy - the idea that WE define how our lives and communities are led. we don't rely on leaders to change things for us, we are each actively involved in spurring that change. we work together, using such tools as concensus, for decision making. the western world is highly individualistic. though i have also witnessed complete strangers jumping to help when help is needed. without being asked. it is an organic response for many, myself included.

i know that there are many misconceptions about what anarchy means. and it is something that i struggle with myself, regularly. do i even bother to vote? am i simply supporting can the system be changed, or is it already too far gone? we don't live in a democracy. i encounter many on a daily basis that would prefer to have someone else make their decisions for them. to wave a flag around and blow up fireworks on the forth of july, but never get their hands dirty. it is difficult for me to get my brain around that.

this i know for certain. no matter who is elected in november, we will still have work to do. every minute of every day of our lives. democracy is not a spectator sport. you don't get to slap a flag sticker on your car and believe that your part is finished.

the right to peaceably assemble is a farce. in order to do so, one must obtain permits to gather. if there is a march, you need a parade permit. you need to carry a certain amount of insurance as well. sidewalks are supposedly safe places to air grievances, so long as you don't cross some magical, mystical line i've yet to figure out. but i digress.

what spurred this diatribe, you ask? the following. i've been to my fair share of protests where arrests were made. where rubber bullets were fired at close range. where people love to talk about how free we are in this country while i've seen the complete opposite. what you're about to watch and read is simply unacceptable. we've reached a new low. one where a reporter is cuffed and stuffed and the producers of her show are hurt, then arrested. while i've grown to expect that using your voice in a public manner can have consequences that are painful and unjust, this really stunned me, left me feeling angry.

yeah, i'll vote in november. i do think that there are certain people that are easier to work with than others - that more can be accomplished this way. yeah, there are really truly wonderful things about this country. yeah, i'll never stop fighting for what i believe is right. and someday i will live in a place that embraces what i embrace. it has to be out there somewhere. and it will be near an ocean. yeah, i still have faith and hope in "we the people."

but this. is. so. wrong.

Democracy Now! Host and Producers Arrested at Republican Convention

By Holly Watt
ST. PAUL -- Democracy Now! radio host Amy Goodman and two producers were arrested while covering demonstrations at the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn. Goodman was released after being held for over three hours, but is still waiting to hear when Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar would be released.

"I was down on the convention floor interviewing delegates when I heard that two of our producers had been arrested," said Goodman. "I ran down to Jackson and 7th Street, where the police had moved in."

Goodman said that when she ran up to find out what was going on, she was also arrested.

"They seriously manhandled me and handcuffed my hands behind my back. The top ID [at the convention] is to get on the floor and the Secret Service ripped that off me. I had my Democracy Now! ID too. I was clearly a reporter."

Goodman, who was released after being charged with a misdemeanor, said that Salazar had been hurt in the face, while Kouddous had been thrown up against a wall and hurt his elbow.

"Nicole told me that as they moved in on three sides, she asked them 'How do I get away from this?' and they jumped on her."

Both Kouddous and Salazar could be held for up to 36 hours.

"One of the police kept shouting at me 'Shut up, shut up," she said. "It was extremely threatening."

one of the most brave and

2008-08-09T16:15:00.008-05:00

fiercest grrrrls i call friend...

just in case anyone still drops by here, (bad blogger me, bad bad bad) wouldya pretty please stop over at abigail's place and send her any of that good stuff i know you've got? it is going to be a rough ride. she's in the throes of kickin' some cancer ass - and i love her very much. you would too, if you knew her. so head on over and meet her...

and read up on this nasty trickster when you have the time. i'd never even heard of it before a few weeks ago.

what is art?

2008-06-22T01:09:00.003-05:00

a friend posed this question earlier today in a blog posting. got me thinking. she asked for examples of what is definitely and definitely not art. i've been thinking about it on and off most of the day...

as for definitely, i immediately thought of a couple that i first learned about via a kcpt late night arts special that will and i saw several months (years?) ago. i know i posted about them sometime back, but can't seem to find it now... anyhoo - this stuff moved me from the get go - particularly this piece. i though i'd share it here, along with a link to view more of their work.

i'm still working on the definitely not part...

truly fantasticalbeautimousinfinity.

AWESOME!!!!!!!!

2008-06-13T17:31:00.001-05:00

just what we need... yet ANOTHER neo-con in the white house.

read it and weep:

John McCain’s Chilling Project for America

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080612_john_mccains_chilling_project_for_america/

Posted on Jun 12, 2008

By Elliot Cohen

John McCain has long been a major player in a radical militaristic group driven by an ideology of global expansionism and dominance attained through perpetual, pre-emptive, unilateral, multiple wars. The credo of this group is “the end justifies the means,” and the end of establishing the United States as the world’s sole superpower justifies, in its estimation, anything from military control over the information on the Internet to the use of genocidal biological weapons. Over its two terms, the George W. Bush administration has planted the seeds for this geopolitical master plan, and now appears to be counting on the McCain administration, if one comes to power, to nurture it.

The Road Map to War

The blueprint for this “new order” was drafted in February 1992, at the end of the George H.W. Bush administration when Defense Department staffers Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad, acting under then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, drafted the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG). This document, also known as the “Wolfowitz Doctrine,” was an unofficial, internal document that advocated massive increases in defense spending for purposes of strategic proliferation and buildup of the military in order to establish the pre-eminence of the United States as the world’s sole superpower. Advocating pre-emptive attacks with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, it proclaimed that “the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.” The document was also quite clear about what should be the United States’ main objective in the Middle East, especially with regard to Iraq and Iran, which was to “remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region’s oil.” The Wolfowitz Doctrine was leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post, which published excerpts from it. Amid a public outcry, President George H.W. Bush retracted the document, and it was substantially revised.

The original mission of the Wolfowitz Doctrine was not lost, however. In 1997, William Kristol and Robert Kagan founded The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a nongovernment political action organization that sought to develop and advocate for the militant, geopolitical tenets contained in the Wolfowitz Doctrine. PNAC’s original members included Wolfowitz, Cheney, Khalilzad, Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, William J. Bennett, and other soon-to-be high officers in the Bush administration.

McCain’s Ties to PNAC

John McCain’s connection to PNAC can be traced back to before its formation in 1997. In fact, he was president of the New Citizenship Project, founded by Kristol in 1994. This organization was parent to PNAC, and served as its chief fundraising organ.

McCain also worked cooperatively with PNAC and Wolfowitz in attempting to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. In 1998, he co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act—drafted by PNAC—which decreed “regime change” in Iraq to be U.S. policy, and which appropriated $97 million in U.S. military aid to the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The INC was a group of anti-Hussein Iraqi militants whose purpose was to instigate a national uprising against Hussein. It was led by Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi informant whose subsequent faulty intelligence—claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida—was used to sell the Iraq war to the American public. In 2004, in response to accusations that he deliberately misled U.S. intelligence agencies, Chalabi glibly stated, “We are heroes in error.”

McCain also was co-chair (with Sen. Joseph Lieberman) of The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI). Established by PNAC in late 2002, this committee continued to finance Chalabi’s INC with millions of taxpayer dollars, until shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it was discontinued. In 2004, McCain became a signatory of PNAC, ironically signing on to a PNAC letter condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy for its return to the “rhetoric of militarism and empire.”

McCain has accordingly been a foot soldier for PNAC from its inception, and, although this organization is no longer in existence, its ideology and its signatories (many of whom now serve as advisers to the McCain presidential campaign) are still very much active.

The Master Plan

In September 2000, prior to the presidential election that year, PNAC carefully formulated its chief tenets in a document called Rebuilding America’s Defenses (RAD). This document, which was intended to guide the incoming administration, had a substantial influence on the policies set by the Bush administration and is likely to do the same for a McCain administration if McCain becomes president. Here are some of the recommendations of the RAD report:

Fighting and winning multiple, simultaneous major wars

Among its core missions was the rebuilding of America’s defenses sufficient to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.” And it explicitly advocated sending troops into Iraq regardless of whether Saddam Hussein was in power. According to RAD, “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”

The RAD report also admonished, “Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.” Therefore, it had both Iraq and Iran in its sight as zones of multiple, simultaneous major wars for purposes of advancing “longstanding American interests in the region”—in particular, its oil.

McCain’s recent chanting of “bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran” to the beat of an old Beach Boys tune, his suggestion that the war with Iraq might last 100 years and his recent statement that the war in Afghanistan might also last 100 years—all of these pronouncements are clearly in concert with the PNAC mission to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.”

RAD also stressed the need to have additional forces equipped to handle ongoing “constabulary” duties such as enforcement of no-fly zones and other operations that fell short of full theater wars. It claimed that unless the military was so equipped, its ability to fight and win multiple, simultaneous wars would be impaired. Along these same lines, McCain has recently stated, ‘’It’s time to end the disingenuous practice of stating that we have a two-war strategy when we are paying for only a one-war military. Either we must change our strategy—and accept the risks—or we must properly fund and structure our military.’’

Designing and deploying global missile defense systems

RAD also emphasized, as an additional core value, the need to “transform U.S. forces to exploit the ‘revolution in military affairs.’ ” This included the design and deployment of a global ballistic missile defense system consisting of land-, sea-, air- and space-based components said to be capable of shielding the U.S. and its allies from “limited strikes” in the future by “rogue” nations such as Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

Along these lines, McCain has maintained that a ballistic missile defense system was “indispensable”—even if this meant reneging on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 at the expense of angering the Russians. Unfortunately, while RAD acknowledged the “limited” efficacy of such a weapons system (presumably because it cannot realistically provide a bulletproof shield, especially against large-scale missile attacks), neither it nor McCain addressed the problem that deployment of such a system could be destabilizing: It could encourage escalation, instead of de-escalation, of ballistic missile arsenals by nations that fear becoming sitting ducks, and might even provoke a pre-emptive strike. Further, there is still the question of whether the creation of such costly, national defense shields is even technologically feasible.

The use of genocidal biological warfare for political expediency

Not only did RAD advocate the design and deployment of defensive weaponry, it also stressed the updating of conventional offensive weapons including cruise missiles along with stealthy strike aircraft and longer-range Air Force strike aircraft. But it went further in its offensive posture by envisioning and supporting the use of genotype-specific biological warfare. According to RAD, “… advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” In this chilling statement, a double standard is evident. In the hands of al-Qaida, such genocidal weapons would belong to “the realm of terror,” but in those of the U.S., they would be “politically useful tools.”

Rejection of the United Nations

PNAC’s double standard is also inherent in its rejection of the idea of a cooperative, neutral effort among the nations of the world to address world problems, including the problem of Iraq. “Nor can the United States assume a UN-like stance of neutrality,” states the RAD report. “The preponderance of American power is so great and its global interests so wide that it cannot pretend to be indifferent to the political outcome in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf or even when it deploys forces in Africa. Finally, these missions demand forces basically configured for combat.” Accordingly, a McCain administration founded on a PNAC platform of self-interested exercise of force would oppose giving the United Nations any central role in setting and implementing foreign affairs policy.

Control of space and cyberspace

PNAC’s quest for global domination transcends any literal meaning of the geopolitical, and extends also to the control, rather than the sharing, of outer space. It also has serious implications for cyber freedom. Thus the RAD report states, “Much as control of the high seas—and the protection of international commerce—defined global powers in the past, so will control of the new ‘international commons’ be a key to world power in the future. An America incapable of protecting its interests or that of its allies in space or the ‘infosphere’ will find it difficult to exert global political leadership. ... Access to and use of cyberspace and the Internet are emerging elements in global commerce, politics and power. Any nation wishing to assert itself globally must take account of this other new ‘global commons.’ ”

There is a difference between protecting the Internet from a cyber attack and controlling it. The former is defensive while the latter is offensive. But RAD also advocated going on the offensive. It stated that “an offensive capability could offer America’s military and political leaders an invaluable tool in disabling an adversary in a decisive manner.”

However, state control of cyberspace for political purposes can have serious implications for the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. The Bush administration has already engaged in mass illegal spying on the phone and e-mail messages of millions of Americans through its National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program. As a result of copying these messages and depositing them into an NSA computer database, it began to assemble a massive “Total Information Awareness” computer network. The FBI has also begun to develop and integrate such personal data with a biometric database that includes digital iris prints and facial images. Combine this with other computerized databases including credit card information, banking records and health files, and the result is an incredible ability to exercise power and control over anyone deemed by a political leader to be an “adversary”—including journalists, political opponents and others who might not see eye to eye with the administration.

In concert with the PNAC mission of control over cyberspace, McCain has supported making warrantless spying on American citizens legal. When asked if he believed that Bush’s warrantless surveillance program was legal, McCain responded, “You know, I don’t think so, but why not come to Congress? We can sort this out. ... I think they will get that authority, whatever is reasonable and needed, and increased abilities to monitor communications are clearly in order.”

Consistent with his conviction that such extended powers should be granted to the president, McCain has also recently voted for Senate Bill S.2248, which vacates substantial civil liberties protections included in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In contrast to the 1978 FISA, S.2248 would allow the president, acting through the attorney general, to spy on the phone and e-mail communications of Americans without individual court warrants or the need to judicially show probable cause.

Despite the fact that McCain has said that Bush’s NSA spying program was not legal, he has also supported granting retroactive legal immunity to the telecommunication companies (such as AT&T and Verizon) that helped Bush illegally spy on millions of Americans. This means that he has openly admitted that the Bush administration acted unlawfully in eavesdropping on Americans’ phone and e-mail messages, while at the same time opted for taking away their legal right to redress this violation. And this unequivocally means that McCain is prepared to allow executive authority to trump the rule of law.

Meet the McCain Team

Given John McCain’s firm allegiance to the core missions of PNAC, it should come as no surprise that many of the old PNAC guard have shown up as foreign policy advisers in McCain’s current presidential campaign, and are likely re-emerge as high officials in his administration if he becomes president. Here are snapshots of some of these potential members of a McCain Cabinet, giving their PNAC profiles, their advisory capacities in the McCain 2008 presidential campaign, and their politics.

William Kristol
Editor and founder of Washington-based political magazine, Weekly Standard.
PNAC co-founder.
Foreign policy adviser.
Has consistently been wrong in his foreign policy analyses regarding Iraq. For example, on March 5, 2003, he stated, “I think we’ll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq.”

Robert Kagan
Served in State Department in Reagan administration on Policy Planning Staff.
PNAC co-founder.
Foreign policy adviser.
Has defended global expansionism by claiming it is an American tradition: “Americans’ belief in the possibility of global transformation—the ‘messianic’ impulse—is and always has been the more dominant strain in the nation’s character.”

Randy Scheunemann
Former adviser to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Co-director and executive director of Committee for Liberation of Iraq.
Defense and foreign policy coordinator.
With regard to recent National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003, stated “a careful reading of the NIE indicates that it is misleading.” And he claimed that the NIE harmed our efforts to achieve a “greater diplomatic consensus” to crack down on Iran.

James Woolsey
Director of CIA, Clinton administration, 1993-1995. (Reported to have met only twice with Clinton during time as CIA chief.)
PNAC signatory.
Energy and national security adviser.
Speaking to a group of college students in 2003 about Iraq, he stated that “… the United States is engaged in World War IV.” Described the Cold War as the third world war. Then said, “This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us. Hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War.”

John R. Bolton
Former U.S. ambassador to U.N. (Nomination to U.N. rejected by Senate, but George W. Bush put him in place on a recess appointment. Name floated for possible secretary of state for McCain.
PNAC director.
Ardent supporter of McCain for president in 2009.
Publicly derided the United Nations: In 1994, he stated “there is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interest, and when we can get others to go along.” Advocates attacking Iran.

Robert B. Zollick
President, World Bank.
PNAC signatory.
Announced in 2006 he would be joining McCain presidential campaign for domestic and foreign policy but instead replaced Wolfowitz as president of World Bank in 2007.
Has touted virtues of corporate globalization under the rubric of “comprehensive free trade.” But as Kevin Watkins, head researcher for Oxfan, stated, he pays no heed to the effects of the “blind pursuit of US economic and corporate special interests” on the world’s poor.

Gary Schmitt
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (home to other PNAC members including Wolfowitz and Pearle.)
PNAC director.
Foreign policy adviser.
Defended warrantless eavesdropping on Americans by claiming that Constitution “created a unitary chief executive. That chief executive could, in times of war or emergency, act with the decisiveness, dispatch and, yes, secrecy, needed to protect the country and its citizens.”

Richard L. Armitage
Former deputy secretary of state in George W. Bush administration.
PNAC signatory.
Foreign policy adviser.
By his own admission, was responsible for leaking CIA agent Valerie Plame’s CIA identity to the press. Allegedly involved in Iran-Contra affair during Reagan administration.

Max Boot
Council on Foreign Relations.
PNAC signatory.
Foreign policy adviser.
Stating that U.S. should “unambiguously ... embrace its imperial role,” has advocated attacking other Middle East countries in addition to Iraq and Iran, including Syria. Said McCain’s “bellicose aura” could “scare the snot out of our enemies,” who “would be more afraid to mess with him” than with other then-potential presidential candidates.

Henry A. Kissinger
President Nixon’s secretary of state.
Embraces expansionist power politics.
Consultant.
Played major role in secret bombings of Cambodia during Nixon administration as well as having had alleged involvement in covert assassination plots and human rights violations in Latin America.

What’s in Store for Us if McCain Becomes President

That McCain has surrounded himself with such like-minded advisers who support the narrow PNAC agenda speaks to his unwillingness to hear and consider alternative perspectives. In fact, six out of 10 civilian foreign advisers to McCain are PNAC veterans. Even the newly appointed deputy communications director of the McCain campaign, Michael Goldfard, has been a research associate for PNAC. A die-hard adherent of the “unitary authority” of the chief executive, he recently stated that the framers of the United States Constitution advocated an “executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war.”

Add to this list other major PNAC figures such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Dick Cheney who would probably play a significant role in a McCain administration and it is clear in what direction this nation would be moving.

A McCain administration would be likely to:

Invest incredible amounts of money in sustaining multiple, simultaneous wars overseas at the expense of neglecting pressing concerns at home, including the economy, health care, the environment and education.
Stockpile nuclear weapons, while seeking to prohibit its adversaries from having them.
Attempt to shield the U.S. with a multilayered missile defense system based on land, at sea, in the air and in space, while demanding that nations that are not its allies become sitting ducks.
Strive to develop more potent chemical and biological weapons—not to mention the genotype-specific variety, while at the same time claiming to be fighting a “war on terror.”
Legalize “Total Information Awareness”—going through all Americans’ phone calls, e-mail messages and other personal records without needing probable cause.
Take control of the Internet, globally using it as an offensive political weapon—while claiming to be spreading democracy throughout the world.
Dispense with checks and balances in favor of the “unitary executive authority” of the president.
Alienate nations that refuse to join our war coalitions.
Deny that there is (or can be) a United Nations.

A McCain administration would rule by fear, perceive right in terms of military might and subscribe to the idea of “do as I say and not as I do.” As a consequence, instead of rebuilding the image of America as a model of justice and civility, it would further sully respect for this nation throughout the world.

Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., is a political analyst and media critic. His most recent book is “The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-Hungry Government Are Turning America Into a Dictatorship.” He was first-prize winner of the 2007 Project Censored Award.

AP photo / LM Otero

so, anyway...

2008-06-02T14:05:00.002-05:00

'tis but another one of those, "why do they do that" moments. not sure why i still have them at this point, but i do.

see, i got some fun streaky colors put on my hairs last week. me likey. the lovely stylist kicked me down some samples of a shampoo and conditioner for me to try that will make the color stay longer. i told her that a bunch of those products either make me sneeze or give me a head ache. i have an aversion to real perfume-i-licious stuff, historically. i got them home and gave 'em a sniff.

as bebe would say, "bleeeeeeeeeeeech."
good links
plan b.

luckily, there are alternatives.

all this got me thinking about a list that a friend of mine painstakingly compiled recently after doing some research. i had meant to pass it along earlier, but never did. now is the time. :) thank you, catherine!!!

i found myself reading through it after she sent it around the first time in what could amount to horror. i knew about some of the ingredients listed, but not many of the others. why they are even used in products that many use daily is beyond me. i also started wondering if my heavy use of such things for most of my life has contributed to the cancerous cells that i've battled on and off for years. or if they even contributed to that "rare" tumor i had removed last february... i do know my allergies miraculously disappeared when i started eating organic food years ago, but i digress.

what follows is a list of ingredients to be on the look out for (and why) - that are commonly used in personal care products such as shampoos, conditioners, make-up, lotions, etc.

following that, i'll throw in some alternatives that i use (or have used) that i heart, so i'm not all doom and gloom about it. if you have any alternatives to share - bring it! also, since make-up kara is long gone, i can't really help there.

in kara land, if we support the companies that aren't putting potentially (and known to be) toxic junk in stuff we buy - the rest will follow suit. that's my story and i'm sticking to it. oh, yeah! these places don't test their stuff on animals, either. BONUS!

AMMONIUM LAURYL SULFATE: (see Sodium L, L, M Sulfate)
BHA (Butylated Hydroxyanisole) and BHT (Butylated Hydroxytoluene) Synthetic antioxidants used as preservatives.
BUTYL CELLOSOLVE, and ISOBUTENE: (Fantastic, Windex, and Formula 409) A neurotoxin. Damages the central nervous system, kidney and liver. Listed as a pesticide.
CARMINE: (found in lipsticks, glosses blushes, and eye shadow) This extract from the carmine beetle in South America, has been connected to heart problems.
CETEARETH#: Used in cosmetics as an emulsifier and lotion. Dries out the skin and causes numerous allergic reactions. •Not safe for use on injured or damaged skin •Penetration enhancer - alters skin structure, allows other chemicals to penetrate deeper into the skin •May contain harmful impurities
DEA, MEA, and TEA: (on this list also under full names...may be listed as either way on product) Repeated use of these chemicals leads to a major increase in the incidence of liver and kidney cancer. Restricted in Europe.
DIETHANOLAMINE: More commonly known by its abbreviation, DEA. One of many artificial detergents that may be contaminated with nitrosamines and should be avoided.
DIMETHICONE: Gives a smooth feel to a cosmetic cream or lotion. Various allergic reactions and internal problems make them questionable as cosmetic ingredients. Although they're still widely used, they should be avoided. Many herbal oils, such as vegetable glycerin, can easily replace this chemical.
DIMIDAZOLIDINYL UREA and DIAZOLIDINYL UREA: These are the most commonly used preservatives after the parabens. They are well established as a primary cause of contact dermatitis (American Academy of Dermatology). Two trade names for these chemicals are Germall II and Germall 115. Neither of the Germall chemicals has a good antifungal, and must be combined with other preservatives. Germall 115 releases formaldehyde at just over 10°. These chemicals are toxic.
DIOXIN: Lysol disinfectant. Carcinogen, 500,000 times more deadly than DDT Ethyl Alcohol.
DMDM Hydantoin & UREA: Preservatives that release FORMALDEHYDE into the body. Funeral directors are now saying that there is such a high concentration of formaldehyde present in the human body at death that they are using 50% LESS formaldehyde than they used to.
FD&C DYE: The synthetic colors used to supposedly make a cosmetic "pretty" should be avoided at all costs, along with hair dyes. They will be labeled as FD&C or D&C, followed by a color and a number. Example: FD&C Red No. 6 / D&C Green No. 6. Synthetic colors are believed to be cancer-causing agents. If a cosmetic contains them, don't use it.
FRAGRANCE (including FRAGRANCE OILS: Synthetic fragrances used in cosmetics can have as many as 200 ingredients. There is no way to know what the chemicals are, since on the label it will simply say "Fragrance." Some of the problems caused by these chemicals are headaches, dizziness, rash, hyper pigmentation, violent coughing, vomiting, skin irritation by a cosmetic that has the word "Fragrance" on the ingredients label.
ISOBUTENE: (Gas used for shaving cream, mousse, etc) •Sensitizer - can instigate immune system response that can include itching, burning, scaling, hives, and blistering of skin •Irritation (eyes, skin, or lungs)
MAGNESIUM ALUMINUM SILICATE: Known neurotoxin.
OXYNOL: Contamination concerns with ETHYLENE OXIDE, 1,4-DIOXANE Other moderate concerns for this ingredient: Persistence and bioaccumulation, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)
PARABENS: Methyl and Propyl and Butyl and Ethyl Paraben — Used as inhibitors of microbial growth and to extend shelf life of products. Widely used even though they are known to be toxic. Have caused many allergic reactions and skin rashes. Methylparaben combines benzoic acid with the methyl group of chemicals. Highly toxic. Preservatives that deposit in the human system and disrupt normal enzyme activity.
PARRAFIN (see Petrolatum)
PEG-100 Stearate: One or more animal studies show skin irritation at very low doses.
PETROLATUM: Mineral oil jelly. Mineral oil causes a lot of problems when used on the skin photosensitivity (i.e., promotes sun damage), and it tends to interfere with the body's own natural moisturizing mechanism, leading to dry skin and chapping. Manufacturers use petrolatum because it is unbelievably cheap.
PHENOL CARBOLIC ACID: Strong evidence of human neurotoxicity. Banned in Canada and Japan.
PHENOXYETHANOL: Classified as an irritant.
POLYETHYLENE: Possible human immune system toxicant

PROPYLENE GLYCOL: Ideally this is a vegetable glycerin mixed with grain alcohol, both of which are natural. Usually it is a synthetic petrochemical mix used as a humectant. Has been known to cause allergic and toxic reactions.
PTHALATES: (Used in nail polish, fragrance other products) Extremely toxic chemicals that reduce fertility, harm the male reproductive system, and are especially dangerous to pregnant women's fetuses. Found in products by Proctor & Gamble, L'Oreal, Lever Brothers, Maybelline, Pond's, Colgate, Elizabeth Arden, Kraft, and Revlon.
PVP/VA Copolymer: A petroleum-derived chemical used in hairsprays, wavesets and other cosmetics. It can be considered toxic, since particles may contribute to foreign bodies in the lungs of sensitive persons.
QUATERNIUM 15: (DOVE, Johnson's Baby Shampoo) FORMALDEHYDE, a carcinogen.
SODIUM LAURYL (Laureth, Myreth) SULFATE: Industrial surfactants linked to cancer. Strip the scalp and skin of necessary oils, leaving it dry, itchy and flaky. Originally designed to clean floors and engines and now are found in 95% of shampoos and body cleansers. SLS causes irritation and infection in the genitals of young children, yet is the main ingredient in baby shampoos and bubble bath. Frequently disguised in pseudo-natural cosmetics with the parenthetic explanation "comes from coconut."
STEARALKONIUM CHLORIDE: chemical used in hair conditioners and creams. Causes allergic reactions. Developed by the fabric industry as a fabric softener, and is a lot cheaper and easier to use in hair conditioning formulas than proteins or herbals, which do help hair health. Toxic.
TALC: (contained in baby powder, foot powder, pressed eye shadow and blush, and foundation) Linked to uterine cancer and respiratory problems in infants. Literally "suffocates" the skin.
TOULENE: Known human immune system toxicant. Human skin toxicant - strong evidence.
TRICLOSAN: (found in ANTI-BACTERIAL SOAPS) Registered as a PESTICIDE with the FDA, linked to cancer, a hormone disruptor.
TRIETHANOLAMINE: used in cosmetics to adjust the pH, used with fatty acids to convert acid to salt, which then becomes the base for a cleanser. TEA causes allergic reactions including eye problems, dryness of hair and skin. Toxic if absorbed into the body over a long period of time
UREA: (see DMDM Hydantoin)

*as for the goodies, it truly saddens me to know that so many people don't have the option to choose products that are healthier for them, all because of lack of funds. it just ain't right.*

i have to say, i heart this biz! i've ordered shampoo and soap bars from them for years. they work wonderfully. they also make bebe's shampoo/soap bar. they don't add in that nasty pain deadening agent found in "no tears" solutions. it's a mom and daughter outfit in iowa. they aren't "local" - but they are to me. in my heart. http://www.prairielandherbs.com/

aveda is a solid company - every product is plant based. there are a couple of aveda concept salons in town - but i'm partial to this one: http://www.myspace.com/salonbeyondrules

these folks are local: http://www.indigowild.com/

***cleaning products can also be tricksy and rife with toxic chemicals. here are a few suggestions for alternatives:***

http://www.mrsmeyers.com/ - we use the window cleaner

http://www.seventhgeneration.com/ - we use the laundry/dish soaps, fabric softener in the winter, paper towels, t.p., all purpose cleaner, etc. they are not petroleum based products, to boot!

this is cool, too - on our dish soap it says that if every household in the u.s. replaced one bottle of petroleum based dishwashing liquid with seventh generation's vegetable based product - we could save 81,000 barrels of oil.

but wait! there's more!

i make our sink scrub. i just got a tin shaker with a holed lid, and poured in baking soda. a few drops of lemon, orange or grapefruit oil mixed in makes a nose party. you can find essential oils at herb stores or whole foods.

and lastly - vinegar works just as well as bleach for disinfecting. lavender is also a natural disinfectant.

i should be sleeping....

2008-05-24T05:17:00.005-05:00

should being the operative word. but i can't. i'm still haunted, you see, and i want to talk about it. i have a feeling that i will haunted for a good long while to come...

i started a book last night at bedtime, one that i've been wanting to read since it was recommended to me numerous times when i've asked friends for fiction suggestions. i've spent years with my head buried in non-fiction and wanted a change during summer break. but i digress.

i made it half-way through the book last night. i spent a good part of this morning wondering if i could finish it - if i could physically and emotionally do it. my mind has "gone there" on its own in thinking about things like what the world could become vis-a-vis climate change, species extinction and even war. i'd be lying if i said i had never played through possible scenarios of how we humans would react in the event of catastrophe or devastation. the strange validation in the pages really was doing zero to comfort me. zero.

there is also a main character that is a small child, a little boy - and that didn't help much either. picturing a scenario such as what unfolds in 'the road,' and picturing bebe's face in the place of 'the boy' in the book was beyond rattling to me. needless to say, i finished it this afternoon in spite of it all. it was terribly painful to read, and at the same time, even more difficult to try to forget - to pretend as if i could just walk away from it.

someone at work tonight asked my why i would want to read such a thing... all i could say was that is a rare occasion that the written word has such an effect on me. not to mention, it was extremely well written. it also ran the gamut of just about every emotion known to us. and was believable. most importantly, this is what a book is supposed to d to a reader. the book was cormac mccarthy's 'the road.' like i said, i've been haunted since i finished it - it has been a good long while since i have had such a visceral reaction to a work of fiction. i found myself wanting to know more - where the idea came from, why he wrote it. i had to do a little nancy drewin' it when i got in from work. you know me, i'm a detective and i like to get to the bottom of things. i stumbled upon a fantastic article by george monibot that touches on one of the themes (for lack of a better word at this early (late?) hour) of the novel.

but before i do that, i want to say:

go. read. this. now.

'the road' is officially on my top ten must read books of all time infinity. and that my friends, is something.

one last thing... at the risk of sounding horribly cliche - what kind of situation are we creating for our children? what is bebe's world going to look like after i am long gone? i seriously shudder to think. we have work to do - and we can't wait for anyone else to do it for us.

The Road Well Travelled

Posted October 30, 2007

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 30th October 2007

A few weeks ago I read what I believe is the most important environmental book ever written. It is not Silent Spring, Small is Beautiful or even Walden. It contains no graphs, no tables, no facts, figures, warnings, predictions or even arguments. Nor does it carry a single dreary sentence, which, sadly, distinguishes it from most environmental literature. It is a novel, first published a year ago, and it will change the way you see the world.

Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road considers what would happen if the world lost its biosphere, and the only living creatures were humans, hunting for food among the dead wood and soot. Some years before the action begins, the protagonist hears the last birds passing over, “their half-muted crankings miles above where they circled the earth as senselessly as insects trooping the rim of a bowl.”(1) McCarthy makes no claim that this is likely to occur, but merely speculates about the consequences.

All pre-existing social codes soon collapse and are replaced with organised butchery, then chaotic, blundering horror. What else are the survivors to do?: the only remaining resource is human. It is hard to see how this could happen during humanity’s time on earth, even by means of the nuclear winter McCarthy proposes. But his thought experiment exposes the one terrible fact to which our technological hubris blinds us: our dependence on biological production remains absolute. Civilisation is just a russeting on the skin of the biosphere, never immune from being rubbed against the sleeve of environmental change. Six weeks after finishing The Road, I remain haunted by it.

So when I read the UN’s new report on the state of the planet over the weekend, my mind kept snagging on a handful of figures(2). There were some bright spots - lead has been removed from petrol almost everywhere, sulphur emissions have been reduced in most rich nations - and plenty of gloom. But the issue that stopped me was production.

Crop production has improved over the past 20 years (from 1.8 tonnes per hectare in the 1980s to 2.5 tonnes today), but it has not kept up with population. “World cereal production per person peaked in the 1980s, and has since slowly decreased “(3). There will be roughly 9 billion people by 2050: feeding them and meeting the millennium development goal on hunger (halving the proportion of hungry people) would require a doubling of world food production(4). Unless we cut waste, overeating, biofuels and the consumption of meat, total demand for cereal crops could rise to three times the current level(5).

There are two limiting factors. One, mentioned only in passing in the report, is phosphate: it is not clear where future reserves might lie. The more immediate problem is water. “Meeting the Millennium Development Goal on hunger will require doubling of water use by crops by 2050.”(6) Where will it come from? “Water scarcity is already acute in many regions, and farming already takes the lion’s share of water withdrawn from streams and groundwater.”(7) One-tenth of the world’s major rivers no longer reach the sea all round the year(8).

Buried on page 148, I found this statement. “If present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress.” Wastage and deforestation are partly to blame, but the biggest cause of the coming droughts is climate change. Rainfall will decline most in the places in greatest need of water. So how, unless we engineer a sudden decline in carbon emissions, is the world to be fed? How, in many countries, will we prevent the social collapse that failure will cause?

The stone drops into the pond and a second later it is smooth again. You will turn the page and carry on with your life. Last week we learnt that climate change could eliminate half the world’s species(9); that 25 primate species are already slipping into extinction(10); that biological repositories of carbon are beginning to release it, decades ahead of schedule(11). But everyone is watching and waiting for everyone else to move. The unspoken universal thought is this: “if it were really so serious, surely someone would do something?”

On Saturday, for some light relief from the UN report (who says that environmentalists don’t know how to make whoopee?), I went to a meeting of roads protesters in Birmingham. They had come from all over the country, and between them they were contesting 18 new schemes: a fraction of the road projects the British government is now planning(12). The improvements to the climate change bill that Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, anounced yesterday were welcome. But in every major energy sector - aviation, transport, power generation, house building, coal mining, oil exploration - the government is promoting policies that will increase emissions. How will it make the 60% cut the bill enforces?

No one knows, but the probable answer is contained in the bill’s great get-out clause: carbon trading(13). If the government can’t achieve a 60% cut in the UK, it will pay other countries to do it on our behalf. But trading works only if the total global reduction we are trying to achieve is a small one. To prevent runaway climate change, we must cut the greater part - possibly almost all - of the world’s current emissions. Most of the nations with which the UK will trade will have to make major cuts of their own, on top of those they sell to us. Before long we will have to buy our credits from Mars and Jupiter. The only certain means of preventing runaway climate change is to cut emissions here and now.

Who will persuade us to act? However strong the opposition parties’ policies appear to be, they cannot be sustained unless the voters move behind them. We won’t be prompted by the media. The BBC drops Planet Relief for fear of breaching its impartiality guidelines: heaven forbid that it should come out against mass death. But it broadcasts a programme - Top Gear - that puts a match to its guidelines every week, and now looks about as pertinent as the Black and White Minstrel Show. The schedules are crammed with shows urging us to travel further, drive faster, build bigger, buy more, yet none of them are deemed to offend the rules, which really means that they don’t offend the interests of business or the pampered sensibilities of the Aga class. The media, driven by fear and advertising, is hopelessly biased towards the consumer economy and against the biosphere.

It seems to me that we are already pushing other people ahead of us down The Road. As the biosphere shrinks, McCarthy describes the collapse of the protagonist’s core beliefs(14). I sense that this might be happening already: that a hardening of interests, a shutting down of concern, is taking place among the people of the rich world. If this is true, we do not need to wait for the forests to burn or food supplies to shrivel before we decide that civilisation is in trouble.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. Cormac McCarthy, 2007. The Road, p55. Picador, London.

2. United Nations Environment Programme, 2007. Global Environment Outlook: GEO4. http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/report/GEO-4_Report_Full_en.pdf

3. ibid, p86.

4. ibid, p110.

5. ibid, p110.

6. ibid, p83.

7. ibid, p110.

8. ibid, p99.

9. Alok Jha, 24th October 2007. Warming could wipe out half of all species. The Guardian.

10. James Randerson, 26th October 2007. The edge of oblivion: conservationists name 25 primates about to disappear. The Guardian.

11. David Adam, 23rd October 2007. Carbon output rising faster than forecast, says study. The Guardian.

12. The organisation RoadBlock, which convened the conference, has lists of the government’s new trunk road schemes. http://www.roadblock.org.uk/

13. HM Government, March 2007. Draft Climate Change Bill. http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm70/7040/7040.pdf

14. p93.

since it is mother’s day...

2008-05-12T00:11:00.002-05:00

...i'm gonna rap about bebe...

* he sees dead people.

ok. so i'm not certain. i'll present the evidence and you can decide. kinda like fox news, but totally different.

exhibit a: rolla. riley met rolla somewhere in the house. all the sudden one night, he was hanging out and playing with bebe. bebe told us that rolla was his boyfriend. they payed on and off for a couple of weeks, then rolla went to the bookstore and never came back.

cool. i had an imaginary friend when i was his age, no biggie.

exhibit b: weaver. weaver on the other hand, is an "old guy." i got to the bookstore after class one night to pick up bebe and was informed that he had made a new friend. one that was wearing a "bowler hat" - 'cause, you know, we talk about bowler hats around here all the time. they met in the basement. he told bebe he just couldn't seem to sell any books.

on the way home, i asked more about this weaver... what did he look like?

"he was wearing a round hat, a bowler hat."
"what color was it?"
"blue and orange. he is OLD."
"was he nice?"
"nooooooooo. weaver is MEAN."
"how so?"
"well, he said to me, 'you can't come back here anymore!"
"did you tell him it was your bookstore and that you can come back whenever you want to?"
in the most amazed tone ever, as if to say i can DO that?
"nooooOOOOOooo..."

no further weaver sitings.

exhibit 3: we're taking food out to a friend that just had a baby. there is a really huge cemetary by her place - i don't know, maybe several city blocks long. bebe is just looking out the window, chillin, as we pass it. suddenly he says, "wow, mommy. there are A LOT of people in there!"

uhhhhhhhhh.
yeah.
no one that i could see...

*bebe also recently schooled me on who god is. prepare thyselves.

we're driving along, singing to wilco. bebe starts talking about how "that guy sings god's money."

i asked, "do you know who god is?"

without missing a beat...

"yeah! i do! god is daddy!"

bwahahahahahahhahahaha!

oh possum!

2008-05-10T22:49:00.003-05:00

so early this morning, before i got home from work, the boys were awakened by a terrible ruckus coming from the vicinity of the basement. eye witness accounts say it sounded like a fan with something stuck in it, followed by the house rattling. will went to investigate. he figured it was the furnace, as one of our pooches' nose (s?) had been pressed against the ginormous air return vent all night long. and the thing with the fan. so anyway, i arrive home shortly after this all goes down.

when i got up today, i called the furnace service peeps - just to make certain we weren't in danger of blowing or some such. within 20 minutes there was a chad on the doorstep, toolbox in hand. i show him where the furnace is and come back upstairs.

chad lets out a little cry yelp type sound and says, "uh... miss?"
"yeah?" i holler back
"there's a opossum in here..."
"WHAT?!?!"
"there's a opossum in here...."
"seriously?"
"yeah."

well, then...

i wasn't surprised that there was a new resident downstairs so much as i wondered how he just happened to find his way into the furnace vent. since val had a opossum roomate last year, too - i actually read up on the little buggers and kinda fell in love with them.

i knew that the chanced of him biting were slim to none - though they do have about 50 teeth for noshing with. he also most likely won't have rabies - they have this crazy awesome immune system and low blood temp. i also know that they are fairly gentle creatures - that teeth bearing and hissing thang is All Hat and No Cattle. they prefer to avoid confrontation and like to be left alone. don't get me wrong, they can "attack" if the circumstances are just so. and i imagine at this point, he was pretty terrified. i had a feeling that it was all down hill from this point on, as far as his comfort level would go.

i head back downstairs and chad is on his walkie. he's standing as far away from the furnace as humanly possible without standing on a stair. i scan the room, but don't see him... "he's in there." says chad, point to the vent.

of course i wanna see this beast that made so much noise. i asked chad if had got in the fan, causing the early morning drill and he said that the filter would've blocked him from getting at the mechanical workings.

then his walkie beeps. he says, "ed, there's a opossum in her furnace."

silence.
more silence.

beeps again.
out of the walkie comes this voice - deep, low, soutern-drawlish, "so, what are you gonna do about that?"

that's when we both laughed. i say, "now, ain't that the eternal question, ed?"

chad starts working on a noose.

"you're not going to kill him, are you?" i don't care for nooses - neck ties or otherwise.

"no, i'm just going to try and loop him so we can get him outside."

his boss had apparently hipped him to some mcgyver instructions on how to fashion a noose with a piece of chewing gum and a birthday candle. kidding. it was really a cord and a thin piece of pvc pipe. but still.

meanwhile, bebe is making friends with the critter through the air return shaft grate thingy: "heeeellllloooo, little guy? you want to come upstairs? have some lunch? are you scared?" bebe has been glued to the spot with a flashlight for several minutes now. by the way - the opossum? b a b y.
even chad said, "wow! he was MUCH bigger when i first saw him in there!"
heh.

i try and call animal control against my better judgement. i'm certain they aren't open. and i know they'll be able to tell me how to kill him, but not trap him. so they didn't answer. i looked around for critter catcher type services. nada.
i tell chad i'm not having any luck. he goes to the furnace to try and get him. he loops the little guy with very little trouble and eases him out. as soon as chad gets BO to the ground, BO squirms out. and looks up at me. clearly scared.

i put a big bowl over him and slip a piece of cardboard under it to pick him up. we go outside and look around for a safe spot to leave him in. (have i mentioned there are 1,000 ferel cats in my 'hood?) we decide on the bushes around the church - close, shelter. BO waddles away into the bushes.

after chad leaves, i remember that there's some sort of nature center around here that takes animals. BO is just way too small to be away from his mom, i think. the nature lady tells me what to do. i get a box together and some apples and cat food.

and now, i can't find him.

bebe is really upset. apparently, BO and he are tight. he asks why he can't live in here with us, again and again.

now, hours later, i still feel bad. thinking there wasn't a place that i could take him, i just threw him out there - like that goat in jurassic park. no bueno. i hope the kitties don't get him. i hope he gets to live out his life expectancy of 2-4 years. i hope he finds food. i'll try again tomorrow...

i'm also wondering if BO mama plus siblings are still chillin' in the basement - babies typically don't stray too far from mama. the nature lady said his mom could've been killed, and that he found a way in to our place somehow. just looking for a safe spot. poor little dude.

...still no clue as to how he gained entry into the basement in the first place. he got into the vent via a small gap.

there was no playing opossum today, but i think this is interesting, too:

"When threatened, the opossum will growl deeply as the threat becomes more urgent, it will then either run or deploy it's famous technique- playing possum. The opossum feigns death in a very realistic display; the mouth gapes, the muscles freeze, and a pungent musk is excreted to mimic the smell of rot. This process is entirely reactionary and not a conscious decision. A opossum in this state can be poked, prodded, and even moved with little fear of retaliation. It can take a few minutes up to a couple hours for the opossum to regain consciousness and wander off."

and because of this, many claim that a opossum will show up as a warning of sorts - when it is time to pay attention to those around us who may be putting up false appearances -or creating diversions...

if so, the timing of this truly is uncanny. you ever have a series of moments when someone that you think you know very well says things that seem completely out of character? things that rattle your perception of them - not necessarily for the better? times when you think, "wow. i don't really know you at all?" yeah. that.

but i digress.

long time, no blog...

2008-04-26T23:02:00.003-05:00

so i offer you randomness:

* never in my life would i have dreamed that i would be so happy to
a. see bebe make poop
and
b. celebrate when said poop is passed.
("he won't be traumatized" - my ass. when i say something he doesn't want to hear, he tells me, "MOMMY! i'm going to give YOU and ENEMA!" when i ask why? "you have POOP stuck in your BUTT!" )

* bebe turned three a few weeks ago. THREE.

* i came to the sad realization that i have, in fact, lost all my dance moves that bring the house down (over?) at the nomathmatics show this week. however, my chica holly did offer to make out with me in the photo booth, so that's cool.

* the following tidbits are making me uneasy, in no particular order:
- rice is being rationed for purchase. in the united states. wheat flour prices are through the roof. we ain't seen nothin' yet.
- sallie mae is halting student loan financing.
- gas is five million dollars a gallon.
- mass credit debt
- foreclosures
do. the. math.

* while politicians pretty much always make me cringe, i would rather gouge out my eyes with a rusty spoon, while pouring lemon juice in the gaping wounds than to listen to hillary clinton say anything else about her "vision."

* you'd think that graduate students would like to discuss and actually think about what we're covering in class, right? silly me.

* i miss you. i know. i don't call, i don't write... i still heart you.

*bebe and i planted marigolds on earth day. we check them every day.

* i will be paying on medical bills for the next 7 years. no shit. and i have "insurance." it is pretty pathetic when your choices (in the wealthiest country in the world, mind you) are to leave a potentially deadly tumor in your body or go ahead and have it removed knowing you can't pay. ohm yeah - if anyone ever tells you that hospitals will "work with you" on payments - or - "as long as you pay something..." times have changed.

* i need a nap, a hug and vacation - two of which i may be able to realistically swing - one of which i desperately need.

* in an act of early celebration, i bought my favorite bottle the other night after finding out we received an 'a' on our group presentation. i also now have an 'a' in statistics... how? i have no idea. but i'm toasting myself, as we speak. speaking of favorites...

* this is my new favorite quote:

"but if you can't rape your wife, who can you rape?"

uttered by senator bob wilson, circa 1979 ... and this is a huge part of the problem, still, today.

* i heard those cops that unloaded 50 bullets into an unarmed man in nyc were aquitted yesterday. i'd like to hear how this slaughter was even remotely justified by the judge.

* i think i want to dye my hair. silverrrrrrrr. yeah.

that is all.

carry on.

i find it fairly irritating...

2008-03-24T14:14:00.006-05:00

... that obama's spiritual leader (who i firmly believe spoke Truth: hillary doesn't know what it is like to have dark skin, "our" foreign policy history in regards to south africa, hisoshima, nagasaki and palestine was/ is simply abhorable and does play a role in why america is so hated, and rich white people do run america - don't everyone know this??? ) is STILL being attacked and the media spin that followed may very well have destroyed obama... BUT the words of mccain's spiritual leader isn't even a blip on the radar.

let's look at what mccain's guide in all things spiritual has to say about islam - emphasis mine:

I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

but, wait! there's MORE!

even COLUMBUS was out to rid the world of islam!

and then there's this:

There are some, of course, who will say that the violence I cite is the exception and not the rule. I beg to differ. I will counter, respectfully, that what some call "extremists" are instead mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam.

yeah, that's all lovey dovey talk, isn't it? that parsley is a real sweetheart. and that line of thinking surely will do nothing but enrich the bridges we are currently building (i mean, bombing) in nations where islam is the religion. not to mention, there isn't a lick of truth to what he says.

want more?

in other news, cynthia mckinney is the green party presidential candidate. guess who i'll be voting for if hillary gets the nomination?

me and my boobie

2008-03-15T16:19:00.001-05:00

i have a really great scar now, p/s.

i've been meaning to write a little something about this all...

i found a lump in my breast when i was 17. i had a mammogram and it was deemed a fibrosomething or another... something harmless. i was told that after i gave birth, it would go down in size. at the time, it was a size of a dime. on and off over the years, when it kept growing, i would wonder about it and ask at my annual ob gyn visits. every doc i've had over the years would feel it and say not to worry.

after bebe was born, it hadn't gone down. it was still growing. i thought that was odd. my doc said after he was done nursing, we would pull the fluid out of it, so he could "prove to me" that it wasn't anything.

when the time came, he dug around in it with a needle for about 5 minutes. nada. no fluid. i saw the look on his face when he gave up - then he said, "we need to get you scheduled for a mammogram and sonogram asap." he said to get dressed and meet him out a the desk to schedule it.

he left the room. i don't think i've ever had such a visceral reaction to something in my life. i just started crying. really hard. i kept seeing bebe's face in my head, my boo's face- and the thought of leaving them... it was too much. i pulled myself together and got the appointment made.

i received the results back from radiology before my doc called. it scared the crap out of me. it said i needed an immediate biopsy - with some crazily high rank of it being cancer. i spent the next week trying to get my doc on the phone, to tell me what it meant. he finally called back and said not to worry, that we didn't know anything yet. i was scared. i asked around for a surgeon - and found one that was/is AMAZING.

at my first appointment she reviewed everything. she then did the exam. when she felt it, she said, "this is not cancer." i had already decided, that even it was something scary, i was going to kick its' ass. then she asked me what i thought about it and i told her that i've always been worried, that i knew it was something more than what i was being told it was over the years. she asked if i was intuitive. i laughed and told her that i liked to think so.

she decided to take it out, as opposed to a biopsy. good thing she did. she found that it was a rare type of tumor, a phyllodes. it was benign! with these types of tumors, they can't be easily identified by biopsy or needle biopsy. more often than not, the results come back as that fibrosomething.

and apparently, if they turn from benign to malignant, typical breast cancer treatments just don't work.

since one of the margins was close, she went back in to take a little extra tissue out - to try and ensure that there were no little remnants for a new one to grow from. when phyllodes tumors come back - they do so with a vengence - they grow aggressively and fast. mine was the size of a half dollar!

(i can't help but wonder if that "harmless" chemical spill in my hometown that resulted in a bunch of other rare types of cancers and whatnot to pop up in the following years was the cause. my lump appeared the year after. the evacuation area came right up to our house. i'll never know, i guess - but i do wonder. and i digress.)

so the moral of the story is this - ladies, if you feel like something isn't right - it may not be. it's ok to press for answers and ask for more tests. i had no family history, i'm 34, etc. and it still was "something" after all, that could have been scarier. and as much as they say these things are rare - i sure have talked to a bunch of people that have either had one or more - or someone in the family has.

this is a great tool - you can sign up to have an email sent to you each month, to remind you to "check your boobies!" h/t to sicily sue for this!!!!

see, i was thinking we already knew this...

2008-03-14T23:56:00.000-05:00

obama's pastor seems to be taking some heat for this in the media blips i've caught today:

"Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a (EXPLETIVE DELETED)."

can anyone seriously argue with this statement?

seriously? i'm just sayin.'

this reeks of a "you-hoo! look over here!" campaign trick initiated by you know who's camp. the timing is just too much. and i can't see how it makes one bit of difference, or how this is being construed as negative.

if the news stations are really that desperate for news items, *clearing throat* politician, prostitute, we can always bring iraq back into focus. seems like most people forgot about that.

feel free to explain what i'm clearly missing, though.

you're on the air.

uh huh, uh huh.

2008-03-13T23:28:00.002-05:00

so my stats teacher proposed some interesting theories regarding climate change the other night. water vapor, statistics of studies.... i have some processing to do, needless to say.

so this will do instead, for now.

as always, thoughts?
bueller?
bueller?

The mis-education of the coordinator class March 13, 2008
By Mandisi Majavu

Chomsky (2004) points out that Harvard trains the people that rule the world, while MIT trains those who make it work. I cannot think of a more succinct way of describing the goals of an educational process that creates and maintains the coordinator class.

Chomsky argues that schools are, by and large, designed to support the interests of the dominant segment of society, those people who have wealth and power - in short the capitalists. I interpret this as saying, schools are, by and large, designed to produce a subservient coordinator class that supports and takes care of the interests of the capitalists.

As Albert (2003) argues, it is important to describe the viewpoints and behaviours of the three primary classes; i.e. capitalists, coordinators and workers. In keeping with that spirit, this article aims to analyse the socialisation of the coordinator class.

The Coordinator Class

According to Albert, within capitalism, the coordinator class is between labour and capital, and fundamentally different from both. This class relates to the capitalists as intellectual workers. The notion of a coordinator class is based on the assumption that the kind of work we do can separate us into classes.

What gave rise to this class is the change in the economic conditions required to make profits.

"Historically, reproductions of the conditions for profit-making required the capitalists to often employ the power of the state (police, courts, troops) or private armies of Pinkertons - but as monopoly capitalism has advanced, the contours of control have matured in kind (Albert & Hahnel, 1978, p. 204).

Furthermore, there has been a steady effort to erode the intellectual and coordinative abilities of the workers over their work, and to then vest these skills in an intermediary layer of expert intellectual coordinators, argue Albert and Hahnel. Consequently, this layer of expert intellectual coordinators came to constitute a coordinator class of 'workers above the workers'. "Thus we have a 'middle element' who have certain antagonistic relations with both capitalists and workers and thus certain tendencies toward oppressing, oppressed, and rebellious relations toward each of these classes (ibid)."

Because this sector of economic actors has a relatively large monopoly over empowering work, it has greater bargaining power and status than the workers below (Albert, 2003). Owing to this relative monopoly over empowering work, members of the coordinator class have much higher incomes than working class people, and more status than working class people. Albert explains that the members of the coordinator class gain considerable status, prestige and power from the positions they occupy in their respective industries; attracting and holding for themselves critically important knowledge, skills and levers of daily decision making influence.

For example, as a manager or a director of an NGO, the coordinator class member controls workers below. As an engineer he or she defines workers' working conditions. As a lawyer or doctor he or she adjudicates workers' lives or dramatically oversees the quality of their lives.

A class analysis that takes into consideration the existence of the coordinator class compels us to not only want to get rid of private ownership of the means of production, but also of the division of labor that apportions more empowering and more appealing tasks only to a narrow subset of the population while confining the rest of the population to rote and obedient labors (Albert, 2003).

The Social Construction of the Coordinator Class

A member of the coordinator class usually has educational credentials and daily economic circumstances that continually reinforce his or her status, prestige and power. Put another way, members of the coordinator class tend to be people who we normally refer to as 'professionals'. As a class, the coordinator class has its own lifestyles and behaviour patterns,

"its own places to congregate, its own music and preferences, its own preferred stores to shop at, its own ways of dressing, foods to eat, even linguistic mannerisms, all not homogenous within the class, of course, but still on average separate from capitalists above and workers below (Albert, 2003)."

Universities are, by and large, designed to produce people who subscribe to the values of this class; people, who basically can fit in with this class without problems. Schmidt (2001) points out that seclusion at the university allows time to study the field's technical details, while the social isolation there facilitates indoctrination into the field's culture. The field's culture includes knowing the 'right questions' to ask and the 'appropriate' time to raise those questions, acquiring the 'correct attitude' and obediently working within the assigned ideology. The goal of educational training is not only to teach people skills and facts, but to change people's ideological values in accordance with the system. To paraphrase Schmidt, ideological weeding out and ideological transformation are important mechanisms that the system uses in every step in its production of a coordinator class.

For example, in physics, about half of the students who enter PhD programmes in the U.S. leave without the degree, many due to outright expulsion, argues Schmidt.

"This massive elimination allows the political biases in the weeding out process to have a strong effect on the overall political nature of the graduating class. Adjustment works hand in glove with this elimination in forming the class politically: Many of those who survive the weeding do so by 'shaping up' under the threat of being culled, and in the process undergo attitudinal transformations that make them politically compatible with the others who are not weeded out (Schmidt, 2001, p. 123)."

Consequently, the students who graduate at the end of the day are students who are willing to serve the system without questioning the status quo or the assigned ideology that they must work within. The research I conducted on the University of Cape Town (UCT) psychology students last year (2007) does not contradict this claim.

For example, referring to the UCT graduate programme, one student explained that "...at times it felt like if one chose another theory it was not condoned, it felt like you would be punished if you chose something else. That was a bit disturbing." And another students echoed this sentiment: "the programme tends to be somewhat rigid. While we are told we can have our own psychological theory that we prefer, we are actually chastised when we use it." A student who did not have reservations with this process referred to it as being groomed to become a competent psychologist. And another student explained the entire by process by using an analogy.

" It feels like you are in a fish-bowl the whole time. Like everything you do, everything you say even if it's not in a formal context, everything feels like it's being assessed for your performance as a trainee psychologist. You feel like you are being watched all the time."

One of the black participants said of his experience:

"I felt extremely lost and the material felt alien. I felt that my actions, my deeds and my thoughts were not my own but were those of the course or what I was being fed. I felt I wanted to protest and say give me a chance to think this through, I'm not really sure I agree with this concept or that concept. Despite there being room to do that, we were in an academic setting and had to move along from certain experiences following the calendar year, leaving little time to sufficiently reflect on experiences."

Chomsky (2004) explains that educational institutions require people who are willing to adjust to the institution's power structure and accept the code of their discipline without asking too many questions.

Schmidt argues that it is no surprise that developing a critical view of the field is an extracurricular activity, one that the training institutions discourage not only through the test's exclusive focus on the technical details of specialised applications, but also through their coverage of a large number of such applications. He adds that the graduates who are hired by corporations or the government to do research or development work or by universities to do normal paradigm work do not need such critical ability, "and in fact will work more harmoniously without it."

Chomsky (1997) argues that the ultimate goal of institutions that do not appreciate independent thinking is to reward conformity and obedience; if you do not show these qualities, you either have 'behavioural problems' or a 'troublemaker', and therefore weeded out along the way. The coordinator class is created and maintained through this process.

This is why members of a coordinator class, are tolerant of distant social criticism, but have very little patience for anyone who tries to provoke a debate about the politics that guide their own work (Schmidt, 2003). This also explains why members of the coordinator class may be liberal on this or that question of the day, but tend to be very conservative on a long-standing issue of much greater importance - that is democratic and equal distribution of power in society, to paraphrase Schmidt.

The capitalists have always known this. Hence, employers have always scrutinised the attitudes and values of the people they employ, so as to protect themselves against unionists and other radicals whose 'bad attitude' would undermine workplace discipline (Schmidt, 2003).

And the universities also know that they exist to produce people who will staff and perpetuate the country's social and economic system. Schmidt adds that it is no accident that the same attitude and values that are key to success in universities, are also key to success in jobs that require a university degree. Jobs that the coordinator class tend to occupy.

To be continued...

h/t to melissa.

georgie, porgie - you're making me cry.

2008-03-07T21:24:00.007-06:00

"Losing a job is painful and I know Americans are concerned about our economy. So am I," Bush said at a press conference at the White House.

"It's clear our economy has slowed, but the good news is, we anticipated this and took decisive action to bolster the economy," he noted.

"I know this is a difficult time for our economy," said the U.S. leader. "But we recognized the problem early and we provided the economy with a booster shot."

well, FANTASTIC!

i've been trying really hard lately, to see your side. to be mindful. to be more understanding. to find our common ground.

right now, i'm failing.

i own that.

i'm human.

dude! you have no idea how painful it is. you have no idea how concerned i'am. slowed? difficult? anticipated? just a few months ago, you said not to worry. and you wonder why americans are experiencing depression in record numbers? the worst part? they are blaming themselves - thinking that something is wrong with them. this couldn't be farther from the Truth.

what is wrong, is this system.

the system where banks are bailed out after creating a mortgage nightmare, and the rest of us be damned - you know good and well that the vast majority of people facing foreclosure will find no help in your grand plan. what is wrong is the incomes that are disappearing in droves - to the tune of the highest rate of job cuts/losses in 5 years. what is wrong is that you are spending 275 MILLION DOLLARS A DAY in iraq. what is wrong it the way you have us all thinking that a terrorist is just up the street, hiding behind a tree, waiting to kill us all. and that terrorist could be our neighbor! our boss! our brother! it could be anyone! what is wrong, is that you live in a different world than i do.

you are going to veto a bill that bans waterboarding and torture - all illegal acts under the geneva convention - tomorrow. you and all of our elected representatives are going to get a paycheck - no matter what. you are going to make sure that your friends are taken care of.

we don't live in the same america. i do like your striped hat, though.

so, please. don't pretend like you know what my life is like, what my worries are - you don't. my mama didn't raise no fool. i know a booster shot when i see one. it hurts. a lot. i won't be able to sit for a week. and it may or may not work.

oh, yeah. thanks for the scraps you're throwing our way. as for me, i may have to save your little "booster shot" i get back when i file taxes to wipe my ass with when i can't afford toilet paper in a few months. or maybe i'll save it to eat, when i can't afford food.

file this under fun that i found

2008-03-07T13:02:00.002-06:00

warning - stuff that came from my child's mouth today

2008-03-01T00:26:00.001-06:00

bebe-isms - today has been FULL of them...

exhibit a:

bebe: i want to color ALL NIGHT LONG!
me: (singing "color all night long" to the tune of lional richie's "all night long.")
bebe: STOP SINGING, MOMMY! VEGETARIANS DON'T SING!

exhibit b:
i'm in the kitchen, preparing bebe's lunch...

bebe: my name is RILEY, not penis.
me: what did you say?
bebe: ohhhh, i'm just talking to myself, mommy.
me: ok.
bebe: i can sing the bung hole song!
*hums a few bars*
where is buzz lightyear?

exhibit c:

bebe's interpretation of cold war kids' "hang me out to dry" - that he like to randomly sing throughout the day:

hand me all the dragons - you run them out too too too many times!

exhibit d:

we're waiting for our table at waldo pizza ( I GOT OUT OF THE HOUSE!!! YIPPPEE!!!) and riley spies a man with a shaved head. he points and very excitedly exclaims, "look! it is john! from LOST!"

have i mentioned how much i love this child lately?

HOLLY!!! they have vegan pizza AND ms. pac-man! now all you need is your fluffer! ;)

what am i doing, you ask?

2008-02-23T19:17:00.002-06:00

being very thankful that no more surgery is in the stars for this kid!!! i'm tired and sore and a little loopy, but that is ok. thank you for all the nice notes and healy vibes you all have sent my way! i feel them and appreciate them more than you will ever know.

xoxoxo
kara

oh, this is priceless...

2008-02-20T16:56:00.004-06:00

do i smell a new pill in the making? merck? pfizer? anyone? anyone?

while i consider myself to be seriously tired of the failures of our two-party system, i' am still a lefty at the end of the day. a way over there lefty, but lefty nonetheless.

the assumption here is that conservatives aren't suffering from a psychological disorder. and if this argument holds water, then how does the author explain the massive invasion by the current government (comprised of conservatives) into every aspect of our lives? they can read our email and tap our phones!

hmmmmm.... and it is completely "normal" that millions of conservative americans believe that there is a really old dude sitting on a cloud somewhere that orchestrates everything that we do and helps sports teams win games. they also talk to Him and sometimes, he answers. guess what the diagnosis is if you hear voices that aren't Him? 'tis a fine line... i'm just sayin'.

i imagine the author is also relying on the government to keep him safe from future terrorist attacks, enjoys driving on his roads and receiving mail every day...

at least ward churchill made a semi-interesting argument that was similar-ish in "pacifism as pathology." both make me giggle. but then again, maybe i just have a dis-order. ;)

The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness
By Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD
Monday, December 4, 2006

Dr. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr.,a forensic psychiatrist, explains the madness of liberalism in his new book The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. You can read an excerpt below, and read more at his website libertymind.com.

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.

It should be apparent by now that these social policies and the passions that drive them contradict all that is rational in human relating, and they are therefore irrational in themselves. But the faulty conceptions that lie behind these passions cannot be viewed as mere cognitive slippage. The degree of modern liberalism’s irrationality far exceeds any misunderstanding that can be attributed to faulty fact gathering or logical error. Indeed, under careful scrutiny, liberalism’s distortions of the normal ability to reason can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche. The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.

As is the case in all personality disturbance, defects of this type represent serious failures in development processes. The nature of these failures is detailed below. Among their consequences are the liberal mind’s relentless efforts to misrepresent human nature and to deny certain indispensable requirements for human relating. In his efforts to construct a grand collectivist utopia—to live what Jacques Barzun has called “the unconditioned life” in which “everybody should be safe and at ease in a hundred ways”—the radical liberal attempts to actualize in the real world an idealized fiction that will mitigate all hardship and heal all wounds. (Barzun 2000). He acts out this fiction, essentially a Marxist morality play, in various theaters of human relatedness, most often on the world’s economic, social and political stages. But the play repeatedly folds. Over the course of the Twentieth Century, the radical liberal’s attempts to create a brave new socialist world have invariably failed. At the dawn of the Twenty-first Century his attempts continue to fail in the stagnant economies, moral decay and social turmoil now widespread in Europe. An increasingly bankrupt welfare society is putting the U.S. on track for the same fate if liberalism is not cured there. Because the liberal agenda’s principles violate the rules of ordered liberty, his most determined efforts to realize its visionary fantasies must inevitably fall short. Yet, despite all the evidence against it, the modern liberal mind believes his agenda is good social science. It is, in fact, bad science fiction. He persists in this agenda despite its madness.

Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD is the author of The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago and served for two years as a psychiatrist in the United States Army. He is currently in private practice in the Chicago area.

Be the first to read Lyle Rossiter's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com delivered each morning to your inbox.

Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

move along... nothing "deep" here to see...

2008-02-16T22:17:00.006-06:00

i need to think about other things for a minute. i need to. i was just remembering the great fire of 2006, when bebe was was an infant still, that made me laugh. laughing is good.

there's this bar i first of years ago. it has no windows. there is one lowly door out front and signage. that's it. many a friend has spent night drinking there. many. i've even had co-workers head over after a shift - at 5 in the morning. 'cause. you know. people are thirsty at 5 a.m. a musician pal of mine and a few of those aforementioned co-workers even recorded a rap about the place. if i ever figure out how to post stuff like that... i almost pee'ed myself the first time i heard it. but i digress.

i'd never been in the bar myself, somehow. i'd walked past it hundreds of times. when others would be going in, part of me wanted to take a peek, but i would never allow myself. wheni was invited along for after hours adventures, i always graciously declined. i wanted Mysterious Bar to be how it was in my head - what i'd imagined it to look like for all of those long years of hearing stories. i liked it that way. i didn't want to be disappointed. and because it had been so long, that i had successfully fought temptation, i couldn't cave.

so one night, i was working two doors down. it was me and bebe. no one had come in for an hour or so. suddenly, this dude comes busting through the front door.

"THE DUMPSTER OUTSIDE IS ON FIRE!!!!!!!!!!"
"what?"
"THE DUMPSTER! IT'S ON FIRE!"

i scoop up bebe and bolt out the front door. sure enough, flames were leaping into the sky above it. lots of flames. there were cars parked a few feet away. the dumpster was really close to the building.

shit.

i run back in and call 911. a machine answered and put me on hold. all operators were busy. good thing that our services are in their prime with all of the billions being spent on homeland security, eh? i mean, what if osama would've been walking down the street for crissakes?

a minute passes. i'm still on hold. i think i'd not like hearing cars go boom.

i have to make a quick decision and save the day. before i even really think about it, i'm headed to the Mysterious Bar. i fling open the door and go in.

i say, "can someone help me? the dumpster is on fire and i've been on hold with 911 for several minutes now."

the 4 patrons turned from the televised sporting event and highballs they are all hunched over and around. and when i say they turned, they s o v e r y s l o w l y turned towards me.

and what they saw was me, a baby on one hip and a phone in the other hand, up to my ear.

it was at that moment i realized i had failed.

i was standing inside the Mysterious Bar.

"OHHHHHHHH, NOOOOOO!!!" i say, slamming my eyelids shut.

but it was too late. all of those years, all of the hard work i did to avoid seeing the innards of Mysterious Bar. down the drain. just like that. never to return.

damn.

finally, one dude jumps up, 'cause he recognizes me, and dumps the remainder of the beer in his pitcher down the drain. he fills the pitcher with water and races out the door with me.

i'm still on hold, mind you, listening to a pleasant lady telling me that she knows my call is important and she is sorry for the delay.

we race around the corner to find a teeny tiny fire, somehow on the sidewalk.

right as the water pitcher dude looks at me like, "ok. you can't be serious. i dumped my beer for this?"
and the Rest of Patrons That Came Along For The Excitement looks at me like, "i got up, walked all the way out here for this?"

right as all of this is happening, the 911 operator operator picks up.

i tell her that i don't need her now, that the fire i thought was huge, was gone. that someone put it out. she said they needed to send someone anyway and transfered me to the fire department.

while i was on hold... again... i try and explain to my rescuers what had happened. how BIG it was... i don't think they bought it. although, i can't imagine what my ulterior motive could've been. pssst... i really did it so bebe could see a firetruck up close.

kidding.

seriously, a lot of people lost something that night.

that dude lost his beer.
i lost my Mysterious Bar innocence.
those other dudes lost several minutes of their televised sporting event.
the firefighters lost all respect for my Fire Size Judging ability. and they laughed at me. whatevs. i was just doing my part in george bush's america for the community.

so we all just trudged back to our respective doors. i mean, we'd said everything there was to say...

riddle me this

2008-02-14T23:31:00.005-06:00

why is it that if a person is strung out on a street drug - and they go and shoot up a bunch of people, it is a crime and others are screaming for a crack-down on drugs?

but if someone shoots up a school because their anti-depressants make them violent, there isn't a peep?

does the responsibility lie with the pusher/pharmacist or does it die with the shooter? does the responsibility lie with the drug itself? something to think about.

yes, i know, anti-depressants work for some people. for others, they have the potential to cause violence, something that is underreported widely. for some, something really awful occurs - and no one is really trying to find out why that is. it's kind of a toss up, really. maybe the meds will help you - maybe they will turn you into a monster. just try it and see!

and no, i don't know anything about what the shooter may have been on yesterday in illinois, but i have a guess. pretty much all of the shooters in these school/mall/target store scenarios, pre-dating columbine even, were taking prescription anti-depressants.

ssri = most commonly prescribed anti-depressant

about the following video:

The so-called "antidepressants" blunt feelings but are actually not very effective in diminishing depression per se. On the other hand, in a small number of cases, they lead to tragic violence.

In this video, psychiatrist Loren Mosher, M.D., former Chief of Schizophrenia Studies at NIMH, journalist Bob Whitaker, author of the acclaimed "Mad in America: The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill," and psychologist Dan Kriegman, Ph.D., founder of Zuzu's Place, examine the way in which Big Pharma exaggerates the efficacy of their products and hides evidence of their dangers. Evidence is also presented to show that Big Pharma is composed of "true believers," i.e., the psychiatrists and drug execs are not just pushers; they're users!

i'm bumping this back up - kinda risky gamble to make, considering they may or may not even "work":

Antidepressants
Under Scrutiny
Over Efficacy
Sweeping Overview Suggests
Suppression of Negative Data
Has Distorted View of Drugs
By DAVID ARMSTRONG and KEITH J. WINSTEIN
January 17, 2008; Page D1

The effectiveness of a dozen popular antidepressants has been exaggerated by selective publication of favorable results, according to a review of unpublished data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration.
ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE

A review of research submitted to the FDA:
• Of 74 studies reviewed, 38 were judged to be positive by the FDA. All but one were published, researchers said.
• Most of the studies found to have negative or questionable results were not published, researchers found.
Source: The New England Journal of Medicine

As a result, doctors and patients are getting a distorted view of how well blockbuster antidepressants like Wyeth's Effexor and Pfizer Inc.'s Zoloft really work, researchers asserted in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

Since the overwhelming amount of published data on the drugs show they are effective, doctors unaware of the unpublished data are making inappropriate prescribing decisions that aren't in the best interest of their patients, according to researchers led by Erick Turner, a psychiatrist at Oregon Health & Science University. Sales of antidepressants total about $21 billion a year, according to IMS Health.

Wyeth and Pfizer declined to comment on the study results. Both companies said they had committed to disclose all study results, although not necessarily in medical journals. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, maker of Wellbutrin and Paxil, said it has posted the results of more than 3,000 trials involving 82 medications on its Web site, and also has filed information on 1,060 continuing trials at a federal government Web site.

Schering-Plough Corp., whose Organon Corp. unit markets Remeron, and Eli Lilly & Co., which makes Prozac, said their study results were indeed published -- not individually, but as part of larger medical articles that combined data from more than one study at a time. The New England Journal study counted a clinical trial as published only if it was the sole subject of an article. "Lilly has a policy that we disclose and publish all the results from our clinical trials, regardless of the outcomes from them," a Lilly spokeswoman said.

Pharmaceutical companies are under no obligation to publish the studies they sponsor and submit to the FDA, nor are the researchers they hire to do the work. The researchers publishing in the New England Journal were able to identify unpublished studies by obtaining and comparing documents filed by the companies with the FDA against databases of medical publications.

"There is no effort on the part of the FDA to withhold or to not post drug review documents," an FDA representative said. For newer drugs, information is posted online "as soon as possible." Older documents aren't always available online and efforts to add those files to the Web are slowed by "a lack of resources," the agency said, acknowledging that there is a backlog in complying with records requests.

A total of 74 studies involving a dozen antidepressants and 12,564 patients were registered with the FDA from 1987 through 2004. The FDA considered 38 of the studies to be positive. All but one of those studies was published, the researchers said.

The other 36 were found to have negative or questionable results by the FDA. Most of those studies -- 22 out of 36 -- weren't published, the researchers found. Of the 14 that were published, the researchers said at least 11 of those studies mischaracterized the results and presented a negative study as positive.

Five Trials

For example, Pfizer submitted five trials on its drug Zoloft to the FDA, the study says. The drug seemed to work better than the placebo in two of them. In three other trials, the placebo did just as well at reducing indications of depression. Only the two favorable trials were published, researchers found, and Pfizer discusses only the positive results in Zoloft's literature for doctors.

One way of turning the study results upside down is to ignore a negative finding for the "primary outcome" -- the main question the study was designed to answer -- and highlight a positive secondary outcome. In nine of the negative studies that were published, the authors simply omitted any mention of the primary outcome, the researchers said.

The resulting publication bias threatens to skew the medical professional's understanding of how effective a drug is for a particular condition, the researchers say. This is particularly significant as the growing movement toward "evidence-based medicine" depends on analysis of published studies to make treatment decisions.

Colleagues' Questions

Dr. Turner, who once worked at the FDA reviewing data on psychotropic drugs, said the idea for the study was triggered in part by colleagues who questioned the need for further clinical drug trials looking at the effectiveness of antidepressants.

"There is a view that these drugs are effective all the time," he said. "I would say they only work 40% to 50% of the time," based on his reviews of the research at the FDA, "and they would say, 'What are you talking about? I have never seen a negative study.'" Dr. Turner, said he knew from his time with the agency that there were negative studies that hadn't been published.

The suppression of negative studies isn't a new concern. The tobacco industry was accused of sitting on research that showed nicotine was addictive, for instance. The issue has come up before notably with antidepressants: In 2004, the New York state attorney general sued GlaxoSmithKline for alleged fraud, saying it suppressed studies showing that the antidepressant Paxil was no better than a placebo in treating depression in children. Glaxo denied the charge and eventually settled with the attorney general. The company later posted on its Web site the full reports of all of the studies of Paxil in children.
[nejm]

But publication of negative studies is an issue that cuts across all medical specialties. And it has engendered some strong reactions in the medical-research world: To make it harder to conceal negative study findings, an association of medical journal editors began requiring in 2005 that clinical trials be publicly disclosed at the outset to be considered for publication later. The system isn't foolproof, since manufacturers often run exploratory studies without registering them and can selectively disclose favorable results. The rule only applies to studies intended for publication in a medical journal.

Some studies that don't eventually get published are registered with online trial registries, including the federal government's www.clinicaltrials.gov. Nonetheless, many studies still aren't being registered or reported, says Kay Dickersin, the director of the Center for Clinical Trials at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We need something more meaningful," she said. "The average person has no idea that www.clinicaltrials.gov is not comprehensive."

The New England Journal study also points to the need for the FDA to disclose more information about the studies it receives, says Robert Hedaya, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Georgetown University Hospital. He said it was "disturbing" that the information on the negative studies wasn't made widely available by the FDA.

The FDA does post information, including unpublished studies, for some drugs on its Web site, says Dr. Turner. But information that hasn't yet made it online is hard to come by. Dr. Turner said he made public records requests for information not on the Web site more than a year ago, but the requests have gone largely unfulfilled. He said he was able to get some of the FDA's information on unpublished studies from other researchers who acquired it from the agency through their own record requests.

The 'Effect Size'

In this week's study, the researchers found that failing to publish negative findings inflated the reported effectiveness of all 12 of the antidepressants studied, which were approved between 1987 and 2004. The researchers used a measurement called effect size. The larger the effect size, the greater the impact of a treatment.

The average effect size of the antidepressant Zoloft rose 64% by the failure to publish negative or questionable data on the drug, the researchers found.

Write to David Armstrong at david.armstrong@wsj.com1 and Keith J. Winstein at keith.winstein@wsj.com2

the video is as powerful as the song...

2008-02-14T13:26:00.002-06:00

brett dennen has made a video of my fave tunes.

just. wow.

ETA: h/t to earl for this:

A brief description of the video from Brett himself:

"It is our routines and our comforts that allow us to ignore social issues. For some of us, it is our privilege to be ignorant. This video tells the story of social issues challenging our privileges and entering our routines making them impossible to ignore. Social injustice cannot be ignored when you are forced to deal with them. That is the idea behind this video.

What would happen if you were forced to deal with something that you may think has nothing to do with you? If suddenly the world's problems came into your own home? You would have to realize that you are connected to everything and everyone one earth."

i don't trust suits. part deux.

2008-02-13T13:52:00.005-06:00

didya get a load of what the senate overwhelmingly passed yesterday?

i mean, who needs terrorists when our own elected officials are actively working to "destroy our freedom?"

warrantless wiretapping, with zero oversight by anyone except those orchestrating the spying, is now perfectly legal. the phone companies have immunity for their past and future abuses - of which some 40 odd lawsuits have sprung up. because they broke the law.

"The Senate had multiple opportunities to improve this atrocious bill and failed at every turn," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Several amendments were offered to increase privacy protections, with many of them allowing for warrantless surveillance during emergency situations. It’s stunning that senators wouldn’t put their support behind amendments so fundamentally balanced. Protecting Americans' communications from pervasive and ill-defined surveillance goes to the very heart of the Fourth Amendment. Unfortunately, the Senate seemed determined to pass the least constitutional FISA bill possible."

yes, that IS stunning, isn't it? and even more stunning? these senators were the only ones that voted nay:

Akaka (D-HI)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)

Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)

Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Wyden (D-OR)

the kicker is that all of this is coming from the party of "the least amount of government interference in citizen's lives" - the right. and the bigger kicker is the number of democrats that voted for this.

i'd like to think they are basing this on some level of intelligence that we don't know about, but i've seen how that works in this administration.

my mama didn't raise no fool.

i don't trust suits

2008-02-12T22:36:00.007-06:00

that's right. i don't trust suits. you have your stereotypes, i have mine. granted, mine are deeply rooted in opposite land - as it would appear from my social psychology course this term.

but it digress.

suits.

i fully understand that in our culture the suit is a status symbol. for many an onlooker, it is the epicenter of what the aforementioned many deem to be a "success." if one wears a suit, it is understood that said suit wearer is dedicated, powerful, a good contributing member of society and is situated in a position far far "above" the majority of the world's citizens. or so he would like to think. seriously, friends - this little Gambling Project Smoke And Mirrors set-up we've created/"live" in is enormously clever.

now me, on the other hand...

i see a suit, and i immediately wonder how much of my money will be attempted to be coerced from me via fear talk and lies from the mouth of a yesman. line of work? doesn't matter. that really sounds more bitter than it is. it is just what it is.

exhibit a: click here.
see? i'll take bets on whether that meeting is about saving you or i any money or grief.

i don't trust suits.

and it is because of this that i realized what my off feeling was when i would see obama speak - the one that i had up until two nights ago when he was answering a question about education.

i don't remember all of the specifics, but he was answering it and talking about how parents need to be active in their children's lives also.

to which i replied, "what? what about single moms working three sorely underpaid back-breaking jobs to keep food in the house and only sees her kids for 2 hours a day?!" at the exact same time i was saying that to will - i also had that feeling - you know it - the i was wrong! he's yet another completely out-of-touch politician. and i voted for him.

no sooner were the words from lips when obama spoke again, about how we also needed to take into consideration, the struggle of the single mother...

hell. yeah.

and i FINALLY nailed down that "off" feeling.

obama doesn't seem like he should be wearing a suit.

obama isn't a suit.

as it stands, the majority of "us" thinks we MUST have a leader. and that's why i hope obama wins this game.

obama isn't a suit.

and these dudes rock too.

p/s - if anyone wants to make up their own little caption for the picture, i won't stop you.

xoxoxox

so, um, yeah. pathology reports are in...

2008-02-07T21:34:00.000-06:00

let me first say that i'am not freaking out. when the initial results of what shall hereforth be called 'the lump' came back as possibly scary, i freaked out. (inserting 'lost' reference here) but as jack would say, i let myself be afraid to the count of 5... i decided then "if" it was "something" - i would kick its ass, and it would be sorry it ever came to live in kara. 'cause that's how i do.

i just want to talk about this. it makes no sense. and while i'm not freaking out, i'am concerned.

right as i was leaving for class tonight, my surgeon's nurse called with the pathology report. she said that the lump was benign. whew! then she said that it was a particular type of tumor, (i believe phyllodes? my phonetic scribbling as she spoke turned up nothing on a google search) that may come back. she said they may just watch it, they may have to go back in and remove the surrounding tissue.

benign? more surgery? i asked why, if it was benign, would they need to do further tissue removal? she put me on hold and asked the other doctor, as my doc is out until monday. she got back on, told me not to worry, but that another surgery was a possibility. my doc would need to look at the pathology report and compare that to what she saw during surgery to give the best guess.

so i counted to 5... and to be honest, i've counted to five a few times tonight, in my head. sometimes one has to do it more than once.

i still don't know how benign can spread. do you? have you ever heard of such a thing? if so, spill. i'm all ears.

i think i'm going to call again tomorrow and see if i can find out anything else. i'm a specifics grrrrl. i like having all the info.

while you're here - could you head over yonder and click your mouse?

the surgery

2008-02-02T11:55:00.000-06:00

just a quick note... i really appreciate all of the well-wishes, healing vibes and lovely notes you all have sent me. i'm trying my darndest to respond to everyone, but i'm sleepy, owie and groggy. i've never understood the love of painkillers - i can't stand not being able to think clearly, but pain is no fun, either. the hardest part is that i can't pick up bebe for two weeks. he doesn't understand. he keeps trying to pretend to grab my owie and throw it over his shoulder. he says he is "getting rid of the owie surgery for mommy." sweet bebe.

so after a sleepless night thursday, we got up bright and early to head for the hospital. after talking to the anesthesiologist, he decided on a local with i.v. sedation. i was happy that i wouldn't be completely knocked out. or so i thought. i was out like light for the duration, but woke up while still in the surgery area, as they were rolling me out. i was alert enough that i skipped recovery and went straight to phase 2. after drinking a little and eating some crackers, i was on my way home!

my surgeon told will that she didn't think it looked like cancer and the results would be back sometime next week. my mom is up until sunday, helping me with bebe, while will works... they are having a grand time together!

and oddly enough - it feels really strange to know that something that has been growing inside of my breast for 17 years is now gone... i can't really explain it. i do feel much better now that it is out - it is as if a weight has been lifted from me. but in the same breath, i have watched/felt it grow for over like half of my life!

and now i'm off to rest. i think i did too much yesterday. i started running a fever last night, though i think that's probably normal. today i promised myself i would go easier... i'm going to try my hardest. :)

on sneezing...

2008-01-21T14:25:00.000-06:00

at least once a day, i stumble across something and dr. martin luther king's words sound in my head. he has had a major impact on my life, on many levels. here a just a few of his words, a few of my favorites, to add my voice to those also celebrating the life of this amazing peaceseeker today.

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

"There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it."

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

as i was preparing to write this post, i saw that lindsey had put something new up. i have to share this here, as well. it made me cry and it re-inspired me. where are great orators like this today???

while i don't have a religious bone in my body, i' am spiritual in a way that is difficult for me to put into words. and this still spoke to me. he still has always been able to reach me... i also like to think of a few other people that were instrumental in MLK becoming who he was. rosa parks and e.d. nixon. we only tend to hear a little snippet about rosa refusing to get up and nothing about e.d. - but both of these folks are also hugely important in the realm of civil rights - and in the history of MLK. rosa was a huge activist, as was e.d. - and i want to remember them today, as well. even my graduate school textbook glossed over them, i noticed, as i read last night. it made me more than a little sad.

so without further ado... thank you, lindsey! and dr. king, wherever you may be, i'm glad you didn't sneeze... i can't imagine what the world would be like if you had.

I've Been to the Mountaintop

Memphis, TN - April 3, 1968

"...That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?"

And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood—that's the end of you.

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."

And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, been in Memphis to see the community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.

And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

even bebe knows...

2008-01-19T22:20:00.000-06:00

as bebe was just practising his newly learned skill of changing the channels with his remote control, he happened upon john mccain speaking.

"oh, NO, mommy! what is THAT? what just HAPPENED?"

"that's just john mccain, bebe - he's pretty scary."

even to toddlers.

reminds me of the time he ran to the t.v. while bush was giving his state of the union address awhile back. he turned the volume all the way down and said, "no like it mommy. no like it poopy movie!"

lost

2008-01-19T13:48:00.000-06:00

remember my neighbor? in a nutshell, when i hadn't seen him come out for a couple of days last month, i got worried and called the police. they found him on the floor. he was sent to the hospital, then to a nursing home for rehabilitation.

apparently, the nursing home had to send him back to the hospital a few days ago. i've called every hospital in the area, he isn't listed anywhere. i called back out to the nursing home to find out where they sent him for certain - and after several re-routings, they say they can't find his chart. they don't know where he is. it could be one of 4 hospitals, all of which i've already called.

how is it that a person can be lost like this? i'm really concerned about him and i have no idea how to find him. are we really this dispensable, as people and individuals?

i've called the social worker he had initially at the hospital, after the fall, and left a message. she won't be in until monday. so now, i wait. and hope he's ok.

darker skin tone and gender

2008-01-19T00:44:00.000-06:00

are SO 1930's huh?

guess who the only two presidential candidates are that have secret service protection?

it. is. about. time.

2008-01-17T11:38:00.000-06:00

just another snippet to add to my arsenal.

... so not only may they actually exacerbate already difficult symptoms, create brain chemical inbalances and leave people feeling violent and suicidal - they may not even really *work.* perrrrfect.

but that 21 billion dollars a year in sales is a right perty profit, eh?

breggin has been writing about this for years. it is about time... and in the wall street journal, of all places!

hat tip to will for sending me this article. *** note: never ever ever just stop taking these medications. weaning is of the utmost importance.

Antidepressants
Under Scrutiny
Over Efficacy

Sweeping Overview Suggests
Suppression of Negative Data
Has Distorted View of Drugs

By DAVID ARMSTRONG and KEITH J. WINSTEIN
January 17, 2008; Page D1

The effectiveness of a dozen popular antidepressants has been exaggerated by selective publication of favorable results, according to a review of unpublished data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration.

ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE

A review of research submitted to the FDA:

• Of 74 studies reviewed, 38 were judged to be positive by the FDA. All but one were published, researchers said.

• Most of the studies found to have negative or questionable results were not published, researchers found.

Source: The New England Journal of Medicine

As a result, doctors and patients are getting a distorted view of how well blockbuster antidepressants like Wyeth's Effexor and Pfizer Inc.'s Zoloft really work, researchers asserted in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

Since the overwhelming amount of published data on the drugs show they are effective, doctors unaware of the unpublished data are making inappropriate prescribing decisions that aren't in the best interest of their patients, according to researchers led by Erick Turner, a psychiatrist at Oregon Health & Science University. Sales of antidepressants total about $21 billion a year, according to IMS Health.

Wyeth and Pfizer declined to comment on the study results. Both companies said they had committed to disclose all study results, although not necessarily in medical journals. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, maker of Wellbutrin and Paxil, said it has posted the results of more than 3,000 trials involving 82 medications on its Web site, and also has filed information on 1,060 continuing trials at a federal government Web site.

Schering-Plough Corp., whose Organon Corp. unit markets Remeron, and Eli Lilly & Co., which makes Prozac, said their study results were indeed published -- not individually, but as part of larger medical articles that combined data from more than one study at a time. The New England Journal study counted a clinical trial as published only if it was the sole subject of an article. "Lilly has a policy that we disclose and publish all the results from our clinical trials, regardless of the outcomes from them," a Lilly spokeswoman said.

Pharmaceutical companies are under no obligation to publish the studies they sponsor and submit to the FDA, nor are the researchers they hire to do the work. The researchers publishing in the New England Journal were able to identify unpublished studies by obtaining and comparing documents filed by the companies with the FDA against databases of medical publications.

"There is no effort on the part of the FDA to withhold or to not post drug review documents," an FDA representative said. For newer drugs, information is posted online "as soon as possible." Older documents aren't always available online and efforts to add those files to the Web are slowed by "a lack of resources," the agency said, acknowledging that there is a backlog in complying with records requests.

A total of 74 studies involving a dozen antidepressants and 12,564 patients were registered with the FDA from 1987 through 2004. The FDA considered 38 of the studies to be positive. All but one of those studies was published, the researchers said.

The other 36 were found to have negative or questionable results by the FDA. Most of those studies -- 22 out of 36 -- weren't published, the researchers found. Of the 14 that were published, the researchers said at least 11 of those studies mischaracterized the results and presented a negative study as positive.

Five Trials

For example, Pfizer submitted five trials on its drug Zoloft to the FDA, the study says. The drug seemed to work better than the placebo in two of them. In three other trials, the placebo did just as well at reducing indications of depression. Only the two favorable trials were published, researchers found, and Pfizer discusses only the positive results in Zoloft's literature for doctors.

One way of turning the study results upside down is to ignore a negative finding for the "primary outcome" -- the main question the study was designed to answer -- and highlight a positive secondary outcome. In nine of the negative studies that were published, the authors simply omitted any mention of the primary outcome, the researchers said.

The resulting publication bias threatens to skew the medical professional's understanding of how effective a drug is for a particular condition, the researchers say. This is particularly significant as the growing movement toward "evidence-based medicine" depends on analysis of published studies to make treatment decisions.

Colleagues' Questions

Dr. Turner, who once worked at the FDA reviewing data on psychotropic drugs, said the idea for the study was triggered in part by colleagues who questioned the need for further clinical drug trials looking at the effectiveness of antidepressants.

"There is a view that these drugs are effective all the time," he said. "I would say they only work 40% to 50% of the time," based on his reviews of the research at the FDA, "and they would say, 'What are you talking about? I have never seen a negative study.'" Dr. Turner, said he knew from his time with the agency that there were negative studies that hadn't been published.

The suppression of negative studies isn't a new concern. The tobacco industry was accused of sitting on research that showed nicotine was addictive, for instance. The issue has come up before notably with antidepressants: In 2004, the New York state attorney general sued GlaxoSmithKline for alleged fraud, saying it suppressed studies showing that the antidepressant Paxil was no better than a placebo in treating depression in children. Glaxo denied the charge and eventually settled with the attorney general. The company later posted on its Web site the full reports of all of the studies of Paxil in children.

But publication of negative studies is an issue that cuts across all medical specialties. And it has engendered some strong reactions in the medical-research world: To make it harder to conceal negative study findings, an association of medical journal editors began requiring in 2005 that clinical trials be publicly disclosed at the outset to be considered for publication later. The system isn't foolproof, since manufacturers often run exploratory studies without registering them and can selectively disclose favorable results. The rule only applies to studies intended for publication in a medical journal.

Some studies that don't eventually get published are registered with online trial registries, including the federal government's www.clinicaltrials.gov. Nonetheless, many studies still aren't being registered or reported, says Kay Dickersin, the director of the Center for Clinical Trials at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We need something more meaningful," she said. "The average person has no idea that www.clinicaltrials.gov is not comprehensive."

The New England Journal study also points to the need for the FDA to disclose more information about the studies it receives, says Robert Hedaya, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Georgetown University Hospital. He said it was "disturbing" that the information on the negative studies wasn't made widely available by the FDA.

The FDA does post information, including unpublished studies, for some drugs on its Web site, says Dr. Turner. But information that hasn't yet made it online is hard to come by. Dr. Turner said he made public records requests for information not on the Web site more than a year ago, but the requests have gone largely unfulfilled. He said he was able to get some of the FDA's information on unpublished studies from other researchers who acquired it from the agency through their own record requests.

The 'Effect Size'

In this week's study, the researchers found that failing to publish negative findings inflated the reported effectiveness of all 12 of the antidepressants studied, which were approved between 1987 and 2004. The researchers used a measurement called effect size. The larger the effect size, the greater the impact of a treatment.

The average effect size of the antidepressant Zoloft rose 64% by the failure to publish negative or questionable data on the drug, the researchers found.

Write to David Armstrong at david.armstrong@wsj.com¹ and Keith J. Winstein at keith.winstein@wsj.com²

i don't know why...

2008-01-15T21:40:00.000-06:00

...things like this even surprise me anymore.

i sent out a bulletin on myspace earlier about kucinich. in a nutshell, he was invited by nbc to be a part of the presidential debate in nevada. they then changed their minds. he sued. judge ruled that he would be a part of the debate.

i got home from class to find that an hour before the debate, the supreme court of nevada stepped in and overruled the decision. no kucinich in debate.

this is america, friends. where the candidates for president can't be heard. nader, revisited.

after i sent out the bulletin this afternoon, a friend replied "Not like it matters anyway. Have you read any of the stuff about the vote fraud in New Hampshire? Looks like Diebold and friends will be delivering the Dem nomination to Hillary."

yeah! but THIS! this is DIFFERENT!

the irony of all of this is, of course, that kucinich is the quintessential peace candidate. he was *against* the iraq invasion, he was *against* nafta and the ftaa. he is essentially *for* most everything that i'am. he is the only candidate out there that something in me actually trusts.

hillary? seriously? with the mudslinging b.s. her camp pulled with obama? is rove back in the saddle?

sure! i'll take some bush lite with the heaping, steaming pile of crap i'm being served. this is not what the meal i ordered looked like in the picture.

i want to like obama. i really really really do. there's just something in the way he talks about uniting the two parties... my mama didn't raise no fool. it really is up for us to unite as people, not for the government to unite. there is a balance that should occur there. and while this balance may be presently lacking - it is still kind of there. obama's wife, michelle, delights me. she means it. she means every word.

word.
and edwards. edwards... he speaks, and i feel completely indifferent.

i'm not even going to venture to the right. suffice it say, varying shades of old, mean white guys. i know, i know... how positively tawdry of me. romney, huckabee, and mccain... i watched one of their "debates" - they shouldn't have called it a debate. it should have been called a circle jerk. one of my litmus tests for elected officials has always been to accertain whether or not i would invite the person into my home to break bread and rap with. of the three, nada.

but i digress.

kucinich. focus kara, focus.

so yeah. i want to implore you to go read up on him. if he's important enough to be banned from a debate in a race in which he's running in, he's important enough that we should at least know who is and know what he is trying to say.

so i'm cleaning...

2008-01-10T18:13:00.000-06:00

...like this chic:

minus the meth, of course. i've never understood the allure of wanting to put something in your system that the production of has the potential to blow up a city block. then again, i can't count the # of times people have said to me, "i want some of what you're on." which is nothing. i'm naturally this way, for better or for worse. always have been.

that commercial always cracked me up, though. for reals. for an anti-drug spot, i can think of more than a few peeps that would be delighted to have that kind of energy to do anything with.

but i digress. less talk, more action. back to it.

p/s - if anyone is particularly good with statistics, i may need some tutoring. i threw up a little bit when i flipped through my statisitcs book for class.

i'm a big fan of the barter system. while i won't meth clean your casa, i'm good at lots of other stuff.

just desserts

2008-01-01T20:54:00.000-06:00

that's what me mum says, at least. you see, bebe is Very Busy. me mum just laughs and says i was the exact. same. way.

i mean, age 4 WAS a busy year for me... but...

i simply can't imagine what she's speaking of!

it can't be the time i decided that i decided i could be a mechanic. i peeled all of the sparkly stickers from mom's license plates. my toy box had asked me to - it needed some accessories. then i needed to remove the little tire valve cap thingys - they needed repairing. and of course she needed a fill-up, so i drug the garden house around the side of the house, unscrewed the gas cap, inserted the hose, then turned the water on. my mom was pulled over that week for not having stickers. they enjoyed their home on my toy box for a few days, at least. my, they were shiny.

it can't possibly be that one christmas - the one where i totaled her car. the one where i snuck out during the ensuing chaos, crawled into the floorboard of her gremlin, released the parking break and "steered" my way down my grandparent's steep-ish drive and into the neighbor's mailbox at full speed.

that poor gremlin.

it can't be the time that i decided i would also like to deliver the mail, after watching the postman come by. that time that i hopped on my tricycle, with my grubby little mitt holding a brown paper bag, and made the rounds to the houses in the cul-de-sac where my grandparents lived. no one busted me 'til the last house. they called my grams and she spent the next hour re-sorting all the mail i'd tossed in to my makeshift mail bag. suffice it to say, it was a heavy mail day.

my poor grandma.

see, we lived with my grandparents until i was 5. and as my mom was typically working three jobs to support us, it was often just gram and me. she was my second mom. she passed away in '99, and it is hard to believe it has been almost ten years... "they" say that time makes it easier, but i don't think that is always true. i ache, to my very core, whenever i think of her being not here anymore. i had a dream a few years ago that we were together. when i woke up and realized it was a dream, i felt like i did the day she died. all over again. jello biafra once said in a talk i heard him give that there is no such thing as closure. at the time, i resisted the notion, but now, i embrace it. i've found the sentiment to be quite accurate over the years - and comforting, oddly enough. i think we tend to shove people into being ok, when they aren't. and we think we should be, when we aren't.

but i digress.

i know that she would get quite a laugh at bebe's antics.

i wish they could've met each other...

i watch bebe and wonder what he'll get into when he is 4. and i shudder. just a little. but in a good way.

bonne annee!!!!

2007-12-31T17:13:00.001-06:00

i had a friend years ago

2007-12-29T04:06:00.000-06:00

that was constantly amazed by the odd connections i experienced in my life. he worked at one of the neighboring restaurants and would always come sit at my bar and play fun games with me while i worked after he finished his shift.

one night he said, "how is it that i need bread and milk, so i go to the grocery store and get bread and milk - but when you go to the grocery store for bread and milk, it turns out that the circus is in town for one day only, and you come home with bread, milk AND a monkey???" it made me laugh pretty hard when he said it, and i always think of it when synchronicity strikes. like tonight.

of course the impetus for all of this is one dwr, someone i have known since i moved to kansas city. i think that everyone in kc proper knows david wayne, so i won't pretend to be all special about it. we did however have a special tori amos moment that i won't rehash lest he reads this little blog. but i digress. i've changed a lot over the years, but have always somehow managed to run into david wayne through all of the various incarnations that i call my life. i guess you could say that he's kind of like god in that Everywhere All Of The Time sort of way, or like santa claus, but different. he's just an all around great guy. he tried to leave myspace a few weeks ago and i'm really glad he didn't.

so last night, dwr's little changeable status thingymabub indicated that he was having back pain issues of some sort. i cruised over to send him a message, to ask if he was ok. he was. while i was over on his page, i noticed that one of his friends shared one of my dog's names - hadley. it isn't a very common name, so i clicked over with the intention of sending her a note. i saw that she was from here, but currently living in paris. i found this to be quite amusing, as will had given pooch hadley to me while i was reading his favorite book, "a moveable feast" by his fave author, hemingway. the 'feast is hemingway's memoir of living in paris. hadley was the name of hemingway's first wife. she had flaming red hair, and so did/does pooch. ergo, hadley.

will and i have been discussing moving, for seriously, for quite awhile now. i've been angling for this little island in canada - will has been angling for paris. my canadian dreams were dashed earlier this week, at least for the time being, so i'd started thinking about paris, or maybe seattle.

i decided instead that i would send human hadley a note, asking how she was living there, and to hopefully pick her brain about ideas for us - after concluding that "hey! you have the same name as my dog!" was a little bizarro. even for me. then i didn't send a note after all.

and forgot about it.

bear with me, i swear this going somewhere really fun.

i got a wild hair earlier today after messing with the bills and decided i'd call one of my co-workers and beg for her shift. she gave it to me. my second table ordered drinks and i carded the girl that ordered the beer. as i was handing her id back, i noticed her name was hadley. i know, right? what are the odds? her name registered as i rang the order - which is a tad odd, as i normally don't notice names, just birthdates. so i took my bad self back to the table and said, "what's your name?" she said, "hadley." i said, "do you live in paris?" she said, ...yeeess?"

i about fell over. there she was, in the flesh.

so i told her the story, about my poking about her myspace page last night and how i almost had written her.

she says she wouldn't mind at all, giving me the scoop on paris. she then tells me that she lives above HEMINGWAY'S parisian hang out (where he most likely penned the 'feast), that her landlord lives here and DAVID WAYNE introduced them. she's in school there. and HER CAT'S NAME IS RILEY!!!

so, yeah. synchronicity times 50. but we aren't through yet.

when she was finished eating, i asked her what she was studying. fashion design, says she. as i'm always also delighted that someone might know of my undergrad alma mater, i asked if she was familiar with parson's - another division of the new school university.

yup.

she STUDIES at parsons - in paris. i didn't even realize there was a campus there.

did i mention that i love me some synchronicity?

the first spare second i had, i rang will and told him we're moving to paris.

so that's that.

parle vous francais? my three years of high school french have escaped me. i think bebe knows more than i do now.

and thank you, david wayne. i owe you.

i want to free my feet, from the broken glass and concrete...

2007-12-21T13:45:00.001-06:00

i've been doing a lot of thinking, after what transpired earlier this week with my neighbor. in a nutshell, i grew very concerned after several days of mail and papers had piled up - and i called the police to check on him. will had gone over and got no answer. i sent another neighbor over who went all around the house, knocking on windows and calling to him and also got no answer. i knew something was wrong.

they found him on the floor. he couldn't get up to answer the door. they went in through a window and rushed him to the e.r. the officer said it looked like he had been there for a couple of days. never again will i be afraid that i'm over-reacting.

i've been to the hospital to visit him. i found out that he had fallen down the stairs from the second floor and shattered his knee. he is in a lot of pain and is very weak. the day before last, they helped him stand and when we went to see him yesterday, he had just been moved to a chair and was sitting. the social worker was able to find his niece from the mail i brought to him - she had sent him a holiday card. so that is good news - i've never seen him have a visitor, and didn't think he had family.

he'll be moved soon, to a nursing facility, for rehabilitation. he is very scared and sad. he's cried several times when i've been there. he lived in that house for 50 years. the thought of never being able to return home... it tears him up inside. i've been talking with about how he feels - and making sure that his fierce sense of independence is able to remain intact, as best it can. he is almost 90. this all is very devastating to him. and i have to say, it breaks my heart when i think about it all.

i spoke to the state social worker today and said that if there was anyway at all he could come home, that i hoped they would try their best to make that happen - and that i would help in any way that i could. she said that depending on how the rehab goes, this could be a possibility. my fears about him being automatically taken from his home for good were alleviated a bit.

i've been surprised by the response of those in the hospital and in the various social workers i've talked with. they act like i did something heroic. what is that? who doesn't look after their neighbors? who doesn't make a simple phone call when they notice that something isn't right? who seriously does not notice when three days worth of newspapers and mail are sitting outside of someone's home and wonder? and what does this say about us all, as a society of human beings? i keep telling people that i did what anyone would do. they keep saying most people wouldn't. i can't get my brain around that.

but i digress.

i had picked up his key and went to his house to fetch his bills for him. he was very worried about them being late. i also had to find his wallet with his i.d. and insurance cards. i saw a picture of him and his twin brother, taken when they were maybe 11 or 12. it was surreal, and a marked contrast from the 8 years that i've known him. once upon a time, he was like me - two able legs to carry him up and down the stairs, relatively healthy, surrounded by family and friends...

i've always had a difficult time with all of the issues that arise with the end of life. i have a difficult time talking with my elders. i've been doing a lot of soul searching as to why that is. i mean, the surest part of being born is dying. it happens to us all. so where does this disjunct stem from? i haven't found an answer. perhaps it is because i know, deep down, that i'm not living my life to fullest that i could be - that too many regrets come with death. perhaps it is all of the many messages that we receive throughout the day that youth is to be harnessed - that our bodies shouldn't age - and if they do, something is wrong - and there is an injection or pill to take or a soap to use to "keep us young." perhaps it is the stereotypes about older people that we have been indoctrinated with since we were very small - they are weak, they have nothing to offer, they are a burden... it is all so very sad to me.

and what we do with our elders! used to be, they would be cared for in their homes, with family. this just isn't possible in many cases. times have changed, families no longer reside on the same streets. and i've been inside of some of these places that "care" for our elders when they can no longer be at home. frankly, some are quite frightening. the residents do not live, they have been demoted, beyond their control, to simply existing.

i think about living my whole life, only to end up in a small room with nothing of my own around me. yeah, yeah - i know - we don't really own anything, we just borrow stuff until we die. we can't take it with us. but you know what i mean. and my neighbor. how will he adjust to this? will he end up in a room with someone that screams out in pain all night long? no phone? no television? nothing that he has had access to when he lived on his own? what does it feel like, to be 90 years old and have everything that you have ever known suddenly, completely be sent topsy turvy? and on top of it, to have a totally lucid mind, but finding your body failing you? i can't even imagine. and sometimes, often times, i don't want to imagine it, to think about it. but these are things that i think we all need to think about.

living wills, DNR's, having emergency contact lists close at hand, basic levels of concern for our brothers and sisters... we need to talk about this now, while we can - to help define the way it will all go down when the time comes. of course this is in complete defiance to living in the moment, carpe diem-ing - something that i try my hardest to accomplish from the time i wake to the time i hit my pillow. all in all, yet another disjunct i have in this BuyNowPayLaterJustDoItAllOthersBeDamnedAgingIsBad culture that we have created for ourselves. but what i know is this: our lives, as we know them, can change. in a heartbeat. just like that.

do you hear the waaaahhhhmbulance coming to get me?

2007-12-16T23:10:00.000-06:00

it was bebe's turn to head to the e.r. last night. he's fine. he had some sort of odd little wound on his finger that chose a weekend to full on fester up and become horribly infected. it had to be drained. waiting until his doctor's office opened on monday was not an option.

i seriously had a moment, on the phone with the nurse, where i hesitated in fear of how much another e.r. visit would cost. between he and i, we have really made the medical rounds as of late. is it really that bad? could we wait? how will we afford another bill?

after i slapped myself around for several minutes for even entertaining such utter ridiculousness, off we went. on the drive out, i wondered if they would pull up his outstanding bill and send us on our way. far stranger (criminal) things have happened. watch sicko if you haven't already. it will rip the heart right out of your chest.

welcome to america. where even if you have insurance, you will still be thousands of dollars in debt if you have to use it.

when we got home, i sat down and got all of the bills from the last two months together. i've been terrified to add them up and have been putting it off, hoping the insurance company might end up paying more by some miraculous twist of fate - you know, that they might actually cover what they said they would when i called them to see if bebe's big dental visit would be covered.

to date, the total between he and i is $15,000.

of course, i then began playing the, "do i really need these surgeries?" game with myself. by the time this is all said and done - we will owe $30, 000 - at least. i'm sure this surgery to remove the breast mass is "experimental" and the other surgery to rid me of the pre-cancerous cells "isn't medically necessary" somehow.

pirates. and not the cool kind, either.

there is something seriously wrong with this. i have no idea how i will ever pay this off. i figured up what we will be able to scrape together and basically, all of the places that want money from me will get about $10 a month. if we're lucky.

the saddest part is, i know we are not alone. 4.5 million of us don't even have health insurance. and for some insane reason, "we" are still terrified of universal healthcare.

fuck it. i'm going to cuba.

michael moore is right. something has to change. talk about a threat to america.

i. tell. ya.

2007-12-14T14:52:00.000-06:00

I'M DONE WITH FINALS!!!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!! it looks like i have an "a" semester in the bag, even with my nervousness inducing presentation i had to give last night. it went pretty well, though i fumbled a few spots. luckily, i have no trouble laughing at myself. :)

i'm still sicky, adding to my out-of-pocket status, but i FINALLY found something that works. elderberry juice concentrate and virastop. i'm on the mend. i wish i would have started these things at the beginning! surgeries are still postponed. i was hoping to have this all finished by the new year, but, no dice. and so it goes...

on top of the sick-induced brain fuzziness of the past 6 weeks, i was hit with a different kind of whopper last week. a school friend that i grew up with died suddenly from an aneurysm. she was 34. she had two small children. she got in her car, started to drive, and was gone. just like that. just. like. that. i had recently reconnected with her through myspace and a few days before we were talking about hooking up the next time i was in town to see my parents. i'm still in disbelief.

she had a profound affect on me, at a very young age. i've always carried her with me, all of those times i felt inadequate - she was there - reminding me to never let anyone have that sort of power over me . she wasn't like anyone else i ever knew. she was "different" - even when we were small. and she embraced it. while i wasted so many years of high school trying to fit in somewhere, anywhere... i still can't talk about this, the tears still keep coming. my grrrl robin wrote something about monica. she says it in a way i just can't. not yet. she's the writer.

has someone ever affected you this way? tell them. now. this all could end. just. like. that.

i have nothing insightful or smart to say. my brain is still a bit frazzled.

and in the spirit of strength - i did see this video today that brought me to tears. if you didn't get it from me via email, here it is. alix. olson. rocks.

jane! get me off this crazy thing!

2007-11-24T01:32:00.000-06:00

wowza.

i caught bebe's cold.
i caught will's stomach bug a week into the cold.
got rid of the bug
still have the "cold."

i have been sick now, for almost three weeks. fever, horrible cough, blah blah blah. i went to my doc, who gave me some herbal and homeopathic stuff, as my old standbys of cayenne pepper and garlic lemonade weren't doing the trick.

i started taking it. spent three days feeling completely weird. face tingling, unable to think clearly, disoriented.

after i dropped the boys off at the family gathering on thanksgiving so i could come home and lay down, i got dizzy enough that i almost passed out twice while driving. thinking my illness had morphed into pneumonia, i took my bad self to the e.r.

i told the triage nurse i'm allergic to penicillin. i told the nurse i'm allergic to penicillin. i told the doctor (who made "the face" about my herbal remedies) that i'm allergic to penicillin.

guess what the doctor wrote the prescription for?

AMOXICILLIN!

i told the discharge nurse i'm deathly allergic to penicillin. again. she says it is fine. take it.

still fairly certain i've not been able to take this either in the past, i called the pharmacy and told them i'm allergic to penicillin. they said no amoxicillin for me.

i now have a different antibiotic and a decongestant. still feeling horrid, but at least my face isn't tingling anymore and i'm not dizzy.

i have my breast surgery, if i'm well enough - and a huge paper due next week. all i want to do is sleep.

another project is due the following week.

a final exam the week after that, and a different surgery.

body, don't fail me now!!!

i just needed to vent.

all i can really do at this point is laugh, ya know?

when a doctor and two nurses try to kill me... well. you know something is messed up. ;)

that is all.

carry on.

:)

thanksgiving ramblings

2007-11-21T13:30:00.000-06:00

at the risk of sounding self-righteous, which is not my intention on any level, why do we need a day to be thankful - one based in such horrid events? why can't we be thankful everyday, and run the gamut of all emotions that are part and parcel of a healthy emotional life? daily i find myself thankful, pissed off, joyful, disturbed, elated, worried... the trick, i think, is to acknowledge all of these parts of us, embrace them and keep on moving on . loving, using our powers for good, speaking out and living life - not allowing our lives to live us. we can't get stuck in any of those moments, whatever form they take...

i don't say it enough, but i'm thankful for what each and every one of you has brought into my life. every day. i don't need to eat a turkey to prove it. and i won't. :)

so, thank you. 365 days a year.

xoxoxox
k.

hey, as long as they've got our oil, right?

2007-11-21T13:09:00.000-06:00

a 19 year old saudi woman has been sentenced to 6 months in prison and 200 lashes after being GANG RAPED by 7 men for being with a male that was no relation to her at the time of the attack. the saudi judiciary, yesterday, defended the court's ruling.

this is the kind of bullshit that pisses me off in the double speak that defines this administration. allies that continue to do horrific things in the form of human rights abuses are embraced. oppressive regimes are propped up by our tax dollars. world wide killers are trained at the school of the americas, also on your dime. this is the kind of stuff that breeds future "enemies" and terrorists. but, hey - we have all the oil we need for now, right?

i'm with her.

2007-11-20T00:46:00.001-06:00

Thanksgiving: A Native American View

By Jacqueline Keeler, Pacific News Service
Posted on January 1, 2000, Printed on November 19, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/4391/

I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.

This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.

Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing "Land of the Pilgrim's pride" in "America the Beautiful." Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing "Land of the Indian's pride" instead.

I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some "inside" knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes.

When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry -- half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.

These were not merely "friendly Indians." They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary -- but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father's people, they say, when asked to give, "Are we not Dakota and alive?" It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all -- the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.

To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.

Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food -- and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.

What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people.

In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil.

I see, in the "First Thanksgiving" story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.

Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.

Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.

And the healing can begin.

Jacqueline Keeler is a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux. Her work has appeared in Winds of Change, an American Indian journal.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/4391/

you can write in my books.

2007-11-19T23:55:00.000-06:00

several years ago, billy collins spoke at a local university. his poetry is even more delightful when read by him - i'm a sucker for a dry sense of humor. what can i say?

after he was finished, i made my way towards the front to get in line to have my book signed. he had an assistant beside him, tapping his watch, moving us through speedily. i'm sure there were appointments to be kept and not a second of time could be spared.

when it was my turn, i had no idea what i would say. but suddenly my mouth flew open in true kara form, and out came this:

"mr. collins, i know i'm supposed to tell you how great of a writer i think you are, but all i really want to do is give you a hug, because you completely delight me."

the assistant watch tapper sighed. loud.

mr. collins, pen in had, ready to write in my book - looked up at me, tilted his head to one side, sat back in his chair and laughed. he shrugged as he stood up, hugged me (a genuine hug, to boot) and lightly kissed my hair on my neck.

the assistant sighed again. mr. collins thanked me. i guess i can call him billy now. you know, since we tight and all. ;)

i picked my book up and ran back to will and jeffrey exclaiming, "I MADE OUT WITH THE POET LAUREATE OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!!!!!!"

much laughter ensued.

i thought of that story tonight as i stumbled across one of my favorite billy collins poems. that's the cool thing about collins - ANYONE can find something they relate to in his work. i'd dismissed him at first, for being too assessable. i was wrong. and i have my grrrl christy to thank for that.

but back to the poem at hand. i'm a notorious book writer inner. in fact, i encourage those who borrow my books to do the same. i like to read back through the notes that others leave - it is as if the book takes on a whole new life, a dialogue. something i value immensely. this is also why i dig used books so much, often times i find fun gems in the margin.(don't worry, crystal, i won't mark in your book. i pinky swear.)

so, anyway, enjoy.

Marginalia

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

Billy Collins

behind the scenes

2007-11-19T20:58:00.001-06:00

gobble gobble!

the party IS over

2007-11-17T11:05:00.000-06:00

as with most of the pressing issues of our time, no amount of not thinking about this will make it go away. we need to be prepared for what this means for us as a society. i'm posting a guest blog today, written by a friend that has been in the oil industry for a very long time- we've had many a convo about peak oil over the years. you can find him on myspace.
inform yourself and pass it along:

TAKE HEED

Peak Oil & Energy Discussion Board

http://pub38.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets

We are now flirting with $100 oil yet as a society we dont have any kind of energy game plan. After lots of posturing, Congress will have nothing for an energy bill this session, just as they've had nothing for each previous year. None of the Presidential candidates have any real energy policy programs. Its important for you to understand what this means. Our way of life is about to change dramatically for the worse. YOU need to properly understand the fundamentals at hand and act accordingly. Since 2005, its been evident we've entered a new era of oil depletion. After global oil growth rates of 3-4% most of our lives, take a look at this chart:

Recognize what this means. With the incentive of +$50, then $60, then $70, then $80 and now +$90 oil, global output has fallen. Its not an oil company conspiracy. We, especially Americans, are voraciously consuming past the ability of the system to supply oil. We are up against the limits to growth. We are near or at peak oil.

Peak oil doesn't mean we are fast running out of oil. It means we have roughly as much oil to consume in the future as we have consumed in the past. But before you get complacent, peak oil also means:
1) We can no longer grow oil supplies which I think means we can no longer grow the economy. There's too much societal debt predicated on more economic growth. This alone will be economically catastrophic. Take heed.
2) The market power shifts from the oil buyers to the oil producers.

To restate the obvious, there are extensive oil reserves. We're at the peak. We roughly have just as much oil to produce as we've pumped in the past. But at the peak the power shifts from the consumers to the still prolific producers. So does the money. They can jerk us around without much recourse. There's no longer energy growth alternatives. The Saudis, with the collusion of their ARAMCO partners, will throttle back and make a killing. Dan Yergin will come out and say 'its not geologic constraints its political. We weren't wrong.'

We all got duped but what are we gonna do about it now? This so called 'free market' approach to resource allocation sure served them well. The free market richly rewards those with still prolific production up and over the peak. Its too bad they are now most adversaries to the U.S. The oil wars will rage on. Too bad.

3) At and over the peak, the propensity for oil wars escalates. Its why we are building a $1b super-fortress embassy and permanent military bases in Iraq.

"...the more you understand peak oil fundamentals the more you know Iraq was about oil. The propensity for oil wars accelerates up and over the peak. Those that embrace the B.S. reasons for going into Iraq...weapons...911...democracy seem to also lack any real grasp of peak oil. They also are the ones who incorrectly think free markets and more domestic drilling will solve this energy problem.

The prudent post-911 response should have been highlighting and addressing our dangerous dependency on imported, especially Mideast oil. Instead they opted for an invasion of Iraq. It was about oil and its important to recognize, as we cruise around in our SUVs, is we are now on the wrong side of the energy equation and post-peak is going to smack us hard."

Here's some significant archived reading on whats unfolding with peak oil: Important Archived Peak Oil Threads. and check back on the main Petroboard. Its going to get volatile and interesting. Take heed.

your cousins

2007-11-13T11:58:00.000-06:00

i've never been able to understand how this is allowed to happen. i thought this inhumane and disgusting treatment of our cousins had been halted, due to numerous field research observations over the years that have proven monkeys have the capacity to think and feel. due to studies that have proven how humanlike they really are.

how twisted, huh? researchers acknowledge the monkey's human likeness, but somehow completely ignore its emotional and physical pain - and engage in murder. on your dime. and for what?

"In one example of the wasteful experiments at ONPRC, experimenter Eliot Spindel has injected pregnant monkeys with nicotine, delivered the babies by cesarean section, measured the babies' lung function, and then killed the babies and cut them up for exam—even though the dangers of nicotine to human infants have been well documented in studies of people.

In another example, experimenter Judy Cameron takes infant monkeys from their mothers and observes their psychological suffering—even though these traumatizing experiments have been conducted for half a century and the tragic effects of maternal deprivation have long been identified in humans."

this is so disturbing to me, on so many levels. groups like this are engaging in "medical" experimentation for already well established facts? don't smoke while pregnant? if your infant is deprived of love, it is psychologically traumatizing?

there is always another way - one that doesn't involve torture. what we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

please take a moment to watch the video and send a note to the usda. there is another news article here.

*h/t to holly for sending me these links.

she beat me to it.

2007-11-12T11:27:00.000-06:00

and said it better than i ever could have. the following veteran's day musings were penned by my dear friend, melissa. she's an inspiration and her friendship is sacred to me. she is also beautiful and brilliant. i'm passing her words on to you. the only thing i would add is the repeated attempts by bush during his years in occupation of the whitehouse, to slash veterans benefits even further. how he does this with a clear conscience is beyond me... and you don't get to ban iraq war vets from veteran's day parades.

"Today's observance was intended not to glorify war, but as a solemn way to recognize its end. In that spirit, today I continue my commitment to advocate for a peaceful resolution to end the war in Iraq, and prevent war with Iran. We do not need more veterans. Instead, we need to honor those we have by fully funding services designed to meet the challenging and diverse needs of the men and women who have served in our military.

We can say 'thank you' with the immediate elimination of waiting lists for care and benefits.

We can say 'thank you' by ensuring that the mental health needs of returning soldiers are considered a medical priority and providing the adequately trained staff in sufficient numbers so as to guarantee that every solider receives the best standard of care possible.

We can say 'thank you' by the immediate elimination of pay and benefit inequities between U.S. military personnel and private paramilitary contractors who often perform the same work, in the same situations, for a fraction of the compensation. Those who wear our uniform deserve more pay, not less.

We can say 'thank you' by keeping our recruiting promises to help pay for college in a realistic and meaningful way that accurately compensates veterans for the true costs of higher education.

We can say 'thank you' by encouraging a real national conversation about the toll of war on the future of this country, not just in dollars and cents, but in the loss of production and innovation that will come as a direct result of the permanent disabilities of our wounded.

We can say 'thank you' by redefining what support means. Forget the rhetoric. It isn't about showing respect to the flag and it isn't about whether you wear a lapel pin. It isn't about a 99 cent magnet flung on the back of some car. This is what true support would look like: not one homeless veteran. Not one.

We can say 'thank you' by working as a nation to eliminate the stigma associated with PTSD, depression, and other identifiable and treatable mental health issues so as to eliminate this debilitating barrier to service provision.

We can say 'thank you' by finally ending the flawed 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. We must bring honor to all our veterans by allowing them the respect and dignity they deserve. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with patriotism or the ability to do one's job. Existing benefits and supportive services must be extended to the families of LGBT military personnel and they must be permitted to serve openly without fear of discrimination or harassment.

We can say 'thank you' by praying for peace."

we'll just file this one under

2007-11-09T13:57:00.000-06:00

things i should know about, but didn't. of course, i feel it is my sworn duty to pass this new knowledge along. you know how i do sometimes.

holly and i were rappin' this a.m. via the internets. holly is a rockin' animal/human rights activist, p.s. - and someone that i consider to be the most knowledgeable about such matters. she is not all hat and no cattle, she walks the talk. and that, my friends, is beautiful and rare in this day and age.

but i digress.

i was expressing my disjunct with a culture so supportive of "finding the cure" for cancer via walk-a-thons and knowing that there are those creating cancers that aren't being held accountable. industry waste, spills, harmful products (deodorant - although studies provide conflicting results - whatever.), etc. basically, we're given these nasty little incurable diseases and then are asked to collect money to find a remedy. we could also file this under "more band aids for cuts that need stitches" - a favorite category of mine these days.

but the plot thickens. i had always assumed this money was being used to, wait for it, find a cure. i assumed that the money was actually being used WISELY and pro-actively. silly me. while i should have assumed that animal testing is a part of all of this, it is also something i have a difficult time thinking too much about. must mean i should give it more thought.

let me just excerpt a bit of the conversation that ensued, what she sent my way:

Although the war on cancer was declared nearly 30 years ago to the tune of $35 billion, cancer deaths are at an all-time high because of our reluctance to move past the animal model to reliable, humane methods of experimentation. "The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades--and it simply didn't work in humans." -- Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute.

Although experimental cancer drugs reduce tumors in mice, experts agree that this treatment cannot and never has been successfully extrapolated to humans. Animal experimenters poison and kill animals by the tens of millions and give cancer sufferers false hopes that a cure is right around the corner. "The patients are the losers when all of this is dangled in front of them and it turns out to be nothing." -- Dr. Robert Mayer, president of the American Society for Clinical Oncology.

Cancer therapies used in animals do not accurately demonstrate side effects that will show up in humans once a product is put on the market. These side effects include muscle inflammation, skeletal stiffness, loss of sensation in the limbs, and brain cell toxicity. In some cases, these side effects force researchers to limit doses to levels too low to be a benefit to the cancer patient, rendering the therapy useless.

More than 100,000 people in the U.S. die from side effects of drugs not detected in animal tests. An additional 2 million people are hospitalized. $4 billion is spent annually treating people for adverse side effects from prescribed drugs.

so not only are animals being tortured, people are dying while time, money and resources are being horribly horribly squandered. apparently there is some "research" being inflicted upon monkeys as well - which will more than likely also wield no valid results for humans.

sick. sad. disguting. all around.

and as if that wasn't enough, she hit me with this, stats taken from the FDA
• More than 90 percent of drugs that appear safe in animal tests fail in human studies.
• More than 100,000 Americans die each year from adverse reactions to approved drugs. This is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States.
• More than half of all approved drugs will be withdrawn or relabeled for serious or lethal effects in humans.

which i verified here, in reference to the vioxx fiasco.

ah, western medicine... i'll save my rant about what this means vis-a-vis the human experimentation that is occuring with anti-depressant/anxiety/panic medications as we speak for another time.

she also gave me this link - charities that do/don't engage in animal testing.

i heart alternet. and opening cans of worms.

2007-11-07T14:11:00.000-06:00

even when they send sillily titled articles to me via my online subscription:

porn - healthy or harmful?

yup. make sure you take your vitamins and PORN this winter to avoid catching the flu. sheesh.

i can kind of even get my brain around the arguments that porn isn't harmful. kind of. i don't agree and i think that robert jensen has a million fantastic things to say in response to the argument (esp. in regards to the harder core stuff that is out there) - but, is porn healthy?

alternet has an interesting debate between two clinical psychologists posted up on their site. if you want it, here it be. have at it.

this is just cool.

2007-11-06T19:25:00.001-06:00

ladybugs. everywhere.

i picked up a serving shift on sunday at the bar. each time i went out to the patio, a ladybug landed on me, or flew into my face. same difference. i also kept finding them crawling up my arm once i was back inside. doesn't take much to amuse me. at one point, i looked up on the wall and there were close to 40 just cruising up and down the side of the building.

there are three currently residing in my house.

of course, this must mean something, right? in a universal sense? i mean, this has never happened before, in all of my 34 years.

so pokin' about i went...

here's the scoop - ladybugs as animal totems:

The ladybug is one of the few beetles that are well liked by humans. Unlike other beetles, the ladybug stirs a feeling of joy within us. Its small size denotes a delicate and loving nature. It emanates the energy of harmlessness and can show us how to stop harming ourselves.

The shell on its back serves to protect it from predators. Its wings fold against the body protecting its soft underside. Ladybugs have keen instincts and feel vibrations through their legs. This enables them to sense the energy of whatever they touch and is another form of protection. In spite of its size it appears to be fearless. A messenger of promise, the ladybug reconnects us with the joy of living. Fear does not live within joy. The need to release our fears and return to love is one of the messages it carries.

Ladybug teaches us how to restore our faith and trust in great spirit. It initiates change where it is needed the most.

i hear ya knockin' ladies.

where do i get off?

2007-11-06T14:18:00.000-06:00

apparently, i'm not handling this month's worth of nasty health events as well as i thought i was. my back is one moment away from failing me. i cannot begin to describe the pain, nor the frustration that goes along with it. if i move, at all, i hurt. hell, i hurt when i don't move. all of my normal activities are accentuated with pain that makes me sick to my stomach. ah, the things i take for granted. like walking and bending and lying still...

i've had these bulged discs for years - and since they were diagnosed, they've gone haywire when presented with stress. it truly is amazing what the psyche can manifest into the body! the last time this happened was after arriving home from the dnc protest back in 2000 - after days of wondering when the police were going to decide to beat us all down during peaceful protests. go figure. but i digress. i'm having a hell of a time trying to study for my exam thursday, finish my summary for tomorrow and i won't even get into the logistics surrounding a Very Busy bebe and housecrap that i don't care for anyway and... does someone want to come break my arm to take my mind off of my back? ;) i hear that works.

i do have great news on the health of moi front. see? i'm not all gloom and doom. i met with the surgeon today who has opted to remove the suspicious lump. she doesn't think it is anything worrisome, but is going to take it away. i like that. i like that a lot. i should have the results from my other biopsies back this week. there may to be another lazer type surgery for that - we shall see. my body is not pleased with me this month, needless to say.

all i can do at this point is laugh. it really, truly is ridiculous, how nutty these weeks have been. the timing, blah blah blah.

and it keeps occurring to me that i shouldn't really complain, given how horribly people suffer daily in this world, because of my country - based on the whims of few mindless, greedy, arrogant people. darfur, iraq, afghanistan, those not holding the chunk of the wealth, the list goes on and on and on. next post? entitlement.

my pain is so temporary. where do i get off, anyway? how dare i. seriously. for reals.

back to the books.

happy halloweenie!!!!

2007-10-31T14:36:00.000-05:00

could he be any more pleased?

i think not. when bebe tried this halloween costume on the other day, he giggled for 3 solid hours and refused to take it off. my baby is obsessed with a meat head. *sigh* what can ya do?

his favorite thing to say lately?
"mommy! look at my impressive wingspan!"

better watch what you THINK.

2007-10-30T12:37:00.000-05:00

i read about this new piece of "legislation" yesterday and immediately thought of abbie hoffman's testimony during the trial of the chicago seven after the dnc protests in '68 - he said,

"Furthermore, you have asked us to respect the law but this is a law - - I sat there on the witness stand and Mr. Schultz said, "What were you wondering?" as he quoted from my book and speeches. "What were you wondering that night when you stood before a building?" And I said, "Wonder? Wonder? I have never been on trial for wondering. Is that like a dream?"
He said, "Yes, that's like a dream."
And I have never been on trial for my dreams before. How can I respect the highest court in the land or a federal government that puts people on trial for their dreams. I can show it no respect."

and now this has come to pass. i'm reposting holly's bulletin from earlier today. how does it feel to live in the so called most free place in the world now?

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and ACTUALLY DEFINES THOUGHT CRIMES AS HOMEGROWN TERRORISM. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called THOUGHT CRIMINIALS. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill.

First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.

The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting ANY BELIEF SYSTEM THAT THE GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS TO BE AN EXTREMIST AGENDA. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.

..(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term ..violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

The definition of homegrown terrorism uses equally vague language to further define thought crime. The bill includes the planned use of force or violence as homegrown terrorism which could be interpreted as THINKING ABOUT using force or violence. Not only that but the definition is so vaguely defined, that petty crimes could even fall into the category of homegrown terrorism. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.

..(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term ..homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

Section 899B of the bill goes over the findings of Congress as it pertains to homegrown terrorism. Particularly alarming is that the bill mentions the Internet as a main source for terrorist propaganda. It also mentions that homegrown terrorists span all ages and races indicating that the Congress is stating that EVERYONE IS A POTENTIAL TERRORIST.

The biggest joke of all is that this section also says that any measure to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism should not violate the constitutional rights of citizens. However, the definition of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as they are defined in section 899A are themselves unconstitutional. The Constitution does not allow the government to arrest people for thought crimes, so any promises not to violate the constitutional rights of citizens are already broken by their own definitions.

..SEC. 899B. FINDINGS.

..The Congress finds the following:

..(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.

..(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.

..(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

..(4) While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States.

..(5) Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.

..(6) The potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily prevented through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts, and requires the incorporation of State and local solutions.

..(7) Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion.

..(8) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.

..(9) Certain governments, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have significant experience with homegrown terrorism and the United States can benefit from lessons learned by those nations.

Section 899C calls for a commission on the prevention of violent radicalization and ideologically based violence. The commission will consist of ten members appointed by various individuals that hold different positions in government. Essentially, this is a commission that will examine and report on how they are going to deal with violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. So basically, the commission is being formed specifically on how to deal with thought criminals in the United States. The bill requires that the commission submit their final report 18 months following the commission’s first meeting as well as submit interim reports every 6 months leading up to the final report. Below is the bill’s defined purpose of the commission. Amazingly they even define one of the purposes of the commission to determine the causes of lone wolf violent radicalization.

(b) Purpose- The purposes of the Commission are the following:

..(1) Examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States, including United States connections to non-United States persons and networks, violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in prison, individual or ..lone wolf' violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence, and other faces of the phenomena of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence that the Commission considers important.

..(2) Build upon and bring together the work of other entities and avoid unnecessary duplication, by reviewing the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of--

..(A) the Center of Excellence established or designated under section 899D, and other academic work, as appropriate;

..(B) Federal, State, local, or tribal studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence; and

..(C) foreign government studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence.

Section 899D of the bill establishes a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States. Essentially, this will be a Department of Homeland Security affiliated institution that will study and determine how to defeat thought criminals.

Section 899E of the bill discusses how the government is going to defeat violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism through international cooperation.

Possibly the most ridiculous section of the bill is Section 899F which states how they plan on protecting civil rights and civil liberties while preventing ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism. Here is what the section says.

..SEC. 899F. PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WHILE PREVENTING IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED VIOLENCE AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.

..(a) In General- The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.

..(b) Commitment to Racial Neutrality- The Secretary shall ensure that the activities and operations of the entities created by this subtitle are in compliance with the Department of Homeland Security's commitment to racial neutrality.

..(c) Auditing Mechanism- The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer of the Department of Homeland Security will develop and implement an auditing mechanism to ensure that compliance with this subtitle does not result in a disproportionate impact, without a rational basis, on any particular race, ethnicity, or religion and include the results of its audit in its annual report to Congress required under section 705.'.

(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of contents in section 1(b) of such Act is amended by inserting at the end of the items relating to title VIII the following:

It states in the first subsection that in general the efforts to defeat thought crime shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of the United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. How does this protect constitutional rights if they use vague language such as in general that prefaces the statement? This means that the Department of Homeland Security does not have to abide by the Constitution in their attempts to prevent so called homegrown terrorism.

This bill is completely insane. It literally allows the government to define any and all crimes including thought crime as violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. Obviously, this legislation is unconstitutional on a number of levels and it is clear that all 404 representatives who voted in favor of this bill are traitors and should be removed from office immediately. The treason spans both political parties and it shows us all that there is no difference between them. The bill will go on to the Senate and will likely be passed and signed into the law by George W. Bush.

wanna go shopping?

2007-10-29T11:18:00.000-05:00

this makes me so sad inside. i swiped this from ms. liberty's boy. and i'm passing it on.

"Amitosh concentrates as he pulls the loops of thread through tiny plastic beads and sequins on the toddler's blouse he is making. Dripping with sweat, his hair is thinly coated in dust. In Hindi his name means 'happiness'. The hand-embroidered garment on which his tiny needle is working bears the distinctive logo of international fashion chain Gap. Amitosh is 10.

The hardships that blight his young life, exposed by an undercover Observer investigation in the back streets of New Delhi, reveal a tragic consequence of the West's demand for cheap clothing. It exposes how, despite Gap's rigorous social audit systems launched in 2004 to weed out child labour in its production processes, the system is being abused by unscrupulous subcontractors. The result is that children, in this case working in conditions close to slavery, appear to still be making some of its clothes."
....
"'I was bought from my parents' village in [the northern state of] Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train,' he says. 'The men came looking for us in July. They had loudspeakers in the back of a car and told my parents that, if they sent me to work in the city, they won't have to work in the farms. My father was paid a fee for me and I was brought down with 40 other children. The journey took 30 hours and we weren't fed. I've been told I have to work off the fee the owner paid for me so I can go home, but I am working for free. I am a shaagird [a pupil]. The supervisor has told me because I am learning I don't get paid. It has been like this for four months.'

The derelict industrial unit in which Amitosh and half a dozen other children are working is smeared in filth, the corridors flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet.

Behind the youngsters huge piles of garments labelled Gap - complete with serial numbers for a new line that Gap concedes it has ordered for sale later in the year - lie completed in polythene sacks, with official packaging labels, all for export to Europe and the United States in time for Christmas.

Jivaj, who is from West Bengal and looks around 12, told The Observer that some of the boys in the sweatshop had been badly beaten. 'Our hours are hard and violence is used against us if we don't work hard enough. This is a big order for abroad, they keep telling us that."
....
"Gap has huge contracts in India, which boasts one of the world's fastest-growing economies. But over the past decade, India has also become the world capital for child labour. According to the UN, child labour contributes an estimated 20 per cent of India's gross national product with 55 million children aged from five to 14 employed across the business and domestic sectors.

'Gap may be one of the best-known fashion brands with a public commitment to social responsibility, but the employment [by subcontractors ultimately supplying major international retail chains] of bonded child slaves as young as 10 in India's illegal sweatshops tells a different story,' says Bhuwan Ribhu, a Delhi lawyer and activist for the Global March Against Child Labour.

'The reality is that most major retail firms are in the same game, cutting costs and not considering the consequences. They should know by now what outsourcing to India means.

'It is an impossible task to track down all of these terrible sweatshops, particularly in the garment industry when you need little more than a basement or an attic crammed with small children to make a healthy profit.

'Some owners even hide the children in sacks and in carefully concealed mezzanine floors designed to dodge such raids,' he explains.

'Employing cheap labour without proper auditing and investigation of your contractor inevitably means children will be used somewhere along the chain. This may not be what they want to hear as they pull off fresh clothes from clean racks in stores but shoppers in the West should be thinking "Why am I only paying £30 for a hand-embroidered top. Who made it for such little cost? Is this top stained with a child's sweat?" That's what they need to ask themselves."

Read the full article by Dan McDougall

as fate would have it...

2007-10-29T10:56:00.000-05:00

i got this little ditty in the form of a bulletin over on myspace, shortly after yesterday's post. i really can't get my brain around who would think of such things to write - as if the woman portrayed in the piece below was somehow godless and deserved to be raped? and that first line is a whole other mess i won't get into. such fear. :( check it out:

A girl went to a party in Sexy clothes and

she ended up staying longer than

planned, her boyfriend got drunk and passed out

and

had to walk home alone. She wasn't

afraid

because it was a small town and she lived

only

a

few blocks away around the corner of 4th & 16th.

As she walked along passing "McDonalds"

Mary asked God to keep her safe from

harm

and

danger.

When she reached the alley, which was a

short

cut to her house, she decided to take it.

However, halfway down the alley she

noticed

a

man standing at the end as though he

were

waiting

for her.

She became uneasy and began to pray,

asking

for

God's protection.

Instantly a comforting feeling of quietness

and

security wrapped round her, she felt as

though

someone was walking with her.

When she reached the end of the alley,

she

walked right past the man and arrived

home

safely.

The following day, she read in the

newspaper

that

a young girl had been raped in the same

alley

just

twenty minutes after she had been there.

Feeling overwhelmed by this tragedy and

the

fact

that it could have been her, she began to

weep.

Thanking the Lord for her safety and to

help

this

young woman, she decided to go to the

police

station.

She felt she could recognize the man, so

she

told

them her story.

The police asked her if she would be

willing to

look

at a lineup to see if she could identify

him.

She agreed and immediately pointed out

the

man

she had seen in the alley the night

before.

When the man was told he had been

identified,

he

immediately broke down and confessed.

The officer thanked Mary for her bravery

and

asked if there was anything they could do

for

her.

She asked if they would ask the man one

question.

Mary was curious as to why he had not

attacked

her.

When the policeman asked him, he

answered, "Because she wasn't alone.

She

had

two tall men walking on either side of

her."

Amazingly, whether you believe or not,

you're

never alone. Did you know that 98% of

teenagers

will not stand up for God?

Repost this as (your city) if you truly

believe

in

God..

PS: God is always there in your heart and loves you no matter what

"If you deny me in front of your friends, I shall deny you in front of my Father"

STAND UP FOR HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

98% wont post this

repost this with your city

praise the lord!

2007-10-28T20:09:00.000-05:00

but only for big hurricanes, not big fires. so al qaeda may have been responsible for the california fires, but GOD is responsible for the new orleans hurricane.

given the articles i read on a daily basis, it is rather difficult to leave me speechless at this point. i thought i'd share a snippet of one such thing that managed to render me wordless, emphasis mine:

"In 2005, while the bodies were still being fished out of flooded homes in New Orleans, Republican Congressman Richard Baker praised The Lord for his mercy. “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did,” he said about the removal of the poor from the project near the French Quarter much coveted by speculators."

seriously, people elected this dude? this senetor REALLY is the voice of the people? we've got trouble. right here in river city.

palast goes on to say:

"But as this week’s flames spread, no Republican Congressman cried, “Burn baby burn!” to praise the Lord for cleaning up them ‘Boo, the sin-and-surf playground of Hollywood luvvies."

hmmmmmm. go figure.

the rest of the article is here.

while i've got your ear, for the record, this illustrates exactly why i have no god.

which of all of these folks proclaiming that their god is the "right" god, is right? how could anyone possibly know? pick an organized religion, any religion - you've got folks from across the board aligning themselves with one another, under one common term, yet no one can seem to agree. i mean, which curtain is the nice god behind? if god is out there somewhere, an oldoldold wise man sitting high atop a lofty cloud planning his next massacre on poor people, telling bush to invade iraq, blah blah blah, i want no. part. of. it.

don't feed the animals.

i heart free speech. even when they lie.

2007-10-25T00:12:00.001-05:00

fox news is reporting that AL-QAEDA started those fires in california. AL QAEDA?!?!? what the hell? IT WAS IRAN!

geez. do i have to do EVERYTHING around here?

she's CRAFTY!

2007-10-22T15:48:00.001-05:00

uh huh. that's right. take THAT, martha stewart! i embarked on a little decoupage adventure this morning instead of studying and just finished up! 'cause sometimes, that's just what ya gotta do.

someone in the apartments up the street threw out a little bookcase (THANK YOU, NEIGHBOR!!!!) and we snagged it on our way by last night. i cleaned it up, and ripped the falling-apart-backing off of it. it looked so blank and sad. so....

bebe has a favorite book that he's liked to read since he was very wee. the bee bee baby bird. his first copy, needless to say, got VERY loved. after i'd pretty much taped every page back together, we got him a new copy. i decided to cut the pictures and words from the loved copy and apply them to the new bookcase! voila!

check it out!

as if you need another blog

2007-10-21T19:44:00.000-05:00

to read. :) i must insist that you head on over to holly's place. good stuff there - lots of it! in a recent post, she linked to the following article that i'm going to swipe from her - 'cause i think it's fitting for wherever one may fall in the spectrum:

Your Politics Are Boring As Fuck

by Nadia C.
Face it, your politics are boring as fuck.
You know it's true. Otherwise, why does everyone cringe when you say the word? Why has attendance at your anarcho-communist theory discussion group meetings fallen to an all-time low? Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?

Perhaps, after years of struggling to educate them about their victimhood, you have come to blame them for their condition. They must want to be ground under the heel of capitalist imperialism; otherwise, why do they show no interest in your political causes? Why haven't they joined you yet in chaining yourself to mahogany furniture, chanting slogans at carefully planned and orchestrated protests, and frequenting anarchist bookshops? Why haven't they sat down and learned all the terminology necessary for a genuine understanding of the complexities of Marxist economic theory?

The truth is, your politics are boring to them because they really are irrelevant. They know that your antiquated styles of protest—your marches, hand held signs, and gatherings—are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo. They know that your post-Marxist jargon is off-putting because it really is a language of mere academic dispute, not a weapon capable of undermining systems of control. They know that your infighting, your splinter groups and endless quarrels over ephemeral theories can never effect any real change in the world they experience from day to day. They know that no matter who is in office, what laws are on the books, what "ism"s the intellectuals march under, the content of their lives will remain the same. They—we—know that our boredom is proof that these "politics" are not the key to any real transformation of life. For our lives are boring enough already!

And you know it too. For how many of you is politics a responsibility? Something you engage in because you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there are a million things you would rather be doing? Your volunteer work—is it your most favorite pastime, or do you do it out of a sense of obligation? Why do you think it is so hard to motivate others to volunteer as you do? Could it be that it is, above all, a feeling of guilt that drives you to fulfill your "duty" to be politically active? Perhaps you spice up your "work" by trying (consciously or not) to get in trouble with the authorities, to get arrested: not because it will practically serve your cause, but to make things more exciting, to recapture a little of the romance of turbulent times now long past. Have you ever felt that you were participating in a ritual, a long-established tradition of fringe protest, that really serves only to strengthen the position of the mainstream? Have you ever secretly longed to escape from the stagnation and boredom of your political "responsibilities"?

It's no wonder that no one has joined you in your political endeavors. Perhaps you tell yourself that it's tough, thankless work, but somebody's got to do it. The answer is, well, NO.

You actually do us all a real disservice with your tiresome, tedious politics. For in fact, there is nothing more important than politics. NOT the politics of American "democracy" and law, of who is elected state legislator to sign the same bills and perpetuate the same system. Not the politics of the "I got involved with the radical left because I enjoy quibbling over trivial details and writing rhetorically about an unreachable utopia" anarchist. Not the politics of any leader or ideology that demands that you make sacrifices for "the cause." But the politics of our everyday lives. When you separate politics from the immediate, everyday experiences of individual men and women, it becomes completely irrelevant. Indeed, it becomes the private domain of wealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things. When you involve yourself in politics out of a sense of obligation, and make political action into a dull responsibility rather than an exciting game that is worthwhile for its own sake, you scare away people whose lives are already far too dull for any more tedium. When you make politics into a lifeless thing, a joyless thing, a dreadful responsibility, it becomes just another weight upon people, rather than a means to lift weight from people. And thus you ruin the idea of politics for the people to whom it should be most important. For everyone has a stake in considering their lives, in asking themselves what they want out of life and how they can get it. But you make politics look to them like a miserable, self-referential, pointless middle class/bohemian game, a game with no relevance to the real lives they are living out.

What should be political? Whether we enjoy what we do to get food and shelter. Whether we feel like our daily interactions with our friends, neighbors, and coworkers are fulfilling. Whether we have the opportunity to live each day the way we desire to. And "politics" should consist not of merely discussing these questions, but of acting directly to improve our lives in the immediate present. Acting in a way that is itself entertaining, exciting, joyous—because political action that is tedious, tiresome, and oppressive can only perpetuate tedium, fatigue, and oppression in our lives. No more time should be wasted debating over issues that will be irrelevant when we must go to work again the next day. No more predictable ritual protests that the authorities know all too well how to deal with; no more boring ritual protests which will not sound like a thrilling way to spend a Saturday afternoon to potential volunteers—clearly, those won't get us anywhere. Never again shall we "sacrifice ourselves for the cause." For we ourselves, happiness in our own lives and the lives of our fellows, must be our cause!

After we make politics relevant and exciting, the rest will follow. But from a dreary, merely theoretical and/or ritualized politics, nothing valuable can follow. This is not to say that we should show no interest in the welfare of humans, animals, or ecosystems that do not contact us directly in our day to day existence. But the foundation of our politics must be concrete: it must be immediate, it must be obvious to everyone why it is worth the effort, it must be fun in itself. How can we do positive things for others if we ourselves do not enjoy our own lives?

To make this concrete for a moment: an afternoon of collecting food from businesses that would have thrown it away and serving it to hungry people and people who are tired of working to pay for food—that is good political action, but only if you enjoy it. If you do it with your friends, if you meet new friends while you're doing it, if you fall in love or trade funny stories or just feel proud to have helped a woman by easing her financial needs, that's good political action. On the other hand, if you spend the afternoon typing an angry letter to an obscure leftist tabloid objecting to a columnist's use of the term "anarcho-syndicalist," that's not going to accomplish shit, and you know it.

Perhaps it is time for a new word for "politics," since you have made such a swear word out of the old one. For no one should be put off when we talk about acting together to improve our lives. And so we present to you our demands, which are non-negotiable, and must be met as soon as possible—because we're not going to live forever, are we?

1. Make politics relevant to our everyday experience of life again. The farther away the object of our political concern, the less it will mean to us, the less real and pressing it will seem to us, and the more wearisome politics will be.

2. All political activity must be joyous and exciting in itself. You cannot escape from dreariness with more dreariness.

3. To accomplish those first two steps, entirely new political approaches and methods must be created. The old ones are outdated, outmoded. Perhaps they were NEVER any good, and that's why our world is the way it is now.

4. Enjoy yourselves! There is never any excuse for being bored . . . or boring!

Join us in making the "revolution" a game; a game played for the highest stakes of all, but a joyous, carefree game nonetheless!

new poem

2007-10-21T11:09:00.000-05:00

they are few and far between these days, but one came out last night. here it be.

it's time

it's time the trees liberate
their leaves
so they can rough and tumble down
the half-moon-lit street.

it's time for these blustery gusts
of wind
to swipe over more
than unassuming house plants
dwelling outdoors
for the warmer months.

because
sometimes,
sometimes,
those who want to live,
die.
and those who want to die,
live.

ok.

2007-10-19T15:25:00.000-05:00

i now have an appointment with a surgeon - rumor has it, she is THE stuff. i feel much better, things are progressing - i don't feel so in limbo. apparently the nurse that called me back yesterday afternoon is married to my doctor and she called him at home. he called right away. of course, as fate would have it, i was taking the time to cry my eyes out while bebe and will went to the park. i'm sure he thinks i'm a total freak. whatever.

thanks again, everyone. i feel the support raging through these electric veins. and it makes me feel happy inside and less afraid.

i got home from class last night to learn that bush is now threatening world war III. as the last several days have managed to blur together quite nicely, i actually forgot about that tool for a few minutes. that will learn me. i turn my back for one second and he's waxing philosophical about blowing up the world, throwing it into a state of war. perfect. lovely. we still have a year in which he can attempt to accomplish his idiotic pursuits. i'm so tired of this 'do as i say not as i do' mentality. we can have weapons of mass destruction and use them, but you can't. we can try and develop nuclear power, but you can't. and if you do...

THANK YOU EVERYBUNNY!!!!!!!!

2007-10-18T01:19:00.001-05:00

i can't begin to thank you all enough for your kind words on yesterday's post! it means the world to me... i feel like i've been crying all day.

bebe did great. there was a buzz lightyear there that he was able to take back with him when they took him. we got one quick glance over the shoulder and he was off, pushing buzz's lazer button all the way down the hall. i, on the other hand, made a beeline for the pisser and cried for 10 minutes.

coming out of it was difficult for him. i'd prepared him for what was going to happen until they took him, but not after. he was crying so hard when we got to him in recovery, he was close to hyperventilating. he managed to choke out, "mommy, i want to go home now." and so we did. his whole little world was set topsy turvy! he was only out for about 30 minutes.

i'm so glad this was all done at a hospital, though. fade, she'll be in good hands. and since she's older, it may be easier for her, ya know? definitely take the little pre-op tour party thing they should offer you. we don't have dental insurance, but our medical covered the hospital portion. i think. they told me it would on the phone... we shall see.

my results of my mammogram and ultrasound were waiting for me in the mailbox when we got home. the radiologist sent them to me, with his recommendations. through the huge medical words, i made out category 4 and serious and IMMEDIATE BIOPSY. i couldn't get my doc or a nurse on the line, so i went scrounging about to decipher it on my own. basically, a category 5 is a definite malignancy, cancer. 4 is no bueno. more tears. i called again and left another message. i finally got a call from a nurse. she wanted to schedule another procedure, due to a pap coming back bad again. she didn't even mention the radiology results. i asked her about it and asked why the doctor hadn't called me when he got the results. if it took two days to get here in the mail... she said it was in his inbox, but he hadn't gotten to it yet. (?!?!) she said his nurse would call me. she said they might bypass the biopsy and just remove it. i want it gone. now. i waited all afternoon for the call that never came and then left for school to take my midterm exam. more tears.

i'm scared. and angry that this hasn't been monitored more closely and that i pretty much had to press them into taking a closer look. i'm pissed that i wasn't called, that i had to read this scary ass letter first. it's probably better if i don't write about it anymore tonight. i need distance. and i desperately need sleep.

bebe...

2007-10-16T18:38:00.000-05:00

...has to be put under tomorrow morning for dental work. i'm not feeling so brave.

(awesome pic taken by pam. who is going to return to us in bloglandia someday. hint hint wink wink.)

happy columbus day!

2007-10-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

in my typical fashion

2007-10-02T16:31:00.000-05:00

i'm jumping to conclusions. i've been participating in a mindfulness program at school, and i've been trying hard today to stay in the moment and acknowledge that i'am scared without letting my brain get too far ahead of me.

me:1
fear:3

already, i digress.

i had a doctor's appointment this morning, run of the mill thing. i have a lump in one breast that has been there since i was 18. i found another in the other one several weeks ago. i went in and had it looked at. i saw the CNP and she suggested we just go ahead and drain them after bebe weaned completely.

today, the doc felt them and said he wanted to aspirate them. after several minutes of painful poking and prodding about in both and not being able to get anything out, he suggested i have a mammogram and sonogram, as soon as possible. he did say he wasn't too worried about the one that has been there for so long, but he seemed pretty alarmed that he couldn't draw any fluid out. i have no idea what this means. all i know is that i had a horrible visceral response after he left the room. i just started crying and didn't stop until i got home - all the while trying to drive. and be mindful. i wasn't very successful.

does anyone know anything about this stuff? i'm hesitant to go poking about the internets, 'cause i'm bound to find horror stories that i don't need to read right now... the soonest they can get me in is next week. never has a week felt like an eternity.

i do know that 80% of the time, it is nothing scary. yet, in my typical fashion, all of the things that go through one's mind at the thought of not being on the planet anymore are making the rounds. am i living as fully as i possibly could - or is life living me? i try to, but the fact is no. things are too hectic, too busy around here. too many outside forces are playing too large a role in our lives. i'm so tired of the city. i want to be by the ocean and the trees. i want to be where the air is clean, where the pace is slower, where i feel safe. i want to be in a community, in the truest sense of the word. i want to be surrounded by people that are striving for truth and beauty and love - a better way for the earth and her people.

granted, i've done more in my 34 years than many have, but it isn't enough. i can't bear the thought of leaving bebe and boo at this point of my life. the thought brings me to tears. i can't think about it. i won't.

intellectually, i know that life is a big cycle, the surest part of being born is dying. but damn if it doesn't make it any easier. people keel off everyday that have things they want to do. why should i be any different? i feel a level of guilt that i should even be hoping it isn't something bad - when for so many women it is bad. i also know that i'm most likely thinking too much into all of this. forgive me, it is just too new. mindfulness, mindfulness.

this i know: i need more carpe diem in my/our life. i have shit to do still. and worse case scenario, oh, tricksey gods of fate, i shall take dylan thomas' words as my guide,

"do not go gentle into that good night - rage, rage against the dying of the light."

now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

only positive thoughts from here on,
k.

humanity has reached a new all time low.

2007-09-28T16:02:00.000-05:00

when a government resorts to shooting anyone, it is an atrocity. when they resort to shooting monks and nuns... well, i don't even have words.

please add your name to this petition. i think we can stop this. we need to stop this.

the latest on burma here.

homegrown terrorism

2007-09-22T14:07:00.000-05:00

on the heels of yesterday's post, looks like many someones are living in the past and pining for a chapter in history that was horribly sick and wrong.

these unevolved sociopathic whackjobs could use a dose of a 40 year prison term, in my humble opinion.

racism is long dead, huh? from alternet:

In what is not a surprising, but sad development, a white supremacist organization is being monitored by the FBI. William A. White is trying to stir up violence by posting addresses and phone numbers of the Jena 6 family on his web site, proclaiming: "Lynch the Jena 6." He operates out of Roanoke, Virginia:
William A. White also listed some of the defendants' telephone numbers, urging his readers to "Get in touch, and let them know justice is coming."
The review came as protesters gathered Thursday in Jena, the site of racial unrest since last summer. After a black student asked the school for permission to sit under a tree where white students traditionally gathered, three nooses were found hanging from the tree. Months later, the Jena Six were charged with beating a white student.
On his Web site, White complained of "agitators" who were demanding acquittals.
A posting Thursday afternoon that contained contact information for the six youths was headlined: "Addresses of Jena 6 N-----s; In case anyone wants to deliver justice."
In a second item, White was quoted as saying: "If these n------s are released or acquitted, we will find out where they live and make sure that white activists and white citizens in Louisiana know it ... in order to find someone willing to deliver justice."
The Southern Poverty Law Center has details on the other sites and groups fomenting violence in light of the march and search for justice in Jena. Take the bleatings at the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network:

"I think a group of White men with AK rifles loaded with high capacity magazines should close in on the troop of howler monkeys from all sides and compress them into a tight group, and then White men in the buildings on both sides of the shitskinned hominids shall throw Molotov cocktails from above to cleanse the nigs by fire," wrote "NS Cat" on VNN. Another poster fantasized about a terrorist attack in Jena today: "Wouldn't that be sweet? Gosh darn, wouldn't that be sweet? Good LORD wouldn't THAT be SWeeeeEET? Boom, Boom, no more Coon! Well? A White man can dream can't he?"

I'AM. REELING. WITH. DISGUST.

sad thing is, this sentiment is still shared (sometimes secretly, often not) amongst MANY that walk among us. i lost count of how many times people would make racist "jokes" to me over the bar, replete with winks and nods as if i agreed simply because i shared a lighter skin tone. imagine my surprise each time it happened. it wasn't as if i was working in some backwoods, small town establishment. it's one thing to hear this sort of crap come from the mouths of people in the little town i pretty much grew up in, but it's a whole 'nother level of messed up when it came from the mouths of highly educated wealthy suits and ties.

the only action that is ever taken for hateful groups like this comes in the form of monitoring. white himself is quoted as saying, "Law enforcement doesn't care. We have a controversy like this about every two or three months. They don't waste their time contacting me anymore."

good. god.

to top it all off, this dude is YOUNGER than i' am! while it completely weirds me out when i hear anyone of any age piping up with racist rhetoric, it gets me even more when it is someone younger.

bottom line. these groups would not exist if there wasn't wide support for them. silence condones their behavior. and it is terrorism. i defy that.

i thought this was a no-brainer...

2007-09-21T13:43:00.000-05:00

until i received a message on myspace from someone that i have never met. i went over to her page to try and figure out who she was and ended up reading a blog post that she'd written that matched the topic she'd messaged me about. how's that for a mouthful?

turns out, she didn't mean for me to get the message. but now i can't stop thinking about it. she wrote:

subject line: jena 6, sick, six
Shine some 'light' on the issue. Grow up and leave the past in the past. Tolerant One!

her blog post goes on to essentially attack the jena 6 - and calls out people, in general, for "living in the past." i'm still trying to get my brain around that one. 50 years ago wasn't all that long ago. and to steal a line from ani, "now that lynching is frowned upon, we've moved on to the electric chair."

jena, louisianna - in a nutshell.

dark skinned students ASK PERMISSION to sit under the shade of the "WHITE TREE" during some school function. wtf?!?!?!

they are told to sit where they want and do so. ok, good. apparently the bleachers, in the sun, are the designated are for dark-skinned kids to sit under, while the light skinned students sit under the tree. segregation? say it isn't so. isn't that ILLEGAL?

so the next day, three nooses appear hanging from the white tree. i'd call that a threat. not good.

the students responsible for the hanging of the nooses face expulsion. ok, good. instead, they received three days of in school suspension. not good. (i received three days of in school suspension once - for ditching after school detention for being late - not for attempting to threaten other students with a hanging death that was a very real and sick and disgusting phenomen just 50 years ago.) i call bullshit.

naturally, the racial violence intensifies, as it typically tends to do when an injustice to this extreme occurs. several situations take place over the following days. it all eventually results in 6 dark skinned students attacking a light skinned student. light skinned student is knocked unconscious and kicked. 6 dark skinned students are arrested.

here's where it gets really twisted. the 6 were facing second degree attempted murder convictions. for a fight, similar to a few of which i witnessed in my own high school days. tell me this had nothing to do race with a straight face. had those 6 been light skinned kids, the charges would have been assault, at best, if ever even reported - or had charges been pressed. guaranteed.

my light shedding says this: as long as anyone is treated in this back asswards fashion of being publicly threatened when they sit under a fucking tree based on skin tone, violence is going to be the outcome. and as long as we have an injustice system in place that condones people who make death threats, but goes completely overboard in their punishments for "some people"...

i find it interesting that anyone would hold the opinion that the hanging of those nooses was just a little funny prank. when i first read about this, i was appalled. WHO finds it clever to ever hang a noose???

there is NO WAY these kids got or can get a fair trial. the initial jury was comprised of light skinned people! you are entitled in this country to a jury of your peers.

in one of the cases, charges are dropped for now, as he was a minor at the time. in two others, they were reduced down to assault and conspiracy. from what i can gather, the final four will be tried as adults, and could face imprisonment until they are 50. years. old. it should also be noted that the kid that was beat up was well enough to be at a ring ceremony party the same night. for an attmepted murder, that's quite a speedy recovery, wouldn't you say?

that, my friends, is not justice. it is wrong. and to the girl that accidentally sent me a message, there's a lot of growing up to do - on many many many levels.

"If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression."
~toni morrison

and a song:

subdivision

white people are so scared of black people
they bulldoze out to the country
and put up houses on little loop-dee-loop streets
and while america gets its heart cut right out of its chest
the berlin wall still runs down main street
separating east side from west
and nothing is stirring, not even a mouse
in the boarded-up stores and the broken-down houses
so they hang colorful banners off all the street lamps
just to prove they got no manners
no mercy and no sense

and i'm wondering what it will take
for my city to rise
first we admit our mistakes
then we open our eyes
the ghosts of old buildings are haunting parking lots
in the city of good neighbors that history forgot

i remember the first time i saw someone
lying on the cold street
i thought: i can't just walk past here
this can't just be true
but i learned by example
to just keep moving my feet
it's amazing the things that we all learn to do

so we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter
serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water
and the old farm road's a four-lane that leads to the mall
and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall

i'm wondering what it will take
for my country to rise
first we admit our mistakes
and then we open our eyes
or nature succumbs to one last dumb decision
and america the beautiful
is just one big subdivision

a quiz

2007-09-20T09:46:00.001-05:00

that i'll get to in a second.

i find it interesting, the show of outrage over the civilian deaths in iraq at the hands of america's blackwater "corporate warrior" mercenaries. where is the outrage over the civilian deaths that resulted from the shock and awe campaign initiated by the u.s. - civilian deaths that continue today, that came about only because we invaded iraq?

i can think of a few more "contracts" that need nullifying.

now, about that quiz... very interesting historical stuff here. i'm currently drooling over ritter's book, 'waging peace.'

Scott Ritter: Calling Out Idiot America

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20070323_calling_out_idiot_america/

Posted on Mar 23, 2007

By Scott Ritter

The ongoing hand-wringing in Congress by the newly empowered Democrats over what to do about the war in Iraq speaks volumes about the level of concern (or lack thereof) these “representatives of the people” have toward the men and women who honor us all by serving in the armed forces of the United States of America. The inability to reach consensus concerning the level of funding required or how to exercise effective oversight of the war, both constitutionally mandated responsibilities, is more a reflection of congressional cowardice and impotence than a byproduct of any heartfelt introspection over troop welfare and national security.

The issues that prompt the congressional collective to behave in such an egregious manner have more to do with a reflexive tendency to avoid any controversy that might disrupt the status quo ante regarding representative-constituent relations (i.e., re-election) than with any intellectual debate about doing the right thing. This sickening trend is bipartisan in nature, but of particular shame to the Democrats, who obtained their majority from an electorate that expressed dissatisfaction with the progress of the war in Iraq through their votes, demanding that something be done.

Sadly, Congress’ smoke-and-mirrors approach to the Iraq war creates the impression of much activity while generating no result. Even more sadly, the majority of Americans are falling for the act, either by continuing their past trend of political disengagement or by thinking that the gesticulation and pontification taking place in Washington, D.C., actually translate into useful work. The fact is, most Americans are ill-placed intellectually, either through genuine ignorance, a lack of curiosity or a combination of both, to judge for themselves the efficacy of congressional behavior when it comes to Iraq. Congress claims to be searching for a solution to Iraq, and many Americans simply accept that this is this case.

The fact is one cannot begin to search for a solution to a problem that has yet to be accurately defined. We speak of “surges,” “stability” and “funding” as if these terms come close to addressing the real problems faced in Iraq. There is widespread recognition among members of Congress and the American people that there is civil unrest in Iraq today, with Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence tearing that country apart, but the depth of analysis rarely goes beyond that obvious statement of fact. Americans might be able to nod their heads knowingly if one utters the words Sunni, Shiite and Kurd, but very few could take the conversation much further down the path of genuine comprehension regarding the interrelationships among these three groups. And yet we, the people, are expected to be able to hold to account those whom we elected to represent us in higher office, those making the decisions regarding the war in Iraq. How can the ignorant accomplish this task? And ignorance is not something uniquely attached to the American public. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the newly appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, infamously failed a pop quiz in which journalist Jeff Stein asked him to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite. Reyes has become the poster boy for congressional stupidity, but in truth he is not alone. Very few of his colleagues could pass the test, truth be told.

The task of holding Congress to account is a daunting one, and can be accomplished only if the citizenry that forms the respective constituencies of our ignorant congressional representatives are themselves able to operate at an intellectual capacity above that of those they are holding to account. So rather than issue “pop quizzes” to our elected representatives, I’ve designed one for us, the people. If the reader can fully answer the question raised, then he or she qualifies as one capable of pointing an accusatory finger at Congress as its members dither over what to do in Iraq. If the reader fails the quiz, then there should be an honest appraisal of the reality that we are in way over our heads regarding this war, and that it is irresponsible for anyone to make sweeping judgments about the ramifications of policy courses of action yet to be agreed upon. Claiming to be able to divine a solution to a problem improperly defined is not only ignorant but dangerously delusional.

So here is the quiz: Explain the relationship between the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Baghdad as they impact the coexistence of Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni populations.

Most respondents who have a basic understanding of Iraq will answer that Karbala is a city of significance to Iraq’s Shiite population. Baghdad is Iraq’s capital, with a mixed Sunni and Shiite population. If that is your answer, you fail.

Karbala is a holy city for the Shiites. Its status as such is based on the fact that Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad and son of Ali, the fourth caliph, was killed outside Karbala in a battle between Hussein’s followers and forces loyal to Yazid, son of Muawiyah, the fifth caliph. The two sides were fighting over the line of succession when it came to leading the Muslim faithful after the death of Muhammad in the year 632. Abu Bakr, a close colleague of Muhammad but not a member of Muhammad’s biological family, was elected as the first caliph after the prophet’s death, an act that many Muslims believed broke faith with a necessity for the successor of Muhammad to be from his family. Abu Bakr’s death brought about a quick succession of caliphs, all of whom met untimely deaths and none of whom were from the family line of Muhammad.

When Ali was elected as the fourth caliph, many Muslims believed that for the first time since the death of Muhammad the caliphate had been restored to one properly authorized in the eyes of God to lead the Muslim faith. In fact, upon Ali’s accession as caliph, one of his first acts was to seek to restore the Muslim faith to its puritanical origins, which Ali believed had been departed from by the merchant families closely allied with the third caliph, Othman. Ali’s efforts were bitterly resisted by merchant families in Damascus, which refused to recognize Ali as the caliph. The head of the Damascus rebels, Muawiyah, fought a bitter conflict with Ali, which weakened the caliphate and paved the way for Ali’s assassination.

Upon Ali’s death, the caliphate was transferred to his elder son, Hassan, but when this succession was challenged by Muawiyah, Hassan relented, transferring the caliphate to Muawiyah with the caveat that once Muawiyah died, the caliphate would be returned to the lineage of the prophet Muhammad. When Muawiyah died, the caliphate passed to his son, Yazid. This succession was challenged by Hussein, Hassan’s brother and Ali’s younger son, who believed that the succession, as dictated by Hassan when he abdicated, should have gone to someone within the direct line of the prophet Muhammad, namely Hussein. Yazid’s treacherous attack on Hussein and his followers, occurring as it did during prayer time, set the stage for the split in the Muslim faith between the Shiat Ali (Shia, or followers of Ali) and the Ahl-i Sunnah (Sunni, or the people who follow in the custom of the prophet Muhammad). Both Shiite and Sunni view one another as deviants from the pure form of Islam as taught by Muhammad, and as such functioning as apostates deserving death.

If you answered the quiz on Karbala in the above fashion, you would still be wrong. The split between Sunni and Shiite goes beyond simple hatred for one another. Not only did the religion split, but so too did the methodology of governance as well as the interrelationship between religion and politics.

There was a final chance at achieving unity within the Muslim world. In the year 750, at the battle of Zab in Egypt, nearly the entire aristocracy formed from the lineage of Muawiyah was annihilated when the Damascus-based caliphate clashed with predominantly Shiite rebels. Jaffar, a Shiite spiritual leader and the great-grandson of Hussein, was supposed to be elevated to the caliphate, thereby uniting the Muslim world, but was instead murdered by Al-Mansur, who established the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. This final treachery created a permanent split between the Shiites and those who became known as Sunnis.

The Shiite faithful embraced rule by imams, infallible leaders who provide guidance over spiritual and political affairs. According to the majority of Shiites, there are 12 imams, originating with Ali. The 12th imam, also named Muhammad, is believed by many Shiites to be the Mahdi, or savior, who went into hiding at God’s command and will return at the end of days to bring salvation to the faithful. With the passing of the 12th imam, matters of spiritual and political concerns were dealt with by religious scholars, or the ulema. These scholars are products of religious academies, known as “hawza.” In Iraq, the city of Najaf is home to the most important hawza, the Hawza Ilmiya. Each hawza produces religious scholars, or “marjas,” who interpret religion and provide guidance over social matters to those who rally around their particular teachings.

The Najaf Hawza currently has four marjas, or grand ayatollahs, each of whom reigns supreme when it comes to matters of religion or state. The faithful look to their hawza for guidance in all they do, and the sermons given by the various marjas take on a significance little understood by those who aren’t born and bred into that society. To speak of creating a unified Iraqi state without factoring in the reality of the hawza and its competing marjas is tantamount to claiming one will seek to fly without factoring in the realities of lift and gravity.

So if you answered the question concerning the city of Karbala with anything remotely resembling an insight into not only the schism that exists between the Sunni and the Shiite but also how the development of the practice of the Shiite faith has led to an absolute insinuation of religious dogma into every aspect of social and political life in a manner that operates independently of any so-called central state authority, you would get a passing grade, enabling you to move on to the next city covered by the pop quiz: Baghdad.

It is not only the Shiites who are bound by religious ties seemingly indecipherable to the West. From the chaos that was created with the Islamic schism came a very fluid situation in the development of Sunni Islamic dogma, with the Sunnis embracing a notion of consensus among the historical Muslim community, a line of thinking that led to the creation of four so-called legal schools of Islamic thought (the Maliki, the Hannafi, the Hanbali and the Shafi’i). These schools produced Islamic scholars who in turn competed for a constituency of followers. While in theory Sunni scholars preached adherence to the customs of the prophet Muhammad, in practice the Sunni schools became intertwined in the affairs of state and business. This deviation from the pure practice of faith led to the growth of “mystic societies” known as Sufism. Sufi brotherhoods sprang up throughout the Muslim world, each preaching its own mystical path toward achieving personal growth through the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.

The Abbasid caliphate, which oversaw this period of religious “softening,” in which the pure practice of Islam gave way to a more secular tolerance of the baser concerns of man, was centered in Baghdad. It was the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258 that signaled not only the end of the Abbasid caliph’s rule but the certification in the eyes of some Sunni faithful that Abbasid’s ruin was brought about by the lack of pure faith in Islam by those professing to be Muslim. One of the basic tenants of the Sunni faith was the notion of community consensus, or “taqlid.” Taqlid was actively practiced by three of the four “legal” schools of Sunni thought. The sole exception was the school of the Hanbali, which followed a stricter interpretation of the faith. A Hanbali religious jurist, Ibn Taymiya, rose to prominence in the aftermath of the Mongol invasion. He held not only that the Mongols were an enemy of Islam but that the Shiite Islamic state that emerged in Persia after the Mongol conquest was likewise anathema.

More important, Ibn Taymiya broke ranks with the rest of the Sunni community, especially those who practiced Sufism, declaring all to be an affront to God. Ibn Taymiya rejected the notion of community consensus represented in the taqlid and instead professed that a true Muslim state could exist only where the political leader governed as a partner with the religious leader, and was subordinated to the religious through strict adherence to the “sharia,” or religious law. The Muslim jurists, or “ulema,” held total sway over society, to the extent that even matters pertaining to war were reserved for the religious leader, or imam, who was the only person authorized to declare a jihad.

During the Abbysid caliph, the term jihad had taken on the connotation of inner struggle. This interpretation gained wide acceptance with the spread of the Sufi brotherhoods, which were all about inner discovery. Ibn Taymiya rejected this notion of jihad, instead proclaiming that true jihad involved a relentless struggle against the enemies of Islam. For a while his teachings were popular, especially when they were being used to encourage the forces of Sunni Islam confronting the infidel Mongol invaders. However, his strict interpretation of Hanbali tenets were rejected even by other Hanbali religious scholars, and Ibn Taymiya himself was branded a heretic.

The teachings of Ibn Taymiya continued to be taught in certain Hanbali circles, including those operating in the holy city of Medina. It was here, in the 18th century, that a Arab Bedouin from the Nejd desert, in what is today Saudi Arabia, named Muhammed al-Wahhab emerged to create a movement that not only embraced the teachings of Ibn Taymiya but took them even further, preaching a virulent form of Islam that claimed to seek to bring the faithful back to the religion as practiced by the prophet Muhammad himself. Wahhab’s movement, known as the Call to Unity, reflected his strict interpretation of Islam as set forth in his book Kitab al-Tawhid, or the Book of Unity.

At first Wahhab was rejected by the Sunni scholars, and he was hounded and finally forced to take refuge in the tiny village of Dariya. There Wahhab befriended the local governor, Muhammed Ibn Saud, initiating what was to become a partnership in which the Saud family took on the role of emir, or political leader, while Wahhab became imam, or religious leader. The team of Bedouin warrior and Islamic fanatic soon led to what would become known as the Wahhabi conquest, bringing much of what is now present-day Saudi Arabia under their strict religious rule. In 1802 a Wahhabi army attacked Karbala and sacked the sacred Shiite shrine to Hussein. In 1803 the Wahhabis sacked Mecca, laying waste to the most holy sites in the Islamic world, including the Great Mosque. In 1804 the Wahhabis captured Medina, looted the tomb of the prophet Muhammad and shut off the hajj, or pilgrimage, to all non-Wahhabis. The rise of the Wahhabi empire was seen as a threat to all Islam, and soon a massive counterattack was mounted by the caliphate in Egypt. By 1818 the Wahhabis had been destroyed in battle, and everyone professing Wahhabism was treated as an apostate and butchered. The head of the Saud tribe was captured and beheaded, along with many of his fellow tribesmen.

Deep in the Arab deserts, a small number of Saudi tribesmen, strict adherents to Wahhabism, survived the Egyptian onslaught and began the struggle to regain their lost power. By 1924 the Wahhabis once again controlled Mecca and Medina, and by 1932 a new nation, Saudi Arabia, emerged from the Arabian deserts, governed by the house of Saud and with religious affairs totally in the hands of the Wahhabis.

To the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia there were two great sources of religious heretics: the Shiites, who ruled in Iran and represented a majority population in several Arab nations, including Iraq, and worse still, the Sunni Arabs, who rejected the true path as represented by the teachings of Wahhab. The puritanical form of Islam pushed by the Wahhabis was difficult to export, however, until the oil crisis of 1973, after which the Saudi government was able to fund the printing of Wahhabi literature and training of Wahhabi missionaries. In Iraq, there was some attraction to the puritanical teachings of Wahhabism among the Bedouin of the western deserts. However, with the rise to power of Saddam Hussein, Wahhabism and those who proselytized in its name were treated as enemies of the state. Wahhabism was still practiced in the shadows of Sunni mosques throughout Iraq, but anyone caught doing so was immediately arrested and put to death.

Wahhabi concerns over the weakening of the Muslim world by those who practiced anything other than pure Islam were certified in the minds of the faithful when, in April 2003, American soldiers captured Baghdad in what many Wahhabis viewed as a repeat of the sack of the city at the hands of the Mongols in 1258. Adding insult to injury, the role of Iraq’s Shiites in aiding and abetting the American conquest was seen as proof positive that the only salvation for the faithful could come at the hands of a pure form of the Islamic faith, that of Wahhabism. As the American liberation dragged on into the American occupation, and the level of violence between the Shiites and Sunnis grew, the call of jihad as promulgated by the Wahhabis gained increasing credence among the tribes of western Iraq.

The longer the Americans remain in Iraq, the more violence the Americans bring down on Iraq, and the more the Americans are seen as facilitating the persecution of the Sunnis by the Shiites, the more legitimate the call of the Wahhabi fanatics become. While American strategists may speak of the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq, this is misrecognition of what is really happening. Rather than foreigners arriving and spreading Wahhabism in Iraq, the virulent sect of Islamic fundamentalism is spreading on its own volition, assisted by the incompetence and brutality of an American occupation completely ignorant of the reality of the land and people it occupies. This is the true significance of Baghdad, and any answer not reflecting this will be graded as failing.

A pop quiz, consisting of one question in two parts. Most readers might complain that it is not realistic to expect mainstream America to possess the knowledge necessary to achieve the level of comprehension required to pass this quiz. I agree. However, since the mission of the United States in Iraq has shifted from disarming Saddam to installing democracy to creating stability, I think it only fair that the American people be asked about those elements that are most relevant to the issue, namely the Shiite and Sunni faithful and how they interact with one another.

It is sadly misguided to believe that surging an additional 20,000 U.S. troops into Baghdad and western Iraq will even come close to redressing the issues raised in this article. And if you concur that the reality of Iraq is far too complicated to be understood by the average American, yet alone cured by the dispatch of additional troops, then we have a collective responsibility to ask what the hell we are doing in that country to begin with. If this doesn’t represent a clarion call for bringing our men and women home, nothing does.

Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author of numerous books, including “Iraq Confidential” (Nation Books, 2005) and “Target Iran” (Nation Books, 2006).

stupid cops rock.

2007-09-18T22:38:00.000-05:00

and so do the people that just sit around and watch something like this happen - no matter how ridiculous the last question was. get a load of the video. do the student's actions really warrant a possible five year prison term? seriously. geez.