September 8, 2008 archive

Ashley

  Let me begin by telling you a little bit about Ashley. Ashley is my 14 year old daughter. She is a special needs child with many issues including mild mental retardation and Aspergers Syndrome. Ashley lives in a group home and has for some time. I felt that she was better off there,in a place where she would receive all of the services and support she would need to get her life on track. I thought they could give her things that my husband and I could not. Wrong,so wrong!

 Thursday night I got a telephone call that absolutely cut me to the core. “we are very sorry to have to tell you this but Ashley went AWOL this evening. The police found her. I really don’t know how to tell you this but she tried to commit suicide. She’s in the hospital being treated right now.” I can’t even begin to describe how I felt at that moment. Ashley was supposedly well enough to be released back to the group home on Friday. I was prepared for intensely emotional phone calls from her and so forth but I was in no way prepared for what happened next.

 Saturday night I received another phone call. “We are really sorry to have to tell you this but Ashley went AWOL this evening. We are actually filing the missing persons report now.” At this point I’m not only upset and scared,I’m seriously pissed!  

 About ten minutes later I get another phone call. This time it’s Ashley calling me from someones freaking cell phone! She voluntarily tells me that she went to WalMart and Quick Stop with her new best friends. I knew that I had to keep her on the phone with me and get as much information as I possibly could. This is no easy task as she functions at the level of a 7-8 year old,she’s really angry and upset,and to make matters even more difficult;she has a very difficult time reading. I know that I have to be careful not to let on how freaked out I’m feeling so,I’m saying things to her like,”hey Ash is it a cool car? What color is it?” “Yeah mommy it’s a cool car,it’s small and it’s black.” Argggg!!! Little by little I’m getting tid bits of information that may or may not be helpful in finding her.

 My husband grabs my cell and ends up calling a total of 3 different police departments before we are able to figure out what city/county she’s in. Ashley eventually gets mad at me because I’m asking too many questions and decides to hang up. By some miracle there it is,the guys full name and number on my caller ID. The police tell us that they know who the guy is and where he lives. I don’t know whether I should be jumping for joy or going into a total panic.

 I decide to call the number back and this guy Zyggy actually starts talking to me. He tells me that he wants to help her but he doesn’t want any trouble with the cops blah blah blah but he lets me talk to Ashley again. My husband and I switch phones and he talks to her for awhile so I can speak with the police dispatcher. I honestly don’t even remember how many times my husband and I switched phones etc before the cop says “I’m pulling into the Quick Stop now. I will call you as soon as I have any information for you.”

 After waiting for a half an hour I called the police department back to see if they could tell me anything. The dispatcher assures me that the moment “he clears” he will call me and tell me everything he knows. Talk about frustrating!

 Finally the phone rings and it’s the police. They found my daughter at Zyggy’s house! Thank the powers that be that she’s ok! Still the fact that she was in the company of two full grown men really bothers me. It also bothers me that Ashley threw a rock at the cop. That however worked in our favor. The police were able to use the rock throwing incident to detain her.

 Ashley will go to court today. Unfortunately I won’t have any information on how that went until tomorrow. They will most likely end up releasing her back to the group though.

 You might think that this would mark the end of the story at least for now,but it doesn’t.

 Something or someone had to have upset her enough to set off this chain of events right? Given what I already know combined with what I learned from one of the supervisors at the group home,I know damn well who and what caused this nightmare.  

Four at Four

  1. The Guardian reports Oil prices rise on fears over production cuts. “There are some voices in OPEC, the 13-strong cartel of producers that controls 40% of the world’s crude, calling for production cuts to protect the price.”

    Iran’s oil minister, Gholam Hossein Nozari, said there was too much crude in the market.

    “We believe the market is oversupplied,” he told journalists today…

    Nozari has stated that he believes $100 a barrel should serve as a floor for the price of oil.

    The AFP reported earlier that OPEC likely to decrease oil output.

    OPEC ministers headed for Vienna on Monday to wrestle with the issue of falling oil prices, with analysts expecting them to agree to trim output to help keep crude above 100 dollars a barrel.

    The question facing the oil producer group, which is to hold a policy meeting Tuesday, is when, not if, to cut its oil production target as crude prices slide in the face of weakening global economic growth, analysts say.

    Most observers expect the 13-nation cartel to agree to reduce its output informally before waiting until later, possibly at a scheduled gathering in December, to alter its official output target.

    The informal cut will be achieved by members, mainly powerhouse Saudi Arabia, agreeing to cut their excess production above their OPEC quota, which would remove oil from the market but not amount to a formal change in policy.

    So America’s Saudi “allies” will cut their production to keep the price of crude $100 a barrel. Mission Accomplished.

Four at Four continues with a lawsuit to preserve Fourth Branch’s official papers, Bush administration maneuvering on civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia and the debate within the Pentagon for going on the offensive cyberspace warfare.

Why I Am a Liberal …Part 3

 Note: This is part of an ongoing effort to define what it is we want, what we are fighting for as liberal/Progressive /Democrats. As we take power after the next election I believe we should define who we are and what we stand for. Both so people know what they are voting for, and so that we do not lose our principles to the glamor of power, as the Conservatives have.



Part One, Part Two

Humans are an unbelievably  tiny and unimaginably ignorant specks of consciousness in an incomprehensibly vast and nearly impenetrably mysterious universe.

We would do well to remember that on a daily basis.

But we can’t, really.

Because we have to do the laundry and the dishes and feed the pooties and fuel the engine, the sack of meat, that carries our itsy-bitsy spark around on this slightly larger speck of consciousness we like to call planet earth. To keep the engine running and avoid death (whatever the hell that is, see words six and seven in the opening sentence) we need to harvest fuel. Harvesting fuel used to mean just that, stumbling around looking for things to fuel the engine, the body. To the point where some brave soul decided to be the first one to eat an oyster! Things of course, have changed. Imagine 7 billion people wandering around looking for oysters or portobellos or okra. But I digress. Nowadays, harvesting mostly consists of driving to a building, spending a third of the day conducting activities that someone else deems valuable and then periodically getting handed a piece of paper. That you then take to another building and give to them. In return for which they hand you other pieces of paper. Which you can then take to other buildings and hand that paper to them after you have harvested your food in the aisles of that building. Sometimes you even get change!

In order to have the people in the first building give you that piece of paper though, they have to be convinced that you…..know something. You have to at least act like you know what you are doing, convincingly.  These days, in order to harvest the fuel to power the engine that carries your consciousness around, you have to assert knowledge. (One of the ways to do this is to go to yet another building and listen to other people assert knowledge, if you listen long enough…they give you another piece of paper called a diploma.) It is only by asserting knowledge that you can harvest the fuel needed to survive.

30 Million take part in Iraq Moratorium actions

That’s theoretical, of course.

The number is extrapolated from the turnout for an Iraq Moratorium-sponsored event on the Third Friday of August in Cornwall, CT, home of the famous covered bridge.

Cornwall’s population at the last census was 1,434.  About 10 per cent of that population turned out for the Moratorium event.

That surpasses the record established by Hayward, Wisconsin, home of the muskie festival, which has had turnouts of 80-plus people even in the winter to call for an end to the war.  Hayward’s population is 2,100.  We had projected that if the entire country turned out at the same rate as Hayward, there would be 12 million people in the streets.

McCain, Obama, and the politics of desperation

A strange thing is happening in the Presidential race. The increasing economic pressures on American voters are not resulting in a resurgence of rationality and pragmatism. Instead, we seem to be witnessing a desperate grasping for magical solutions. McCain and Palin are dispensing Republican magic, and Obama is offering Democratic magic. Poor old Biden is just peddling the same old, same old.

What can one say to a population that refuses to face facts and believes that a ferocious old Vietnam ghost or a perky hockey mom can be a “game changer?” What can one say to people who believe that sports and gambling metaphors are the best way to describe American Presidential politics? America is like a broken down gambler at a craps table in Las Vegas risking his last few dollars on one more high-stakes roll.

Unfortunately, even if the gambler wins another throw of the dice, the odds remain against him, and that is his doom. Maybe we dodge a flu pandemic, and maybe we luck out of the next warming-related cycle of droughts and weather disruptions, and maybe we slink out of the Mideast without igniting a global war, and maybe the Chinese decide to keep lending us money for another few years, but how long can all this “good luck” continue. Not much longer. We appear to be past the point of no return in a politics of national self-delusion that features instant messiahs of varying degrees of credibility and durability. Each one promises that magic will solve our problems. But there is no such magic. You can’t get something for nothing, and you can’t lie your way to the truth.

Prudent people should be making plans to move their dollar-denominated savings into stable assets likely to survive the repudiation of America’s foreign debt and the resultant hyper-inflation. Those with the option to relocate should consider moving to nations with sound economies and responsible leaders. Americans are spending their last night in the casino praying for magic, but they will face the dawn with empty pockets and broken dreams.  

Friedman burns McCain

Tom Friedman is on a roll. He has, clearly, decided that the United States faces a pivot point. Either we will figure out smart energy policies and prosper, or we will fry.  As he looks to the election campaign, he has decided that the choice are clear. We might (MIGHT) prosper with Obama-Biden. However, WE WILL FRY with McCain-Palin.

And, here is a TV interview worth watching, absorbing, and sharing as Friedman lays McCain’s failures and failed concepts out on the table.

Manufacturing Monday: Strike at Boeing, Dell to sell plants, and Solar Arabia,

Greetings everyone, I hope your weekend was fantastic.  Welcome to another edition of Manufacturing Monday!  Some exciting and interesting stuff to cover this week.  First the big time strike happening at Boeing. Then theres computer maker Dell looking to sell of ALL of it’s factories, and finally could Saudi Arabia claim to be Mecca of solar energy beside crude oil??  

Open Thread

 

Give me liberty or give me thread.  

PNAC Reborn: “Who is Randy Scheunemann?”

The Real News provides an investigative report and analysis of the mystery man behind John McCain’s extremist and ultra hawkish foreign policy views and plans to carry on and expand the attempts begun under George Bush to create a unipolar world dominated militarily by the U.S. as the sole single imperialist hyperpower at the expense of the rest of the world. We’ve already seen the backlash developing around the world to Bush’s attempts. McCain, with Scheunemann advising and pulling strings from behind the scenes, would create a world even more dangerous to the security of the United States.

If I were to coin a phrase here to summarize what a McCain presidency would look like, “All war all the time” seems the most apropos.

September 8, 2008 – 6 min 8 sec

McCain’s neocon foreign policy adviser has been a lobbyist for arms companies & Saakashvili’s Georgia

Docudharma Times Monday September 8



Where In The World

Is Kim Jong-il?




Monday’s Headlines:

An e-mail to friends from Wasilla becomes Internet hit

Riot in Spanish resort town after immigrant dies in stabbing

Peter Popham: Don’t try and predict the Italian police

Africa needs GM food, says top scientist

Mbeki bids to save Zimbabwe talks

U.S. begins hunting Iraq’s bombmakers, not just bombs

Cairo disaster leaves many blaming Mubarak

Democrats lose seats in Hong Kong polls

China’s Outsourcing Appeal Dimming

El Sereno instrument-maker carves out a niche<

A Sigh of Relief, but Hard Questions Remain  



  By VIKAS BAJAJ , KEITH BRADSHER and  DAVID JOLLY

Published: September 8, 2008  


Investors around the world breathed a sigh of relief Monday after the U.S. government took over and backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, assuring a continued flow of credit through America’s wounded mortgage system. Stocks rallied in Europe and Asia, after the U.S. Treasury’s announcement that it would transfer control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to conservatorship. Stocks in Tokyo closed 3.4 percent higher.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index in London rose 3.7 percent at the opening while the CAC 40 in Paris registered a 4.3 percent gain and the DAX in Frankfurt 3.1 percent.

Dharavi, India’s largest slum, eyed by Mumbai developers

The rich of Mumbai want to turn the prime real estate into high-rises and parks. The poor but industrious residents won’t go without a fight.

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 8, 2008  


MUMBAI, INDIA — Reincarnation is Kallu Khan’s stock in trade.

His workshop floor is a swamp of cardboard strips hacked from salvaged boxes. Laborers scoop them up, work them over and give them new life as smaller boxes, which Khan then sells to stationery and packing companies.

In another warehouse a few doors down, dozens of rubber soles cut from discarded shoes also await a second chance. Next to these, a mountain of plastic castoffs — toys, computer keyboards, car parts — is separated by squatting workers, to be melted down into tiny pellets before being reborn in some new form.

One man’s junk is another’s fortune in Dharavi, the largest slum in India. With the economy and consumption soaring, recycling is good business here, a source of jobs for thousands, from scavengers to sorters to manufacturers.

USA

Sarah Palin’s leadership style has admirers and critics

Some who have worked with the Alaska governor say her bold approach is lacking in follow-through, and that she punishes those who dare say ‘no.’

By Tom Hamburger and Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

September 8, 2008  


ANCHORAGE — Three years ago, when a Democratic state legislator tried to get bipartisan support for investigating charges of unethical conduct by a senior Republican official, only one member of the GOP answered the call: Sarah Palin.

Palin pursued the allegations — as well as ethics charges against another top GOP official — so vigorously that both had to leave office.

The public acclaim that followed helped propel her into the governor’s office a year later with promises of reform and a more open, accountable government that would stand up to entrenched interests, including the big oil companies.

Yet a strange thing happened on the ethics issue once Palin became governor: She appeared to lose interest in completing the task of legislating comprehensive reform, some who supported the cleanup say.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry III

Art Link

The Blues

                              A Secret

A secret

                      buried deep within my soul

A secret

                      hidden from one and all

A secret

                      too hard for me to tell

A secret

                      complex enough to kill

A secret

                      that cannot see the light

A secret

                      I kept it locked up tight

A secret

                      leaking out so late

A secret

                      determining my fate

                     –Robyn Elaine Serven
                            –June, 1992

John McCain is Doomed, and it’s Bono’s Fault

Rock and roll stops the traffic indeed, boyo. I’d totally forgotten about this piece of bizarre trivia, but if the stars align with it, America’s most famous POW will go down to overwhelming electoral defeat. See, everyone’s favorite uber-corporate band of musical flyweights had been all ready to release a new album this fall, handily coinciding with the omnipotent Holiday Shopping Season, but apparently it’s “not ready.” This has major, major potential for putting Senator Obama over the top. @U2 Grand Poobah Matt McGee lays out the logic, and amazingly, it’s nowhere near as twisted as a Dublin pub-crawl with Shane McGowan:  

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