Muse in the Morning


Pathway

Life Stories

What would

you tell

the protagonist

of your story

to do

if you could?

Why aren’t you

living your life

so that

those events

could happen?

The deeper question:

Am I?

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–March 7, 2008

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

I know you have talent.  What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent.  I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook.  🙂  

Let your talent bloom.  You can share it here.  Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.

Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making?  And be excellent to one another!

Late Night ‘Tooning

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
By zwoof at 2008-05-11

A cartoon is worth a thousand pictures

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Glenn Greenwald has finished reading all 8000 pages the Pentagon has released in the Pentagon Propaganda/”Military Analysts” Scandal.  For the past few days he has been reporting on their content and it is just damning!

For a reminder of just what we’re talking about-

Brian Williams’ "response" to the military analyst story

Glenn Greenwald, Salon

Wednesday April 30, 2008 07:00 EDT

Just consider what is going on here. The core credibility of war reporting by Brian Williams and NBC News has been severely undermined by a major NYT expose. That story involves likely illegal behavior by the Pentagon, in which NBC News appears to have been complicit, resulting in the deceitful presentation of highly biased and conflicted individuals as “independent” news analysts. Yet they refuse to tell their viewers about any of this, and refuse to address any of the questions that have been raised.

More amazingly still, when Brian Williams is forced by a virtual mob on his blog yesterday finally to address this issue — something he really couldn’t avoid doing given that, the day before, he found time to analyze seven other NYT articles — Williams cited McCaffrey and Downing as proof that they did nothing wrong, and insists that his and their credibility simply ought to be beyond reproach because they are good, patriotic men. But those two individuals in particular had all kinds of ties to the Government, the defense industry, and ideological groups which gave them vested interests in vigorous pro-war advocacy — ties which NBC News knew about and failed to disclose, all while presenting these individuals to their millions of viewers as “independent.” Is there anyone who thinks that behavior is anything other than deeply corrupt?

New analysis from Greenwald below.

CNN, the Pentagon’s "military analyst program" and Gitmo

Glenn Greenwald, Salon

Friday May 9, 2008 05:43 EDT

In June of 2005, communications officials in the Pentagon began planning a military-sponsored trip to Guantanamo for selected retired military officers who were currently working as “news analysts” for various television networks and magazines. Amnesty International had just issued its most scathing report yet about Gitmo, as part of its 2005 report on America’s “new gulag of prisons around the world beyond the reach of the law and decency.” It specifically called Gitmo “the gulag of our times,” and detailed years of extreme abuses that had taken place there.

To counter Amnesty’s findings, the Pentagon planned the Gitmo trip over the course of two weeks in mid-June. They eventually confirmed June 24 as the date for the tour, with a list of ten participants, including retired Gen. Don Shepperd of CNN, along with various “military analysts” from MSNBC and Fox.

In a “trip report” he filed with his Pentagon handlers, CNN’s Gen. Shepperd explicitly acknowledged both the blatantly propagandistic purpose of the trip, as well as the extremely limited and controlled scope of information to which he had access in a single-day trip (7434). Shepperd stated: “Did we drink the ‘Government Kool-Aid?’ — of course, and that was the purpose of the trip.” In his Pentagon report, Shepperd added the obvious: that “a one day visit does not an expert make,” that “the government was obviously going to put its best foot forward to get out its message,” and that “former military visitors are more likely to agree with government views than a more appropriately skeptical press.”

This Gitmo trip and the ensuing “analysis” was but one small — though highly representative — episode that was part of the Pentagon’s five-year propaganda program aimed at shaping domestic opinion on the Iraq war, the “War on Terrorism” generally, and virtually every controversy relating in any way to the Pentagon. It is difficult to see how this could be anything but illegal [for an analysis of laws prohibiting covert domestic propaganda activities, see here, here, here, and here < (.pdf)].

(note- the final links wouldn’t format as part of the graph.  They are-

But what is most extraordinary about all of this is that huge numbers of Americas who were subjected to this propaganda by their own Government still don’t know that they were, because the television networks which broadcast it to them refuse to tell them about it, opting instead to suppress the story and stonewall any efforts to find out what happened. As corrupt as the Pentagon was here, our nation’s major media outlets were at least just as bad. Their collective Pravda-like suppression now of the entire story — behavior so blatantly corrupt that even the likes of Howie Kurtz and The Politico are strongly condemning them — has become the most significant and revealing aspect of the entire scandal.

How the military analyst program controlled news coverage: in the Pentagon’s own words

Glenn Greenwald, Salon

Saturday May 10, 2008 07:48 EDT

On the question of whether the Pentagon maintained an illegal covert domestic propaganda program — and on the broader question of whether the American media’s political coverage is largely shaped and controlled by the U.S. Government — I don’t believe it’s possible to obtain more conclusive evidence than this:

So the Pentagon would maintain a team of “military analysts” who reliably “carry their water” — yet who were presented as independent analysts by the television and cable networks. By feeding only those pro-Government sources key information and giving them access — even before responding to the press — only those handpicked analysts would be valuable to the networks, and that, in turn, would ensure that only pro-Government sources were heard from. Meanwhile, the “less reliably friendly” ones — frozen out by the Pentagon — would be “weeded out” by the networks. The pro-Government military analysts would do what they were told because the Pentagon was “their bread and butter.” These Pentagon-controlled analysts were used by the networks not only to comment on military matters — and to do so almost always unchallenged — but also even to shape and mold the networks’ coverage choices.

Even a casual review of the DoD’s documents leaves no doubt that this is exactly how the program worked. The military analysts most commonly used by MSNBC, CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC routinely received instructions about what to say in their appearances from the Pentagon. As but one extreme though illustrative example, Dan Senor — Fox News analyst and husband of CNN’s Campbell Brown — would literally ask Di Rita before his television appearances what he should say (7900, 7920-21), and submitted articles to him, such as one he wrote for The Weekly Standard about how great the war effort was going, and Di Rita would give him editing directions, which he obediently followed.

Among the most active analysts in this program were all three of the most commonly used MSNBC commentators — Gen. Montgomery Meigs, Gen. Wayne Downing, and Col. Ken Allard. They were frequently summoned by Chris Matthews and (in the case of Downing) by Brian Williams as NBC’s resident experts. Matthews referred to them as “HARDBALL’s war council” on January 17, 2005, when he had all three of them on together to bash The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh for reporting that the Pentagon was preparing attack plans against Iran — an article that, like most Hersh articles, infuriated Di Rita and other DoD officials. The next day, Allard proudly wrote to Di Rita:

As you may have seen on MSNBC, I attributed a lot of what [Hersh] said to disgruntled CIA employees who simply should be taken out and shot.

The “good” news this weekend is that Harry Reid, in a live blog on Firedoglake, indicated there will be Congressional investigations.  Maybe televised hearings will force them to cover this story.

Through The Looking Glass Darkly.

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

If Senator John McCain were the DEMOCRATIC nominee for President, the Republican Party, in the guise of Rush and Sean and Anne and Michelle, would destroy him as follows:

They’d talk about the Keating Five scandal in the context of Mr. McCain’s having a seemingly ceaseless addiction to lobbyists and they’d bring up his Dr. Jekyll then Mr. Hyde then Dr. Jeckyll then Mr. Hyde positions on everything from the war to taxes to the religious right to campaign finance reform and they’d hammer him on his inability to support or even understand the Martin Luther King Holiday and they’d eviscerate him on the circumstances of his first divorce and  a thousand other things.

Then they’d innocently ask:

How does a man with so few accomplishments and so much personal and political baggage become the nominee of the Democratic Party?

And they’d pause… waiting… like a coiled adder under a pile of dry leaves.

Next they’d casually wonder, rhetorically speaking of course, if John McCain would be the nominee for the Democratic Party… if he’d even qualify as a United States Senator…

if he’d not spent significant time as a prisoner of war.

And then one of them… I suspect it would be Malkin… would say:

“Isn’t John McCain LUCKY he was captured and tortured in Vietnam?”

Now the adder strikes and… suddenly… there’s blood all over the ground.

“Has he USED his experience at the Hanoi Hilton for political gain?”

“Given his stance on torture, could it be that he has OVERSTATED how bad it was?”

“His frequent skin cancer… the condition with his arms… ARE THOSE REAL or is it possible that he knows… without them… he couldn’t get elected dog catcher.”

“What kind of soulless, conscienceless individual could MANIPULATE his good fortune at getting to coming home when so many were left behind?”

By the time the Republicans were done with Senator John McCain there would be privileged, old, white women talking of their “captivity diets”  as they showed off designer, period-era, prisoner garb to the national press on their convention floor.

I write the above, NOT BECAUSE I BELIEVE A SINGLE DISINGENUOUS WORD (as THEY would not believe a single disingenuous word), but as fair warning.

When the Republicans try and turn Senator Obama’s personal history against him… when they attempt to make his childhood poverty and his heritage and his skin color and his struggles as a community organizer… into a suggestion of liberal guilt or of preferential treatment or, most likely, of a signal that he is a Manchurian Candidate programmed to destroy America from within… we the people will engage and retaliate with furor and speed and, if necessary, with the kind of revisionist character-assassination that has been the only thing the Grand Old Party has succeeded at in the last twenty years.

Just so we’re clear.

Happy Mother’s Day

Sorry that i cant embed this video

(click it…watch it….you know you want to)

It’s of an ABC news report about Ashley White, one of seven middle school spellers who were featured in the documentary ‘Spellbound’.  The film followed seven of the competitors in the national spelling bee, and Ashley represented the ‘pure (and poor) talent’, without the means to receive the type of education or tutoring the other competitors had.

Between her time in the bee and the release of the movie, Ashley’s ambitions were tabled as she pursued an alternate life course.  The release of the movie helped inspire her to re-focus on her previous goals.

Happy Mother’s Day, Ashley!!  and everyone!!

Coming Together: A Mini Manifesto



Now that even the corporatist beltway elite lackey media has slowly come to recognize the inevitability of the political version of the unbeatable New England Patriots losing the big one it’s time to put the intramural pissing matches aside and to start reorganizing for a shot at the true target. The Hillary Rodham-Clinton campaign now faces fourth and thirty-two, has the ball at it’s own twenty yard line, is down by eight and there are sixteen seconds left in the Super Bowl. It’s not exactly officially in the books yet but the fat lady is humming and the opposing team has just administered the traditional Gatorade baptism to their head coach on the sidelines.

Outside of a certain demographic Rodham-Clinton’s numbers were always juiced by the knuckle dragging hordes of extremist propaganda pimp Russian Limbaugh and his “Operation Chaos” and that the Hillemmings would accept this as help to crown their queen was a complete moral sellout based on selfishness and some bizarre sense of entitlement. It was the finger on the scale that has allowed the corporatist warmonger Clinton to continue this futile quest for the Holy Grail that long ago should have been over. Now it’s time to drive the final stake through the heart, chop off Medusa’s head, stuff her mouth with garlic and send her seething and entitled ass to the Senate to replace that pathetic little eunuch Harry ‘Casper Milquetoast’ Reid as Majority Leader with an attitude and one big hell of an axe to grind.

We should spare no fury and give no quarter in pursuing the ultimate task at hand that is the complete and total eradication of the extreme fascist right as a functional political entity in America. If the creeping fascism cannot be halted or at least slowed significantly then nothing else is really going to matter. It’s that simple. This is a historic time and the ever more rapid collapse of the extreme right-wing model of friendly fascism built meticulously and at great expense since WW II and implemented by intelligence agencies plundering abroad and enslaving at home in the interests of the American elite and big business. The model of American extreme capitalism (I do not use the term ‘free market’ because what exists is not free in any sense of the word, it is only crony capitalism and socialism for the rich) is as predicted by so many who were simply decried as commies and persecuted by the state falling apart, it has now become cannibalistic and is unsustainable. The relentless ideology behind the drive for perpetual economic growth, a zero sum game with few winners and many suckers toiling to build temples for Pharaoh is a flawed premise at the very basic levels. The things that perpetually grow are cancers and viruses and at this stage it is obvious to all but the hucksters and those in denial that American capitalism has gone cancerous and has metastasized to financial markets throughout the world.

The financial sector has been gamed to the point of collapse by the economic chicanery of the same sort of scoundrels who George Washington once referred to as a “squadron of corrupt paper dealers” and Frankin D. Roosevelt called out the same unscrupulous bandits as “economic royalists”. We stand on the verge of a complete systemic collapse, a grand implosion of historic proportions and a devastating wave of misery and poverty that is only gaining strength as it roars towards landfall, it will be the tsunami of the chickens coming home to roost and my friends it is coming very soon. To quote one who I personally find to be detestable on every level and who bears a large share of the responsibility for the hellstorm of woe that is currently battering the homeland, the late and lamentable Milton Friedman:

“Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”



Well, we have our crisis right now and with the ideas of the extreme fascist right being exposed as the grand fraud that they have always been we also have an opportunity to produce real change. It is going to take work though and it is going to take no small degree of some swallowing of pride in the pursuit of the larger goal of total reform. As the man Bob Dylan once sang “Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride, you will not die, it’s not poison”. It is crucial that this opportunity be seized upon at this moment, it is not rhetoric to say that we now stand at the crossroads and which route we choose will either lead to our salvation or will force not only those currently alive but those as yet unborn to suffer terrible consequences. This is the time that we all have been waiting for, time to participate in something that truly matters on as large a scale as could possibly be imagined.

The religious wrong hasn’t been the same since Jerry Falwell went to his glorious reward and has now been roasting on a spit in the bowels of Hades for a year now. The newest figurehead, Pastor John Hagee is to put it quite simply, a dangerous fucking lunatic whose bastard alliance with hard core Zionist war freaks pretty much has allowed him to be given a free pass as John McCain’s spiritual leader while Reverend Wright was unfairly vilified and used as a bludgeon on Barack Obama. The free ride needs to end and Hagee and his minions need to be exposed as the terrifying danger that they truly are, how any overstuffed sack of shit tent preacher who suddenly hit it big can run such a pro-Israel con job when the biblical prophecy that he shills for when taken to it’s ultimate end will kill more Jews than Hitler needs to be exposed as the vile Anti-Semite that he is. His tirades against Catholics should also be brought out into the open in order to expose the latest version of Father Coughlin.

Mr. Obama has energized young voters to go forth with a positive vision and with this as a given a right-wing machine is going to be sent out like a rolling ball of butcher knives, the negativity, slander, fear mongering and intimidation this fall is going to be like nothing ever seen before. As veterans of this sort of thing it is going to be up to us who blog, work as activists and are battle hardened to counter whatever the bastards in the establishment throw out. In a rare concept for those on the left it is imperative that we be the aggressors this time because at times you have to pick a fight in order to win it. We need to seize the initiative once and for all because the truth is on our side. The electorate is being squeezed by the war pimps, the globalists and the Wall Street looters and we cannot allow the demagogues of the fascist right to continue to win using their standard tactics of fear, smear and divide and conquer. With current trends as they are gas prices will be above $5.00 a gallon come November, the economy will be on the brink of another depression as prime mortgage and credit card defaults continue to soar despite the best efforts of the Plunge Protection Team and The Fed to run their own big con General Petraeus style propaganda surge and food prices will be at record highs. As the late great Saul Alinsky once said now is the time to “rub raw the sores of discontent” and to take advantage of growing unrest to mount a challenge against the entire fascist system of the corporate police state.

1: Be prepared to re-fight the Vietnam War – It is a certainty that the McCain campaign is going to do everything to make this a fight against Hanoi Jane and to rip off the scabs of Nam in order to do so. DO NOT cede any ground to McCain and the right on this one, he is first and foremost a WAR CRIMINAL and a self admitted one at that. Real heroes don’t drop bombs and incendiary devices on civilians from the relative safety of the air. As futile and illegal as wars like Vietnam and Iraq are (which is another topic altogether) any one who wants to claim to be a war hero should have to look at the consequences of his kills and absolutely nobody who kills civilians should ever be allowed to hide behind the war hero shield as some sort of immunity talisman for his murderous actions. The right savagely and mercilessly swift boated John Kerry for his military service in 2004 and Mr. McCain should be treated equally, by affording him any respect for his cowardly actions during Vietnam is ceding the battle before the first shots have been fired.

2: Wage guerilla warfare against the pocket media – Infiltrating staged media events and then engaging in organized protest, challenging political figures with facts during their appearances, calling into talk shows and speaking the truth are all going to be necessary in order to get a message out that is not filtered through the corporate media. While I am not agreeing with the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement and do not wish to address those issues in this post they have been a successful nemesis to the neocons. Their tactics and their fervor in their activism should be an example to all who wish to bring about change.

3: Be Vigilant – Always be watchful, those who seek to maintain their places within the existing failed system will use any form of chicanery and trickery to do so.

4: Be ahead of the game, think and anticipate – Study the enemy’s tactics and you stay if not one step ahead be ready to counter them when the time comes.

5: Focus on Economic issues – Hit economics hard because this is the one area where people are severely hurting right now. The Democratic party sold out to the corporatist DLC long ago and in doing so ceded this most valuable tool that transcends ordinary paradigms in order to secure their own place at the feeding trough. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to always turn the topic back to economics and blame the corporations, the energy cartels, big pharma, agribusiness and Wall Street for every bit of misery that the ordinary working American is currently experiencing. Populism is NOT a dirty word and it needs to be used as a tactic in this war against the establishment.

6: Make strategic alliances – The only way that the oligarchy run amok can be reigned in is by working together with those who have different ideologies but are also antiwar, pro American and want to see above else the restoration of civil liberties and a massive rollback of the police state. Progressives and liberals may think that libertarians and Ron Paul folks are out there prospecting for fool’s gold in Galt’s Gulch but they are fighting against the same authoritarian octopus. Philosophical differences need to be set aside in order to unify under a common goal and then attack from different directions. There are a large amount of principled conservatives who are aghast at what the neocons, the theocons and the globalists have done to the Republican party and there could be nothing better than to see it recaptured by pragmatists, non-interventionists and anti-big government forces. Big government is a menace to all, we can see that now with the unchecked power of the Bush regime and to quote conservative icon Barry Goldwater: “A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away”. I think that we ALL can truly appreciate that now after the wanton abuses of power of the Bush-Cheney junta and now the great beast needs to be reigned in and a traditional system of checks and balances restored.

7: Prevent election theft- Always remember that the corporations still control the machines. Be watchful and aware of voter suppression, racial discrimination, caging lists, goons stationed at precincts to challenge voters and report any suspicious activity to both local officials as well as get the information to a blog or organization that will make it public.

8: Be a counterforce to war machine propaganda- Prepare to flood local newspapers with editorials, letters, hit the message boards, blogswarm and engage the enemy at every opportunity.

9: Do not let race be used as a political tool- With Barack Hussein Obama being both black and having a Muslim sounding middle name look forward to the vilest type of racist slurs and terrorist insinuations yet. Denounce these tactics and hold those accountable for them through public shaming.

10: Denude the false idols- The Clintons are self-serving corporatist hacks, John Wayne was a draft dodging armchair patriot whose real name was Marion and who stayed in Hollywood and made movies while his peers were taking fire in World War II and Ronald Reagan was a dude ranch cowboy and B movie actor who sole out his fellow Hollywood associates during the McCarthy years and was recruited by the organized fascist right (with the Powell Memorandum as a game plan) to play the ultimate role of his life and then have the think tanks rewrite history to turn him into an American icon, a new father figure and the personification of all that was American. They were of course lies and Reagan needs to be remembered for his unspoken declaration of total war against the middle class.

11: Reclaim Our History- What Americans to believe to be our history is intentionally devoid of any honest examination of the sins of empire, we must dispose of the official state version that has been used to indoctrinate and suppress (largely through omission) the real truths of a country that is not as exceptionalist and well intentioned as we have all been led to believe: Howard Zinn has a great new educational tool out right now that is as easy to read as it is for novices to interpret. A People’s History of American Empire is in graphic novel format, is cheap and easy to read. I would strongly recommend it to everybody especially to teach others who ordinarily do not have the time or patience for normal reading.

Our history has been scrubbed and sanitized by the economic royalists and the fascists to eliminate any mention of true heroes of the working class and of a real democratic society. The vast majority of those compliant little consumers that have for too long been churned out by a starved for funds and battered into submission school public school system that has been turned into a nationwide network of drone factories (one of the only things that we mass produce in America anymore) have never heard of those who sacrificed for those things that came to be taken to granted to the point where they are now being taken away.Where is there any mention given of Eugene Debs or of Joe Hill or of Saul Alinsky or of Mother Jones? What about General Smedley D . Butler who called out the blood barters with his tract War Is A Racket and his exposure of the Business Plot where wealthy traitors schemed about a coup against FDR? What is taught about Huey Long? I mean other than the widely accepted narrative of a power mad, corrupt tyrant instead of the man who scared the living shit out of the elitist establishment with his “Share Our Wealth” program that made the New Deal look like Reaganomics. Long stood up to entrenched interests and the moral rottenness of looter capitalism, he built roads, bridges, hospitals and schools as well as provided free textbooks and he even dared to take on the almighty Rockefellers and Standard Oil. Long railed against institutionalized corruption with his “every man a king” type of populism and he was making dangerous noises about running for president. The ending of the Huey Long story is all too predictable and familiar: he was of course assassinated.

And what of Hellen Keller? The little girl who overcame blindness and deafness and whose struggles with her handicaps are taught to American children as an example of how to overcome adversity as they are indoctrinated to the lies of a society that demands sacrifice and backbreaking work from the lesser classes as unquestioning slaves to the whims of the modern pharaohs on Wall Street. She has been sanitized, turned into a Horatio Alger version of the little engine that could while her later life as a social activist goes ignored. Hellen Keller would grow up to be a champion of women’s suffrage, she would join the Industrial Workers of the World and to help to found the American Civil Liberties Union. She was a socialist who dared to speak out against the power base and their exploitation and for that sin her life has been through revisionist history turned into a perverse fairy tale and yet another myth to bolster the system that would make slaves of us all. The little engine that could was very quickly uncoupled from the rest of the train once the narrative switched tracks from one of inspirational value to one of social justice.

And there are others, there are many others who risked all to end child labor, to fight for equality and the forty-hour work week and unemployment protection and workers rights, workplace safety and a right to basic human decency but they go largely unheard of. It’s time to revise history to be honest, inclusive and not only what the oligarchy chooses to dictate and indoctrinate to the population. This is of the ultimate importance for a people whose history is stolen from them have no future.

12: Debunk and discredit the charlatans- Major mouthpieces like Limbaugh can no longer be allowed to portray themselves as paragons of virtue and family values. Chickenhawks like William Kristol cannot be allowed to be given credibility as war cheerleaders, cynical politicians cannot be allowed to invoke and trash the good name of Jesus Christ while throwing open the temple doors to the moneychangers and lazy, celebrity obsessed scandal mongers cannot be allowed to masquerade as serious journalists.

13: Manage Language- Turn the tables and make the word “conservative” into as dirty a pejorative that the think tankers and their opinion managers have turned “liberal” into. With the country in ruins it is imperative that the blame be placed exactly where it belongs – with the hard right conservatives and especially the Republicans. Time to dip the elephant in shit and trot it out to lead the parade of clowns who have gotten us into this giant mess in the first place.

14 : Don’t lose sight of the Big Picture- It is imperative to focus on the big picture this time, there will be gay marriage amendments, abortion amendments and other culture war stink bait on ballots across the country and to get mired in debates on this garbage is a waste of time. Let’s face it, this is fighting the last war and there is no way that war will ever be won with narrow minded one issue voters and the get out the vote machine that has been built to exploit gullible wedge issue voters who dutifully goosestep from their bund meetings down to the local polling place to vote against their own economic self interests. These people can never be convinced to give an inch on the loser issues of abortion rights and gay rights so a better strategy would be to avoid those topics altogether, deprive them of their energy and to attempt to turn the focus to economics. Everybody is hurting now and it’s only going to be worse come election season. Well meaning but simple-minded folks are justifiably bitter but the bitterness needs to be focused where it should be and that is against the globalists, the corporatists and the warmongers. These people can’t get beyond the most general and emotional of concepts so stick with how they are being raped every time they gas up or visit the grocery store.

15- Reject the politics of fear: American fascism uses fear as fuel, watch for an escalation in neocon rhetoric, bogus terror threats, Osama bin Laden videos, heightened states of alert and those waving the bloody flag with cries for more war.

16: Reclaim Patriotism- For too long the right has been allowed to define what is patriotic and then wrap themselves in the flag while waging war against everything that America is supposed to stand for. Slapping a little metal flag pin on one’s chest is not patriotic and displaying a magnetic yellow ribbon sticker does not mean that one supports the troops. There has been a total failure in standing up to the flag pin fascists and this needs to be stopped and those wearing the flag pins need to have their patriotism challenged by not standing up for the Constitution instead. Time to take back the flag!

Granted, it is one hell of a big rock to roll and the hill is a steep one but there is a desire for real and lasting change in the air right now and it needs to be seized upon, this is the opening of the window of opportunity. With the financial system in crisis, the big boys being bailed out while the rest of the country is basically being told to go to hell and the average family feeling the pain in a very real way that makes them suddenly open to some suggestions on how to do things differently as well as who to blame for their being shafted now is a time like no other to move swiftly and together. We need to cast off the yoke of the existing sham system, reject the phony paradigms, stop fighting each other and form up to transverse the beach and to storm the castle.

I will close now with a quote from Victor Hugo “Nothing else in the world… not all the armies… is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”



Time has come, now how do we respond?

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Simon and Garfunkel II



Mrs. Robinson



At the Zoo



Scarborough Fair/Canticle



The Boxer

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

Potential Democratic VP picks.

Assuming Barack Obama actually gets the nomination (we cannot rule out Clinton somehow nabbing it at the brokered convention), I think there are perhaps three politicians who could possibly add to his ticket going into the general election:

John Edwards – His populist talk and devotion to working class issues, combined with his skills as an attorney, make him an ideal vice presidential candidate.  He managed to sell himself as one in 2004, and although he didn’t get enough footing to remain in contention for the nomination this year he still has a base of supporters who could help bridge the divide between Obama’s followers and Clinton’s.  But this is unlikely, because Edwards is an economic populist, and corporate Democrat Obama blew it big time when he tried to finagle an endorsement only to end up angering Donna Edwards by attacking her husband’s health care plan.

Christopher Dodd – Dodd has the stones to go toe to toe with adversaries on the campaign trail, and he has shown leadership in the Senate by shaming Obama and Clinton into voting against one of the appropriations bills for the occupation of Iraq.  I see no reason why he couldn’t make a strong ally on the campaign trail.

Bill Richardson – Although I don’t think he’ll add much to an Obama ticket going into November, his executive experience is desperately needed in the White House.  He could be seen to help the senator make a case that he can bring in people who know the ins and outs of governing (as opposed to legislating).

Assuming Hillary Clinton manages somehow to get the nomination at convention, I see only two potential candidates who could possibly help her win in November:

Ted Strickland – Although he has only been governor of Ohio for roughly a year and a half, he has shown he can get things done.  He has also demonstrated an ability to get the GOP in the Buckeye State’s legislature to play ball on things like the budget.

John Edwards – This is a somewhat unlikely pick considering the former senator from North Carolina is an economic populist and Clinton is an economic conservative whose support of NAFTA is likely to continue should she win the White House.  But the two of them are closer on important issue such as health care than either of them are to Obama, and while Edwards did go after her on the campaign trail he didn’t make it personal like the Illinois senator has.

Regardless of which Prima Donna ultimately gets the Democratic nomination, the only way to add to the ticket is to pick a populist vice presidential candidate, or one with executive experience.

Low Class Gains in Higher Education

A new economics study by Joseph Altonji, Prashant Bharadwaj, and Fabian Lange demonstrates that:

The earnings premium for skilled labour has increased dramatically in recent decades. Yet, as this column shows, Americans are not acquiring significantly greater skills in response to this change. The resulting gap will increase US income inequality in the coming decades.

The study goes on to demonstrate that despite the increased premium value of developing labor skills through higher education, the population in general has not sought these skills in relative proportion.  In other words, we aren’t seeing many gains in people improving their financial prospects by investing in their own education.

Economist Brad DeLong says that the study’s authors don’t know why this is happening (which is a fair complaint), but goes on to suggest that

This raises the possibility that the only easy way to reduce market inequality is to greatly increase the supply of the skilled and educated in the long run by making higher education free

This seems unlikely to be effective to me on two levels.  First of all, an economist ought to understand (and DeLong does) that there is no such thing as “free”; someone will have to pay for higher education to be free to its consumers.  Indeed, as he points out, “which is a very dubious policy on the inequality front, because it starts with a honking huge transfer from the average taxpayer today to the relatively rich well-educated of tomorrow.”

But the more important rebuttal to his point (more effective than his own) is that brought up by Tyler Cowen: that the skills required to succeed at even a low level in college are poorly taught to the population at large.

One of my close friends is completing her first year as a public school teacher in New York City (her third year as a professional teacher).  She studied at education city and she spent many years of her life working towards a degree so that she could become a teacher. Higher education was so important for her as it allowed her to have her dream career. Her class is a fourth grade class at a public school in Grand Concourse in the Bronx.  She has 28 students, only one of which reads at a fourth grade level.  For a wide variety of reasons, despite her significant efforts, it is unlikely that more than a couple of her students will be at a fifth grade level when the school year ends this month.  And no, this is not the most remedial class of fourth graders her school has.

It seems to me that DeLong obscures the real problem, that of students being unprepared and unlikely to succeed in higher education, with that of students being unable to afford higher education.  Many, if not most, college and graduate students debt finance their education; a rational choice considering the economic benefits that education will offer them.  However, rational actors will not pay for a premium education if they consider themselves unlikely to succeed at it and therefore unlikely to reap the future economic benefit.

I read this study as evidence of the continued failure of our primary and secondary education systems, not as a study of the failure of our society to make higher education affordable or making the information about the benefits of higher education widely available.  What say you?

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Boat carrying Myanmar aid sinks; toll climbs beyond 28,000

Associated Press

20 minutes ago

YANGON, Myanmar – A Red Cross boat carrying rice and drinking water for cyclone victims sank Sunday, while the death toll jumped to more than 28,000 and aid groups warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The boat was carrying supplies for more than 1,000 people and was the first Red Cross shipment to the disaster area, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. All four relief workers on board were safe, it said.

“This is a great loss for the Myanmar Red Cross and for the people who need aid so urgently,” said Aung Kyaw Htut, the distribution team leader of the Myanmar Red Cross.

2 AP IMPACT: Number of disabled veterans rising

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer

20 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Increasing numbers of U.S. troops have left the military with damaged bodies and minds, an ever-larger pool of disabled veterans that will cost the nation billions for decades to come – even as the total population of America’s vets shrinks.

Despite the decline in total vets – as soldiers from World War II and Korea die – the government expects to be spending $59 billion a year to compensate injured warriors in 25 years, up from today’s $29 billion, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press. And the Veterans Affairs Department concedes the bill could be much higher.

Why?

Worse wounds. More disabilities. More vets aware of the benefits and quicker to file for them.

3 TV viewership still down in wake of 100-day writers strike

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

2 hours, 42 minutes ago

NEW YORK – Television heads into its biggest week with the hangover from a 100-day writers strike persisting.

Viewership is down, although it’s hard to tell how much the strike is to blame. This week’s “upfront” presentations by broadcasters outlining their fall schedules, which annually precedes a multibillion dollar ad buying binge, promises to be much different than before.

“The strike had a number of impacts,” said Alan Wurtzel, NBC Universal research chief, “but as with everything it’s never very clear or direct or black and white.”

4 Hezbollah battles Druze east of Beirut

By Laila Bassam, Reuters

2 hours, 25 minutes ago

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Shi’ites loyal to Lebanese opposition group Hezbollah battled Druze supporters of the ruling coalition east of Beirut on Sunday, adding to the worst civil strife since the 1975-90 war.

The fighting in Aley, a town in the mountains overlooking Beirut, and nearby villages was the latest violence between followers of Hezbollah, a group backed by Syria and Iran, and supporters of the U.S.-backed governing coalition.

At least five people were killed and 12 wounded, bringing the number of dead in five days of fighting throughout Lebanon to 49. At least 140 people have been wounded.

5 Sudan cuts ties with Chad after rebel attack

By Opheera McDoom, Reuters

22 minutes ago

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan cut diplomatic relations with Chad on Sunday after an attack on the capital Khartoum by Darfur rebels which it said was supported by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

Rebels from Darfur’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) fought Sudanese troops in a suburb of Khartoum on Saturday, in what one senior rebel commander called a bid for power.

“God willing we will take down Omar al-Bashir himself,” Suleiman Sandal told Reuters early on Sunday. But since then there has been no word from the rebels.

6 Divided Serbs vote for Europe or isolation

by David Vujanovic, AFP

2 hours, 46 minutes ago

BELGRADE (AFP) – A divided Serbia voted Sunday in snap general elections that gave its people the stark choice of entering or rebuffing the European Union after the trauma of losing Kosovo.

Three hours before the polling stations were to close at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT), some 42 percent of the 6.7 million electorate had cast ballots, much lower than expected, said the non-governmental Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID).

The ultra-nationalist Radical Party, which supported Slobodan Milosevic, is running neck-and-neck with a pro-European alliance spearheaded by President Boris Tadic, each credited with around one third of the vote, according to latest surveys.

7 Zimbabwe braces for new elections amid violence

by Godfrey Marawanyika, AFP

Sun May 11, 10:57 AM ET

HARARE, May 11, 2008 (AFP) – Zimbabwe braced Sunday for the return home of the country’s opposition leader, who has vowed to face veteran president Robert Mugabe in a runoff election despite the risk of further violence.

Morgan Tsvangirai, who beat Mugabe in a first round of voting in March, is expected in Harare in the next few days after leaving the country in early April amid spiralling post-election violence directed at his party.

Zimbabwean doctors, trade unions and teachers have reported beatings and intimidation by government-backed militias since the first ballot on March 29 and the authorities have rounded up a number of high-profile opponents.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Recommended

8 Republican convention chief quits after Myanmar ties revealed

AFP

2 hours, 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The coordinator of the Republicans’ 2008 presidential convention has resigned after revelations that he was paid to bolster the dismal US image of Myanmar’s military junta.

Corporate lobbyist Doug Goodyear had been picked by the campaign of Republican nominee-elect John McCain to oversee the September convention in Minneapolis.

But Goodyear announced his resignation Saturday shortly after Newsweek magazine reported that his lobbying firm took 348,000 dollars in 2002 to represent the Myanmar regime.

9 Debt woes drive thousands of Indian farmers to suicide

By SAM DOLNICK, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 58 minutes ago

KOCHI, India – On the last night of his life, the farmer walked into his dusty fields, choked down pesticide and waited to die.

He owed more than $1,000 to banks and moneylenders and he had told his wife that if the cotton harvest was bad this year, he would kill himself.

Crushed by debts most Westerners would deem inconsequential, farmers like Surpam killed themselves at a rate of 48 a day between 2002 and 2006 – more than 17,500 a year, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics. At least 160,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997, said K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies.

The epidemic dates to the 1990s, and is generally attributed to a toxic blend of slashed subsidies, tougher global competition, drought, predatory moneylenders and expensive genetically modified seeds.

10 Gas prices knock bicycle sales, repairs into higher gear

By JAMES MacPHERSON, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 41 minutes ago

BISMARCK, N.D. – Four-dollar-a-gallon gas is good for business – if you run a bike shop. Commuters around the country are dusting off their old two-wheelers – or buying new ones – to cope with rising fuel prices, bicycle dealers say.

“Everyone that comes in the shop is talking about the gas prices,” said Barry Dahl, who opened Barry’s Bikes in Bismarck in April. He sold more than 50 bicycles in the first month, double the projections in his business plan.

Teacher Joyce McCusker of Herndon, Va., owns a bicycle for the first time in years. She bought it last month and uses it to make the eight-mile trip home from work. A friend drives her pickup to take McCusker’s daughter home from school.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Viewed

11 President calls daughter Jenna’s wedding ‘spectacular’

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

18 minutes ago

WACO, Texas – President Bush and first lady Laura Bush didn’t share their daughter’s wedding with the nation, but the president eagerly shared their joy on Sunday about Jenna Bush’s marriage to Henry Hager.

“We’re mighty blessed,” Bush said at an airport in Waco where he and the first lady boarded Air Force One to return to Washington.

Bush called the wedding “spectacular,” saying that his daughter and new son-in-law exchanged vows just as the sun set over the lake at the president’s Texas ranch.

12 Bloated bodies litter Myanmar, forgotten after the cyclone

Associated Press

1 hour, 10 minutes ago

ON THE PYAPON RIVER, Myanmar – As the bloated bodies rise and fall with the current, women scrub clothes along the river bank, villagers bathe to cool themselves and a lone child sits on a dock staring aimlessly into the water.

But with little aid getting through to desperate cyclone survivors, the dead have largely been forgotten – left to decay where the brackish waters carried them or waiting to be pulled out to sea by the rising tides.

“The first few we saw, we were all very shocked,” said U Pinyatale, a monk from the area who has prayed for the dead. “After a while, there were just too many.”

13 Emily, Jacob most popular baby names

Associated Press

Sat May 10, 1:13 PM ET

WASHINGTON – Emily again topped the list of most popular baby girl names last year, registering as No. 1 for the 12th straight time. Jacob led among names for boys for the ninth year in a row.

New parents didn’t stray far from past habits in 2007 when naming their babies. Only one name – Elizabeth – is new to the top-10 list, returning after a two-year absence. Samantha, which previously ranked 10th, dropped to No. 12, according to the latest list released Saturday by the Social Security Administration.

Biblical names continued to dominate the boys’ list. Besides Jacob, other top picks for boys were Michael, Joshua and Matthew.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Emailed

14 Mother’s Day celebration reaches 100th anniversary

By APRIL VITELLO, Associated Press Writer

Sun May 11, 11:48 AM ET

GRAFTON, W.Va. – On this 100th anniversary of Mother’s Day, the woman credited with creating one of the world’s most celebrated holidays probably wouldn’t be pleased with all the flowers, candy or gifts.

Anna Jarvis would want us to give mothers a white carnation – she felt it signified the purity of a mother’s love.

Jarvis, who never married and never had children, got the Mother’s Day idea after her mother said it would be nice if someone created a memorial to mothers.

From Yahoo News World

15 Al-Sadr Wins Another Round

By MARK KUKIS/BAGHDAD, Time Magazine

Sun May 11, 10:35 AM ET

The fact that a leading figure in al-Sadr’s ranks announced the deal and pointedly rejected the Iraqi government’s key demand to disarm suggests that the cleric is still controlling the agenda tactically and politically despite the most serious challenge his power the Iraqi government could muster. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki set out to break the back of the Mahdi Army in March, when he launched an offensive against areas the militia controls in the southern city of Basra. The Mahdi Army fought Iraqi forces to a standstill there while unleashing a daily hail of rockets and mortars on the Green Zone that left al-Maliki’s government effectively the ones under siege. And when U.S. and Iraqi troops tried to press into Sadr City to chase the militia’s mortar men and rocketeers, they barely managed to establish a foothold on the southern edge of the neighborhood before the situation stalemated.

16 After the Blitz, Hizballah Runs Beirut

By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS/BEIRUT, Time Magazine

Sun May 11, 11:45 AM ET

The outcome of the Lebanese political crisis may have been inevitable. On Friday Hizballah – the only force ever to defeat the Israeli army – defeated forces loyal to the American-backed Lebanese government. Still, few expected that the Iranian-backed militia would triumph so quickly and so easily.
From Yahoo News U.S. News

17 Road is less traveled in US as gas prices skyrocket

by Virginie Montet, AFP

2 hours, 48 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Americans are driving less for the first time in nearly 30 years as they face up to skyrocketing fuel prices, putting a dent in lifestyles in a country where the car has long reigned as king.

Figures released by the Federal Highway Administration show the first drop in almost three decades. Mileage covered by Americans in January fell 1.7 percent compared to the same period of 2007.

It may not be a big reduction, but it is significant given the fact that the national automobile fleet grows an average of two percent annually.

From Yahoo News Politics

18 Confusing ballot designs still plague elections

By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer

2 hours, 8 minutes ago

The solution should have been a no-brainer, voting experts say. After all, it was a badly designed ballot that enflamed the 2000 election meltdown and introduced the vagaries of chads to the political lexicon – pregnant, hanging and otherwise.

So it would seem that redesigning ballots to make them simpler should have been a high priority. But that hasn’t been the case, voting experts say.

Eight years after the fiasco in Florida’s Palm Beach County, confusing ballots continue to stymie voters and plague elections in this primary season.

From Yahoo News Business

19 Wall Street looks to US consumers for direction

By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer

1 hour, 8 minutes ago

NEW YORK – With millions of stimulus checks going out to taxpayers, Wall Street wants to know where that money will be spent – and this week’s data could help investors gauge the mind-set of the average consumer.

Tax rebates have historically been helpful in boosting the economy, but they only really work if they’re used to buy goods and services. With many consumers weighed down by debt and saving up to keep up with the cost of basic necessities, some market experts are concerned that what’s best for most individuals – saving their rebates – might not end up helping the broader economy.

Whether the average consumer feels financially healthy could determine whether the economy gets that late-2008 lift that so many investors have been betting on.

20 Retailers likely to post grim 1st-quarter results

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer

6 minutes ago

NEW YORK – After slashing inventory and cutting expenses, the retail industry is still bracing for the largest overall quarterly profit decline in at least nine years when merchants report their first-quarter earnings this week.

Faced with one of the worst consumer spending climates in almost two decades, stores are going to have to find clever ways to attract increasingly thrifty shoppers contending with higher gas and food bills and a slumping housing market.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched a new online feature Friday that offers tips from financial expert Ellie Kay on how consumers can stretch their budgets, even beyond the store. Rival Target Corp. aims to add some sizzle to an inexpensive clothing collection by designer Rogan Gregory by selling it first at upscale Barneys New York before shipping it to its own shops for a limited period.

21 High demand, price of rice good news to US farmers

By JULIANA BARBASSA, Associated Press Writer

9 minutes ago

WILLIAMS, Calif. – Dipping its left wing, a canary-yellow biplane makes a sharp turn and dives over a flooded field, showering rice on the shallow water 15 feet below.

It’s aerial seeding season for rice farmers in California, which produces about 20 percent of the crop grown in the U.S. With the price of rice surging internationally, much of the medium-grain rice being planted between the Sutter Butte mountains and California’s Coastal Range has already being sold, even though harvest still is months away.

“It’s nuts,” said Pat Daddow, head of the California Rice Exchange, a platform where processors bid on and buy rice. “We’ve sold an ungodly amount of rice, the price has nearly doubled – and this is the crop they’re just beginning to plant.”

22 G-8 labor officials begin 3-day meeting in Japan

By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 5 minutes ago

TOKYO – Labor ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations met with international trade union and business groups Sunday to discuss the reduction of workplace emissions of “greenhouse” gases blamed for global warming, officials said.

The talks, in Niigata on Japan’s north coast, are aimed at boosting support for global environmental initiatives before Japan hosts the G-8 summit in July.

The labor ministers, whose formal talks start Monday, are also expected to address concerns about growing income disparity, aging and uncertainty over financial markets, Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry said.

From Yahoo News Science

23 EU official says car pollution targets unworkable: report

AFP

1 hour, 13 minutes ago

BERLIN (AFP) – A senior EU official said Sunday that a European Union deadline to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new cars by 2012 was unrealistic, according to an interview with a German newspaper.

Industry Commissioner Guenther Verheugen said that the proposals — under which carmakers will be fined for failing to meet emission limits by the deadline — were already likely to be delayed by the European Parliament.

“I fully support the Commission objective,” said Verheugen, a commission vice-president, but “the European automobile industry will (only), in my opinion, be able to meet the target without great difficulty from 2015.”

24 Japan aims to cut emissions by 60-80 pct by 2050: reports

AFP

Sun May 11, 7:22 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by between 60 and 80 percent by 2050, news reports said on Sunday, as part of measures setting out the country’s long term environmental goals.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is expected to announce the target as early as June, the Nikkei and Asahi Shimbun newspapers said.

For the year to March 2007, Japan’s total volume of greenhouse gas emissions was estimated at 1,341 million tons, up 6.4 percent from the 1990 level, used as the base year for the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

25 Genetically modified crops get mixed response in Asia

by Karl Wilson, AFP

1 hour, 24 minutes ago

MANILA (AFP) – With food prices hitting record highs the jury is still out in Asia as to whether genetically modified crops hold the key to future food security.

The Philippine government has openly embraced the commercial growing of genetically modified (GM) corn, but neighbouring countries appear less than enthusiastic.

“There has been a lot of talk about developing high-yielding crops and crops that can cope with climate change using GM seeds,” said Daniel Ocampo, a genetic engineering campaigner with the environmental group Greenpeace.

26 Oil powered Norway gradually turns into the wind

by Nina Larson, AFP

1 hour, 17 minutes ago

UTSIRA, Norway (AFP) – As Norway prepares for a future after oil, the gale-force potential of harvesting wind power off its long coastline has become an increasingly attractive proposition.

“Wind-mapping shows that … Norway is among the (world’s) most ideal locations for wind power, both on the coast and offshore,” said Norwegian Deputy Petroleum and Energy Minister Liv Monica Stubholdt.

Yet the Scandinavian country, one of the world’s leading oil and gas exporters, today lags far behind others in taking advantage of this natural resource.

27 Frogs Go Ultrasonic for Sex

Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer

1 hour, 46 minutes ago

Keep the racket down, I’m trying to find a mate! That could be the plea of nocturnal Chinese tree frogs, which have developed unique, high-frequency vocal skills to make themselves heard by potential mates in their noisy habitat.

The frogs’ sounds are no mere “ribbits,” but ultrasound squeaks designed to be heard over the rushing of a nearby mountain river that roars in the audible sound range.

“The background noise covers the entire human hearing range,” said Peter Narins, a biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Just talking to my colleagues there, you really have to raise your voice to be heard. We think these animals are under evolutionary pressure to avoid that channel and go above it.”

Fugly Foam

Grampy is still the king.  His eyes light up when he sees me.  We have some time to kill before we can check into the campground so we head for the boardwalk.  I watch him savor the beauty of sand dunes and beach grass ten feet below us.  We arrive at the peak of the last dune and look out at the Atlantic Ocean.  I say “Do you like the beach?”  He melts my heart by looking at me with those wide innocent eyes and says it, beach, for the first time in his life.

We check in and get settled just in time for the rain.  For my extended family four trucks towing RVs has become the last bastion of fun in an insane world.  We also contemplate the mutually understood yet more ominous other purpose, circling this modern day wagon train at the “secure/remote/safe” area should things really go south.

http://www.bu.edu/dbin/neidl/e…

Showers keep us close to the campers for the rest of the day except for quick walks to check out the tides.   It is pre-season so the beach is full of all manner of both natural and man-made crap.  Driftwood, seagrass, dock parts, Dasani and other brand name plastic containers, a hypodermic needle and a condom were all to be found at the high tide mark.  Do I recall it being this much of a mess in prior years…..don’t think so.  Back in the camper I attempt to finish “Superclass”.

http://www.amazon.com/Supercla…

More on that a little later.

The needle was alarming but also very strange was Saturday morning’s “F-ugly Foam”.  Getting up at five-thirty in the morning we all took the awnings in because the wind started rocking the campers.  We had to head out and see the wind whipped angry ocean crash into the sand leaving this strange and persistent ugly brown foam.  Yes ocean waves normally generate some brown foamy bubbles yet I have never in my lifetime seen them hold together and shall I say persist for long periods of time.  It looked like cans of that spray foam insulation you get from Home Despot.  Ya’ll know where I’m going with this, don’t ya.  Persistent foam, how come, what for, why and why now.

http://www.google.com/search?h…

Do I have all the answers?  No.  Does weather modification exist?  Yes.

http://www.chemtrails911.com/d…

http://www.fromthewilderness.c…

Back to fun and the innocence of childhood.

He was amazed when I broke up firewood by smashing sticks on the cutting block I brought.  He made the heeeeyyaaa cry of a “Ninja” warrior from his favorite Power Rangers movie.  He then presented me with stick after stick to break for the evening campfire.  At first he thought the crabs Grammy braved the freezing Atlantic to catch were kind of creepy but later we had to make sure he didn’t let his finger get caught in a crab claw.  He knows and his parents are learning, Grampy let’s me do stuff Mum does not.  No way would I let him get hurt but we have a different perspective on “sicherheit”.

In english we have two words for this single German concept, safety and security.

Superclass gives some insight into the galactic waste and destruction in advancing the concept of security/profit margins for the rich and famous, “in this post 911 world”.  

Defense spending of unprecedented proportions to “eradicate” a “threat” that kills less Americans than allergic reactions to peanut butter.

http://www.google.com/search?h…

The night ends with the evening campfire.  Tom asks if I got any of his emails and I go “huh”.   I say, not surprised, I think I have my own “staff” already chasing my internet exploits.  I point to the sky and say, see that is my satellite!    

And the campfire crowd burst out laughing.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstrok…

Reading between the lines of Superclass might illustrate why some of you should not dump upon me for being so environmentally un-PC for wanting trucks to pull my modern day wagon train around simply for fun.  This total waste of your tax dollars puts up zero solar panels, windmills.  It does however advance cyber security to a level comfortable enough so the fat cats can sleep soundly in their Gulfstream jets, free from the inconvenience of whistleblowers or “dissident” views deemed a threat to their profit margins.  It will continue until the entire world resembles the plastic emptyheadedness of American M$M and the American “brandnames”, slave made in China and sold at the local mall, 50% of which now consists of empty storefronts.

The final question remains.

Do I have tin foil on my head or do you have tin foil on yours?

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ra…

The movie “Men in Black” has Tommy Lee Jones checking the “hot sheets”.  You may partake of my “hot sheets” by Google, New World Order.  Alex Jones and a host of other sites with anti-globalist themes are mentioned and dismissed as paranoid delusional not into “reality” type places in the book Superclass.

Ya, well I do question the motives, the nobility, the egalitarian intent of the Gulfstream set and I think it’s way past time to do the Ghandi thing and fuck up their profit margins.  We as a nation fully endorse torture and Alex Jones will gladly point out the tazering of pregnant wheelchair bound handcuffed women when M$M will not.

That puts me in the “anti-globalist” category, and according to the book my allies are Armedinijad, Chavez, and Putin.

Grampy has taken his wagon home, and later I will go see how the Apocalyptic horse is.  How was your weekend.

Café Discovery

[Note:  I wrote this review many moons ago.  The book is mostly very hard to find now…unless you want a pdf version.  When I was looking or something to publish for this Mother’s Day, I rejected my own letter to my mother (Dear Mom), also written many years ago, and selected this.

…mom, I need to be a girl: a review

by Robyn Serven, 1998

The sheer number of issues the concept of gender variance raises is sometimes overwhelming.  Just exactly what does it mean to be differently-gendered?  How did we get to be this way?  How are we supposed to live our lives?  How do we build respect for ourselves in this culture?  How do we ask to be treated as any human being would/should be treated, while simultaneously asking that our difference be acknowledged in the world community?  How do we establish that we are not crazy and simultaneously acquire the medical treatment we desire?

One question which has been addressed all too little is, “How should we be raised?”  Given the number of transgendered people who have spoken in less than glowing terms about their treatment as children, the lack of positive writings in this regard is disheartening.  Are we not shirking our duty to future generations of gender-variant people by failing to address this issue?

As a parent of a lesbian, I know that I was at times ill-equipped to deal with the issues that confronted my child.  None of the literature on child-rearing available when Jen was young spoke even of the possibility of my daughter being a lesbian.  It was up to me to develop my own parental skills in this regard.  I’m sure that I made mistakes.  I still wonder if I should have spoken to Jen about her orientation when I became aware of it, rather than waiting the additional 10 years until she came out to us.

Nowadays there are organizations providing the necessary information to people in my situation.  There are support groups such as PFLAG for parents and other family members of our gay, lesbian and bisexual youth.  And there are support groups in many places for the children themselves.

Some of these organizations have become or, as is the case with PFLAG, are becoming, transgender-inclusive.  This is a big step forward.  But there is a big difference here.  While lesbian, gay, and bisexual children may differ in orientation from the majority of their peers, those children generally have no doubts about their gender.  They are still girls and boys.  All parenting books that I have seen are filled with information about how to raise girls and boys.  No books that I have seen provide information about how to raise a child whose gender is either uncertain or definitely at odds with their biology.

Into this vacuum comes a book by the mother of a transsexual child.  The book, entitled …mom, I need to be a girl, is written under the pen name Just Evelyn and will be available in April from Walter Trook Publishing.  Kudos are in order for the illustrations by Andrew Wahrmund.

While it is not written as a “how-to” book about raising a gender-variant child, Just Evelyn’s account of her child’s odyssey is also the story of her own journey along with her child.  …mom, I need to be a girl provides us with a unique account of unconditional parental love through what is all too often a painful experience for both the child and the parent.

Contrary to the matter-of-fact style of reporting that Just Evelyn uses, not everything was a piece of cake for Just Evelyn and her transsexual child, Danielle.  There were problems with school, with the psycho-medical community, and with Danielle’s father.  But their story is remarkable in the manner in which Just Evelyn and Danielle surmounted all difficulties they encountered.  What we discover is that love for one’s child and dogged determination (and, to be sure, a willingness to bend the rules and evade legalisms) are an irresistible combination.

At the very least, …mom, I need to be a girl displays that transgendered children, with positive support from family members, can arrive at adulthood without the baggage that most of transgendered people drag behind ourselves.  

It is a book that is sure to bring tears to the eyes of many gender-variant people.  For some of us, those tears may be tinged with envy.  Given the context though, my own tears were tears of joy.

Load more