LOL!

Hey, sister & brother-bloggers of DD, and all my beloveds who cross post to WWL, or would like to:

We have created a new soapblox, and joined the ranks of the paying people so that our blog can be faster, better and (ahem) allow new users!

The old blog will remain active until we can migrate all the old content over, so you can still use it, but I would prefer if you just joined the new version, and filled it up with deliciously liberal and progressive missives.

Every step of the way, we need to streamline and connect and get our message out, my friends.

http://wildwildleft.com/

We are now Wild wild left dot com.

Bookmark it, link it, yell it from the hilltops, please!

Sorry if its a pain in the butt to join AGAIN, but I had to. Paul wants to get rid of all the Soapblox light sites he ran for free; and as such didn’t want to waste his time fixing the broken new user code on an obsolete system.

Its a fresh, shiny start!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Love,

Diane Gee

(…sometimes only an acoustic song will do…)

I got the call today, I didn’t wanna hear

But I knew that it would come

An old true friend of ours was talkin’ on the phone

She said you found someone

And I thought of all the bad luck,

And the struggles we went through

And how I lost me and you lost you

What are these voices outside love’s open door

Make us throw off our contentment

And beg for something more?

I’m learning to live without you now

But I miss you sometimes

The more I know, the less I understand

All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again

I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter

But my will gets weak

And my thoughts seem to scatter

But I think it’s about forgiveness

Forgiveness

Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore

These times are so uncertain

There’s a yearning undefined

…People filled with rage

We all need a little tenderness

How can love survive in such a graceless age

The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness

They’re the very things we kill, I guess

Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms

And the work I put between us,

Doesn’t keep me warm

I’m learning to live without you now

But I miss you, Baby

The more I know, the less I understand

All the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again

I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter

But everything changes

And my friends seem to scatter

But I think it’s about forgiveness

Forgiveness

Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore

There are people in your life who’ve come and gone

They let you down and hurt your pride

Better put it all behind you; life goes on

You keep carryin’ that anger, it’ll eat you inside

I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter

But my will gets weak

And my thoughts seem to scatter

But I think it’s about forgiveness

Forgiveness

Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore

I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter

Because the flesh will get weak

And the ashes will scatter

So I’m thinkin’ about forgiveness

Forgiveness

Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore

Simulposted from The Wild Wild Left

I see this question more than any other question across the Liberal Blogosphere.

People are frustrated as hell. I am frustrated as hell.

I see this question asked a thousand ways, a thousand times, it seems an obsession. People are looking for a Savior, a Leader, how to make Coalitions, how to ignite a groundswell uprising. We analyze The Question to Death. Most of the essays and op/eds on the subject are most excellent, I spent a couple hours on and off reading our brother-blog, Docudharma yesterday and found tons of food for thought on the subject.

But even out of the best of these, sometimes it irritates me. I want to yell, “What do you mean ‘we’ Kemosabe? I don’t see you out on the street!” I want to say, “Why are you waiting for a Leader, instead of being one?” Then I calm myself, I think to myself, “We cannot will this into being, the times will create it.”

But most of the time, I just think, “Right on!” I know the act of speaking to it, moves us into the direction where action happens. How many men and women of color asked these same questions before Rosa just sat down? How many whispered in the mean fields before Woody started singing?

We are all impatient, all painfully aware that a change has to happen or we will suffer, most of us are already suffering.  

Let me preface this for all of those who know I am a smoker: I hate that I am addicted. I hate that I love to light one up. It is likely killing me. My Friday night foray into a small Clubhouse Bar made my eyes sting with it. With no ventilation, it sucks. I went and asked the Members to crack the door. I was sitting with non-smokers, not smoking with them. I get it.

This is only common sense. You don’t make a bonfire indoors. Good ventilation should be code.

I make a concerted effort not to let my house reek with it, with plants everywhere, windows cracked in the dead of winter; and smoke outside or away if a non-smoker is present in my home. I get that it smells, I get that it is an irritant when too thick.

It was bad enough, when a month ago, we ended up with fucking BAKING SODA in our cigarettes, a Fire Safety designation that started in California, that spread like, uhhh, wildfire. The extra poison they added to all the OTHER poisons they add to them have made my lungs incredibly worse. They taste horrible.

Tobacco itself isn’t that bad, so why the fuck do they not make it ILLEGAL TO ADD ALL THE CARCINOGENS TO IT in the first place? Why is it legal to make, sell and addict people to it, then make it ILLEGAL to use a product they intentionally made UNHEALTHY?

Instead of regulating back to paper and leaf only, we get this.

So now, they have banned smoking in any public place, any place that employs even one person, including private clubs, including inside trucks used as employment, including outdoor extensions of any such businesses.

People here are PISSED, and this is not the land of tofu and sprouts, this is the land of raw meat and whiskey… hard assed factory rats that don’t abide being told what to do. Think Clint Eastwood in “Gran Torino.”

“Get off my lawn!”

1%er Biker Clubhouses are nothing like the TV portrays; at least in my experience. The people are warm, friendly and humorous.

Biker clubs are like dandelions in Michigan, whether or not you notice them, their members are everywhere. Still, though there are a few we are close to, the whole premise is incomprehensible to me. Not that they give one flying fuck what I think of their life choice, its their life not mine. But its natural when you really like someone to try and figure out just what makes them tick. They get that too.

You see, they see themselves as outlaws. They see their own as brother, and feel the bonding of being outside the mainstream America by common experience and interest.

The first thing that strikes me is the Rules. There are so many rules and commitments it makes State Legislation look like suggestions.

Let me see: You want to be “free” so pledge lifelong commitment to a group that enforces mandatory meetings, mandatory bar service, mandatory rides, mandatory settling of differences (ahem) with other groups. Your freedom includes taking off work whenever they say you must, being away from home and family a couple weekends a month, and showing up at least three nights a week to the Clubhouse???

To me, that’s not freedom, its just handing your will over to a smaller, stricter government that enforces its will, with, ummm, deadly force.

You may as well shave your head and join the Krishnas… its the same thing with better toys.

I’m having soapblox issues as you know.

Apparently, new users are generated, and then disappear into the mist. Soapy isn’t being exactly forthcoming with help, he is apparently busy. I just found out it has been happening for MONTHS not weeks. I just thought it a temp glitch.

But I found a way around it in a temp way.

I took a few VERY old banned accounts, changed their name and password, and email where I could. I have 5 empty ones left from just one woman up for grabs, to tell the truth. Heh.

So sign in and change your passwords!!!

ek hornbeck?

Your temp password is 1234aa

and you’ll have to change your email.

budhydharma?

Your temp password is aa12134

Anyone else who wants an account at The Wild Wild Left & can’t sign in, just give me a user name and email, and I’ll use up the banned accounts left.

If you don’t want to publicize your email, just email me with it.

Now, the OTHER fucking problem is trying to get a new PAID version of soapblox. Soapy doesn’t want to “convert me” so I may have to buy one, rebuild it myself and pay someone to import the data. He won’t fix mine, and won’t upgrade me. I’m stuck with 145 users forever.

My head spins!!!

Its snowing. A lot. I always think of it as the Mean Season… even though eventually I come to see the beauty, and like the slowing of the pace. How people all in the same boat wander out to be awed, stuck home by the storm. I end up liking too, that as an early riser, I get to see it before it has been marred by footprints and tire tracks, so pristine, so clean.

It washes away the things I both long for, others I despise from my memories of growing up.

Its kind of a season of loss, both of all the bustle of a huge family Jake will never know, mixed with a happiness he will never have to go through much of it. At least I belonged to something, however flawed; he is alone but for his Father and I. Mixed blessings. But there are reasons why I think of it as the Mean Season. Still, I can’t hate the snow.

Snowstorms shrink your world. Forced solitude. You and the elements. You alone in the World.

The seasons have changed more ways than one. I guess I’m officially old. Just missed a 2nd period after months of weirdness. Menopause, too. The Winter of my life as well. And a few zits to boot from the hormone change, too. Old and hideous. Bonus!

Not that I mind practically. Jake was my miracle, and I couldn’t have another anyway, so fuck that hassle. No, don’t feel like less of a woman either.

Its just, geeez, two minutes ago I was 19, and now, its officially the end-part of my life. And I’m still the little kid hiding from the next hit.

What have I done with my life?

It’s really snowing out.

“With winter closing in…”

Sigh.

Science has always been under attack from the Right, who never let things like factsiness get in the way of their guts. Hell, Mulder had nothing on the right-wing tribe of “we want to believe.” Look at the Warren Report. Science is their Enemy. Logic the Anti-Christ.

It is no surprise that after the 60’s revolution, there was a concerted effort to dumb down the Population, discourage critical thinking and demonize science while elevating Religious Radicalism in the National center stage. Reagan was a direct result of Nixon, not so much as direct revenge, but the result of think tanks using logic to create a more manageable populace.

Science is painted as cold, impersonal, arrogant. People may be all of those things, but science cannot. Science is merely a process, devoid of all anthropomorphism.

It is a PROCESS of applying LOGICAL thinking to known data.

Like, say, a bullet cannot make 5 both lateral and vertical turns, through bone and erupt in a pristine state.

Or that DNA evidence proves we are all related, moving from the cradle of life in Africa outward.

Your honor, counsel is now prepared to question the People in the case for Crucifying Mr. Woods.

(the People are sworn in)