This essay is in support of the petition announced in buhdydharma’s Cheney Throws Gauntlet, Admits to Authorizing Murder…Now What?.

There has been endless talk about Pelosi taking impeachment off the table, the complicit Dems and corrupt Repubs, the wretched SCOTUS, the debauched and criminal Executive Branch.

The bottom line is that none of our elected and appointed representatives have, in these past eight years, stood up to this gang of crooks in an effective manner, no one in power has been able to stop them or hold them accountable for their criminal actions.

We are in the surreal position of seeing Democrats, including Obama, speaking out about a corrupt Governor, saying he should step down, be impeached, and yet maintaining a horrible silence about a corrupt and criminal Executive Branch.

Will All Gore attend?  Gmoke over at Daily Kos writes about what Gore has publicly advocated, and folks are taking him up on it, Civil Disobedience Against Coal – March 2, 2009.  Read the email from Bill McKibbon — it’s one of the best I’ve seen when it comes to understanding the consequences and responsibilities of civil disobedience.

Open thread is open!

That old game, I played it in grade school.  A circle of chairs, say 10 chairs, for 11 people.

And the music starts, and we all walk in a circle around the chairs.  Until the music stops.  Then we dash about to sit on one of the chairs and thereby claim it.  We can sit!  We have a chair!  Ha!

There’s one person left standing.  They do not get a chair and are out of the game.

This goes on, subtracting a chair each time, until there is one chair left.  As the music starts, two people walk in a circle around the chair and when the music stops, well, we have a winner!  Someone gets the chair!  And all the rest are left out.

It’s a pretty strange game, come to think of it.  Though if I recall, it was kind of fun, too.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

.

I’ve been writing about, among other things, safety these past couple weeks.

I have to admit that I found the comments challenging — much protest against the notion of safety, of security, and not so much definition of what security and safety really mean.

As a writer, those challenges made me take a second look at what I was writing and expanded my view.  As a result, I’ve come to some conclusions on the subject which I would like to share for anyone who is interested.

So I’m reading the NOLA blogs and I come across this from oyster over at Your Right Hand Thief, highlighting the music of New Orleanian glyn styler..

The older guy in the video made me think of David Vitter.

When it comes to sleaze, I think the video has nothing on the US Department of the Interior bureaucracy.  But that’s just my take.

Open thread is open!

Couple of essays on safety, one from me and one from NLinStPaul.

See, I’ve been conditioned, and now seems to be a good time to confront that conditioning and knock it over like … well it’s  like one of those bouncy dolls, you knock it over and it bounces right back up and gets in your face.

Every time I think I got a handle on the news of the day, something new happens and blows that handle all to hell.

So I’ve been thinking about this notion of safety, and through some conversations here have expanded my view.

First, the word itself, “safety,” has been corrupted almost beyond repair.  After the actions of those in power we see “security” as a police state and “safety” as smothering our voice, our body and soul.

Now’s a good time to detour, for some body and soul, Coleman Hawkins (don’t know the personnel, and it’s not complete, but it sounds so nice), courtesy of YouTuber anvasquez:

.

Yeah, like the sappy Sound of Music gem, courtesy of YouTube’s novafussion:

See, the newly elected Obama crew have to move damned fast.  They have to think and make good decisions using good judgment, but they have to move fast.  They’ve been handed power, if they can take it and hold it.

Now me, I’m not a politician.  I don’t think I have to move with the same speed.

Lot of talk about Obama’s foreign policy team, about threats to our safety from intelligence reports.  Tonight was tree-lighting time in Rockefeller Center, cops in my subway this morning, on the street all day, security vibes much evident.

Remember the term “civil defense?”

So I’m glancing through the news this morning and I find this:

Every once in a while, something will appear in the night sky that will attract the attention of even those who normally don’t bother looking up. It’s likely to be that way on Monday evening, Dec. 1.

A slender crescent moon, just 15-percent illuminated, will appear in very close proximity to the two brightest planets in our sky, Venus and Jupiter.

People who are unaware or have no advance notice will almost certainly wonder, as they cast a casual glance toward the moon on that night, what those two “large silvery stars” happen to be? Sometimes, such an occasion brings with it a sudden spike of phone calls to local planetariums, weather offices and even police precincts. Not a few of these calls excitedly inquire about “the UFOs” that are hovering in the vicinity of our natural satellite.

Now I have been burned too many times by astrological events … either the sky is too cloudy to see the fabulous eclipses or there’s too much light in my neighborhood to view the wonderful meteor showers.

So I forgot about it until I got home from work.  I got off the subway in my usual trance, half asleep, and was walking the four blocks to my apartment when I inadvertently glanced up at the sky.

Wow!  There it was, a beautiful crescent moon, bright Venus and Jupiter right there!  Although it had been raining all week, tonight the sky was dark and clear.  The lovely sight put a big smile on my face.

Open thread is open for your tales of astronomical wowness or anything else that you’d like to share.

The irony of backalley blogging on the FP has already been noted.  As has this:

Sometimes while prowling back alleys you find things that don’t bear the light of day, brass ritual cymbal turns out to be a trashcan cover, exotic seafood dinner is really rotten fish guts.

Yet perhaps there’s some truth to these lies.

Here in NYC the sun has gone down.  That’s the time to prowl.

With no apparent purpose, I will say that from an artistic view I’ve been frustrated by folks characterizing the far left as a given known group.  Ever since I started hearing the stories of the hippies from the 60s and their adventures, I don’t see how they are ever truly portrayed in our political discourse and yet I would maintain they are the true left who inherited the real mantle from the same folks who worked for social justice in the 30s and 40s, those who came from Eastern Europe for good or ill who had a real revolutionary vision of equality and human rights which was passed through the wild American filter culminating in a generation of visionaries who to this day have not received their true (and well deserved) portrait in our album of history.  I’ve also, in recent years, come to both meet and read about some of the fierce young people who have that same spirit but in a far more difficult environment, they hop trains and live on the street and protest from sheer howling passion, and these kids have not had their portrait included either.  Anyway, just had to get that off my chest.  

Over at Your Right Hand Thief, oyster describes his night at the movies in Sometimes reality is like a weird movie.

I was astonished to find out that there really IS a God!  And he’s on the radio!

As I drove away, the radio was tuned to WRNO 99.5fm Rush Radio. “In tough times, it pays to be right”, is their new tag line. And… guess what was on? No, not a replay of Rush or Hannity. Instead… it was the last two minutes of The Jesus Christ Show, hosted by Jesus Christ. I’m not kidding! Jesus does a radio show. Hallelujah!

A female caller asked the host a question: “Jesus, should I fear hell?” Jesus replied by saying that he didn’t have much time[!], so he would have to keep his answer short. (The short answer was “Yes”, but it was said with infinite love.) There’s a distinctly addictive quality about the Jesus Christ show. It’s very soothing. I could see myself listening to it on a regular basis.

Again, I’m not kidding.

Open thread is hereby open!

I’m substituting for NLinStPaul this week, so don’t expect any miracles!

Daily Yonder covers rural issues in the US.  From their “about” section:

55 million people live in the rural U.S. ­ Maybe you’re one of them, or used to be, or want to be. As mainstream TV and newspapers retreat from small towns, the Daily Yonder is coming on strong.

We’re your daily multi-media buffet of news, commentary, research, and features.

Check us throughout the day for breaking news, updates from the best rural bloggers and pointers to streaming live radio from the coast of Maine and to the wilds of Montana.

How about those presidential candidates? The Daily Yonder is your source for news of all the campaigns — how they’re reaching (or ignoring) rural communities.

There’s an interesting post up from this past Thursday, Letter from Langdon: I Got a Government Bailout by Richard Oswald.