Apr 21 2008

The TaleMaster 9 ….Scribing

This little tale started itself about a dozen years ago. It was originally a couple of pages, a  background for a D&D character. Then came a dream or three which added so much more. Life & Death interfered for many years. I’ve begun dreaming of this tale again, recently. This will eventually be a book, I hope.

Link to all of TaleMaster

So please, go get yourself a tall cold beverage, adjust your reading glasses and settle into your comfy chair and join me in the City of Colours…

   The Seth leads the boy to the gate then watches as he scampers off down the tunnel, pondering the news. Sea serpents back… Kalygth Rathmon will need some heroes before long to dispose of that problem.  Saug Amaroth was needing a lesson in humility yet again. Maybe it is past time for lessons, time to cut out the ichor and cauterize the wound. Turning, the master of tales enters his cavern, pausing to lock the gate and pull the curtain to, his thoughts returning to the boy, Y’rbos, who brought the news.

    The blood flowed strong in that one. HIS blood…. many generations later but still the traits were recognizable and prominent. Y’rbos had picked up his lessons quickly, had become invaluable now he was old enough to go on the runs to distant cities.

One other, A’drui — too young yet to be of much use, but the most helpful in many, many seasons… quick and silent … keeping him informed. Updating information daily, sometimes hourly, certainly the best of the three he secretly employed.

   In the ante-chamber the ancient man pushes aside the ragged tapestry at the left of the gate and enters the chamber between  the gates, the only room that most visitors see. Weaving his way through the scattered chairs and around the scarred table he crosses the chamber and pushes aside the ragged tapestry to enter his home cave, his private rooms.

   Glow globes in stands softly illuminate the cavern. Although sparsely furnished, its appointments are of the finest quality.

   Tapestries in jewel tones line every wall, centuries of work displayed for his eyes alone.  The finest silken threads patiently worked by his hands onto emerald velvet. Minute details depicting the history of the mountain. Each season a square was completed and added to the edge, each year-end a border of vines worked in silver, creating year strips from ceiling to floor. At a short distance the details blur to reform into a striped pattern, a seemingly ordinary curtain keeping in warmth.

   Thick rugs of different sizes cover the floor, two and three deep in places, overlapping, keeping out the chill of the living stone. Their muted browns and patterns of leaves a reminder of the forest near the home of his youth.

   The Seth  passes the round table that sits in the center of the room. Cluttered with scrolls and ink wells, it is surrounded by three chairs made from mahogany barrels. These are fitted with cushions filled with corn-husks & wheat-chaff, a sturdy foundation for the fluffy down stuffed velvet cushions that sit atop them.

   On the northern wall rises an immense desk. It’s many cubbyholes are filled to overflowing with scrolls, maps and notes. Stacks of parchment line the top of the desk rising up to, and encompassing in some places, the three shelves above. Parchment pages, bound carefully by the TaleMaster, line the shelves, interspersed with scraps of parchment, empty ink wells and broken quills. A large tome lies invitingly open, waiting for The Seth. A wooden chair stands before the desk, its arms and seat worn, the bottom rung thin from his feet resting there, his constant use.

    He settles into the chair, opens the clasp of his cloak and carelessly lets it fall behind him. Many  minutes pass as he writes the latest information down in his spidery squirl script, then he turns back a few pages, and then a few more, to refresh a point of uncertainty. Satisfied he returns to his entry and adds a bit more before laying the quill down again.

Crossing the room he pauses to check on Nah’lei’s travels in the book atop the leaning, creaky shelves.  Quickly he scans her legible scrawl and assures himself of the safety of the adventuring party. They have reached the halfway point of their journey with no major problems, meeting some interesting people along the way. With a bit of luck the rest would go as well.  He places the book carefully back on the shelf. “I must get Buhdro to fix these!” he says to himself for the thousandth time and pushes aside a curtain, entering a smaller chamber to the south.

   A massive bed fills the space, its four posts carved into the likeness of dragons sitting atop ornate columns. The TaleMaster crosses the chamber to the north dragon. His fingers lightly caress its folded wings, black now from years of his touch, the natural oil of his hands. At first the gesture was a yearning for comfort, it has now become a ritual for the old man, comforting in its own way.

   He continues around the bed to the hearth in the south wall. A massive oaken mantle juts from the curving wall of the chamber, a handy shelf for his bowls & utensils. His is one of the few true fireplaces in the mountain, most of the other caverns had interior chambers. Being at the top of the mountain his chambers didn’t maintain a comfortable temperature and required a source of warmth. And, he admitted to himself, he just enjoyed having the fire to look at. It brought him comfort somehow.

   Turning, he looks at the great bed, a gift centuries ago from the first GoldSmith, Elriad. He has always felt safe there… sunk into the depths of the down and the dreams, guarded by the huge dragons at the compass points, covered by the silken rose eiderdown.

   The Seth enters this haven and lies down, waiting for the next bit of information to piece into the puzzle of the world. His thoughts drift, his mind wandering over the latest morsels, the news Y’rbos brought, the GoldSmiths latest story, fitting them into the already known or guessed. The dragon coalesces before him…

continued…

.

Apr 21 2008

Who’s Lobbing the Cheap Shots about Our Health Care?

( – promoted by undercovercalico)

This morning I watched This Week as John McCain was being interviewed.  It was clear many times that McCain was very uncomfortable with Georgie’s questions, most of which were legitimate about McCain’s policies and agenda.  He squirmed in his chair, dodged most of the answers.   In particular, the one about health care seemed to have gotten his hackles up when Elizabeth Edwards’ criticism was displayed on the screen.  

“He has not spent a single day not protected by a federal health plan, not a single day of his entire life, and yet he denigrates this care.”

She was referring to John McCain, who was first insured as the son of a Navy man, then as a Navy officer himself and finally as a member of Congress.

Here’s the link to the clip:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/pl…

It’s about 13 minutes into the program.  If you wish to skip the video, quick synopsis from The Hill, after the jump.  

Stephanopoulos, noting Edwards’ recent comments about McCain in The Wall Street Journal, said, “Her point is why shouldn’t every American be able to get the kind of healthcare that members of Congress get and members of the military get?”

A smiling McCain said, “It’s a cheap shot but I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good healthcare, I had it from another government. Look, I know what it’s like not to have healthcare.” McCain was referring to the five-and-a-half years he spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

OK, McSame has haven’t had health care every single day of his life, but he has since he returned from Vietnam.

Health Policy and Market blog has some good details that Georgie didn’t ask McSame about today:

McCain would end the current personal income exemption for employer provided health insurance and replace it with an individual tax credit for those who have health insurance. But there are tens of millions who are not covered today and do not have access to an  and therefore don’t have a personal exemption that can be reshuffled into a personal tax credit.

But here’s the problem:

There are tens of millions who are not covered today and do not have access to an employer contribution for health insurance and therefore don’t have a personal exemption that can be reshuffled into a personal tax credit. But what will the source of his funding be for those who today don’t have the benefit of the employer exemption but would be eligible for the tax credits? Moving the tax benefit of health insurance from the workplace to the individual as McCain does will likely encourage employers to drop their health programs and instead just give the health benefit contribution they were making to the worker in the form of wages.

Back to the ABC interview, McCain went on in the to say that “with all due respect to Mrs. Edwards,” the Democrats want the government to make our health care decisions and that’s how his plan differs from theirs. He says families need to make their own health decisions.  When asked about the tax credit not being enough to get good coverage, arrogantly he said, “well, the $5000K tax credit my plan would give families may not be enough, but it’s better than what they got now.   They can go across state lines and get cheaper insurance.”

McCain doesn’t get it.  Elizabeth Edwards identifies the problem correctly:

You say that under your plan everyone is going to pay less for health insurance. Nice words, I admit, but they are words we have heard before. You must know when American families calculate the actual cost of health care, they have to include those deductibles and co-pays and not just the cost of the insurance. Are you talking about cheaper overall or just a cheap policy that doesn’t kick in until after thousands of dollars of deductibles have been paid?  

Isn’t the type of competition you are talking about really a rush to the bottom? As long as you allow insurers to underwrite and deny access, you encourage insurers to offer plans that may be cheap, but that get that way by avoiding people with cancer or other high-cost diseases or by limiting benefits and treatments, particularly if the treatment is expensive or might be needed for a long time. We all live in the real world; those of us lucky enough to have health insurance have seen how insurers cut coverage and up co-pays or deny particular treatments. The insurance company makes money when it doesn’t have to pay for our health care. (I suspect that if they could, they would write obstetrical-only policies for nuns.) Doesn’t your plan really encourage insurers plans to compete to avoid people with cancer or other high-cost diseases? Don’t you think that the kind of competition that starts with a decent level of required coverage, that doesn’t exclude the care we actually need, would be better?

McCain also said the problem with government run health care was that it was inferior to us. “Go to Canada.  Go to England. ”   Yet, on a Frontline show this past week,  an investigation turned up that their health care is as good as ours.  Our problem is that we overpay because of the overhead costs: around 30%.   Medicare administration cost is 3%.

McCain knows he gets better care through the government and it is cheaper.  Yet the American people aren’t allowed to have coverage as he does.  

That’s a cheap shot to our American people, Mr. Cain McCain.

Update: Nedheads has a YT clip up (h/t to Nyceve at the Big O)

Cross-posted from the EENR Blog

Apr 21 2008

Taking the Fight to Moqtada al-Sadr?

A few weeks ago Sadr called on his followers to lay down their weapons in an effort to negotiate with the Iraqi Government and U.S. Coalition. Here’s a snippet from Reuters:

In his statement, Sadr called for an end to “random arrests” of his followers and for them to benefit from an amnesty law passed by parliament in February aimed at freeing thousands of prisoners from Iraqi jails.

The government welcomed Sadr’s statement but said it would press on with its campaign for control over Basra, which is divided up among various militias and criminal gangs.

The U.S Government has pressed on with their incarceration campaign and it has led Sadr to threaten another uprising.

From Raw Story:

“I am giving my last warning and my word to the Iraqi government to take the path of peace and stop violence against its own people, otherwise it will be a government of destruction,” he said in a statement issued by his office in the holy city of Najaf.

What does the U.S have to say about Sadr’s demands for peace and an end to incarcerating his followers? Time to get nervous:

A top US general on Sunday warned that the military would strike back after hardline Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to launch a new uprising by his militia.

“I hope Moqtada al-Sadr continues to depress violence and not encourage it,” said Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces in central Iraq.

The U.S. government and Iraqi Government have no intentions to negotiate or work with Sadr, which is very bad news IMO. It’s bad news for stability in Iraq and it’s bad news for our soldiers. Here’s another snippet:

“If Sadr and Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) become very aggressive, we’ve got enough combat power to take the fight to the enemy,” Lynch told a group of reporters from Western news networks.

Sadr, who has suspended the activities of his Mahdi Army militia since last August, threatened on Saturday to declare “open war” if a crackdown by Iraqi and US forces against his militiamen is not halted.

“I am giving my last warning and my word to the Iraqi government to take the path of peace and stop violence against its own people, otherwise it will be a government of destruction,” he said in a statement issued by his office in the holy city of Najaf.

“If it does not stop the militias that have infiltrated the government, then we will declare a war until liberation.”

Liberation. That’s what Sadr is fighting for, for himself and his fellow Iraqis. There is an uprising taking place against the government that the Americans have put in place. There is an uprising against American policies that have brought in foreign companies to take over Iraqi resources. It seems as though Sadr and the Mahdi Army don’t want to battle with American forces, they want to battle American policies. While many Americans believe that Sadr is a bad man because his Mahdi Army has fought with American soldiers, what do you think the Iraqi people view him as?

Please take a minute and put yourself in their shoes. A government comes into America, takes jobs and resources away from American companies and outsources them to other countries. A government comes in and puts in place government officials they believe will follow along with their political and economic policies. Do you think Americans would sit idly by and let that happen? No way. We would fight against such oppression and control. Of course the Iraqi Government and U.S. Coalition is trying to silence the Iraqi uprising by incarcerating the opposition. If the Iraqi Government and U.S. coalition continue to round up Sadr loyalists and incarcerate them, we will see much more unrest and bloodshed. We’ll lose more soldiers and we’ll lose any chance of stability in Iraq in the near future.

If we really want progress in Iraq, we need to work with Sadr and his followers. If we want real progress in Iraq we need to fire all American and foreign contractors and let the Iraqis take control over their own resources. If we want real progress in Iraq, we need to let Iraqis run their own government, without America appointing people we believe will go along with our policies. War is a failure. It’s a complete failure of diplomacy. I believe we’re failing yet again by not recognizing the need to work with Sadr to bring the country together.

In case you were wondering how Moqtada Al Sadr and the Mahdi Army came to be in Iraq, you only need to look at the failings of the American coalition and reconstruction in Iraq. Here’s a passage in Naomi Klein’s book, “The Shock Doctrine,” where she talks about how Sadr gained a following by trying to fill the economic holes left by the U.S. coalition:

The young shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr proved particularly adept at exposing the failures of Bremer’s privatize reconstruction in Shia slums from Baghdad to Basra, earning himself a devoted following. Funded through donations to Mosques, and perhaps later w/ help from Iran, the centers dispatched electricians to fix power and phone lines, organized local garbage collection, set up emergency generators, ran local blood drives and directed traffic. “I found a vacuum, and no one filled the vacuum,” al-Sadr said in the early days of the occupation, adding, “What I can do, I do.” He also took the young men who saw no jobs and no hope in Bremer’s Iraq, dressed them in black and armed them with rusty Kalashnikovs. The result was the Mahdi Army, now one of the most brutal forces in Iraq’s sectarian battles. These militias are corporatism’s legacy too; if the reconstruction had provided jobs, security and services to Iraqis, al-Sadr would been deprived of both his mission and many of his newfound followers. As it was, corporate America’s failures laid the groundwork for al-Sadr’s successes.

It seems to me that the U.S. never had any real intentions of trying to make Iraq work for the Iraqi people. Instead, corporatism and greed reared its ugly head, and now we’re about to see a massive uprising because of it.  

Apr 21 2008

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Cream II



Strange Brew



Tales of Brave Ulysses



Swlabr



We’re Going Wrong

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

Apr 20 2008

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Rice in Iraq, violence surges after Sadr threat

By Sue Pleming, Reuters

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed Iraq’s crackdown on militias in a visit on Sunday to Baghdad, where the worst fighting in weeks erupted after Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened all-out war.

Rockets blasted the fortified Green Zone compound where Rice met Iraqi officials and praised their month-old campaign against Sadr’s followers.

She had harsh words for the reclusive cleric, who on the eve of Rice’s visit vowed “open war” if the crackdown continues. Sadr has not appeared in public in Iraq in nearly a year.

2 More than 80 die in Mogadishu fighting: rights group

By Abdi Sheikh and Aweys Yusuf, Reuters

2 hours, 15 minutes ago

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali Islamist insurgents and government troops exchanged mortar fire on Sunday and a prominent human rights group said 81 people had been killed in the past 24 hours in some of the heaviest clashes in months.

The fighting was fiercest in the Islamist stronghold of northern Mogadishu where the government and its Ethiopian allies are trying to flush out the remnants of a sharia courts movement ousted from the capital at the end of 2006.

“Eighty-one people were killed and 119 were wounded in the violence in Mogadishu since Saturday,” Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization, told Reuters by telephone.

3 Zimbabwe ‘war’ killed 10 people since elections: opposition

by Aderogba Obisesan, AFP

2 hours, 42 minutes ago

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Zimbabwe’s opposition on Sunday accused the authorities of waging a war for power that has killed 10 people and forced thousands to flee their homes since parliamentary and presidential elections.

“Ten people have so far been killed in Zimbabwe since March 29. The situation in Zimbabwe is desperate,” Tendai Biti, secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, told reporters in Johannesburg.

Biti said hundreds of homes had been burnt and 3,000 families been displaced by the election-related violence. He also said that more than 400 MDC activists had been detained since the vote.

4 Fresh anti-Western protests rock China

by Robert J. Saiget, AFP

Sun Apr 20, 11:06 AM ET

BEIJING (AFP) – Fresh anti-Western protests broke out in China Sunday with angry demonstrators targeting US broadcaster CNN and French store Carrefour in rows over perceived bias, Tibet and the Beijing Olympics.

Protesters in Xian, Harbin and Jinan defied a huge police crackdown to chant slogans and hold banners that read “Oppose Tibet independence,” “Oppose CNN’s anti-China statements” and “Boycott Carrefour,” a participant said.

“This was a patriotic movement, people want CNN and Carrefour to apologise,” Wang Zheng, a protester at a Carrefour store in the northern city of Xian, told AFP by telephone.

5 Biofuels under attack as world food prices soar

by Marlowe Hood, AFP

Sun Apr 20, 5:36 AM ET

PARIS (AFP) – Hailed until only months ago as a silver bullet in the fight against global warming, biofuels are now accused of snatching food out of the mouths of the poor.

Billions have been poured into developing sugar- and grain-based ethanol and biodiesel to help wean rich economies from their addiction to carbon-belching fossil fuels, the overwhelming source of man-made global warming.

Heading the rush are the United States, Brazil and Canada, which are eagerly transforming corn, wheat, soy beans and sugar cane into cleaner-burning fuel, and the European Union (EU) is to launch its own ambitious programme.
From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Recommended

6 Smoke cloud engulfs Argentine capital for 5th day

By Jorge Otaola, Reuters

Sat Apr 19, 7:31 PM ET

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – A thick cloud of smoke covered Buenos Aires for a fifth day on Saturday, the fallout from field burning by ranchers that has forced the closure of highways, flight delays and traffic congestion.

The smoke started to appear over the Argentine capital more than a week ago, but visibility deteriorated considerably in the city on Friday and Saturday, with an acrid smell pervading homes and causing watery eyes and sore throats among residents.

Visibility downtown was barely 500 yards (meters), and residents’ tempers began to fray.

…

Authorities said ranchers caused the haze by igniting fires across 173,000 acres of pasture. The fires clear vegetation and renew soil nutrients and fresh pasture growth for cattle.

7 U.S. military groomed TV military analysts: report

Reuters

Sat Apr 19, 11:29 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Many U.S. military analysts used as commentators on Iraq by television networks have been groomed by the Pentagon, leaving some feeling they were manipulated to report favorably on the Bush administration, The New York Times said in Sunday editions.

A Times report examining ties between the Bush administration and former senior officers who acted as paid TV analysts said they got private briefings, trips and access to classified intelligence meant to influence their comments.

“Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks,” the newspaper said.
From Yahoo News World

8 Sadr threatens open war against U.S., Iraq

By Raviya H. Ismail, McClatchy Newspapers

Sat Apr 19, 4:59 PM ET

BAGHDAD – Renegade cleric Muqtada al Sadr on Saturday issued a “final warning” to the Iraqi government, threatening an open-ended “war until liberation” if U.S. and Iraqi troops don’t stop their offensive against followers of his militant Shiite Muslim movement.

Sadr’s threat signals his growing fury with the joint U.S.-Iraqi offensive against his strongholds in Baghdad’s Sadr City and in the volatile southern port city of Basra. Such a rebellion would end Sadr’s eight-month-old ceasefire, which was widely credited – even by U.S. military officials – with curbing violence in Baghdad and throughout the Shiite south.

The U.S.-backed Iraqi military continued its two-front attack Saturday against the Mahdi Army and other outlaws, retaking government buildings from militiamen in Basra while waging fierce gun battles in the densely packed slums of Sadr City.
From Yahoo News U.S. News

9 Distressed war veterans get day in court

By Adam Tanner, Reuters

Sun Apr 20, 9:11 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere who say they have systematically been denied proper medical care will get their day in federal court starting on Monday in San Francisco.

The lawsuit before a judge in U.S. District Court for Northern California claims the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was unable to deal with the growing number of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, cases emerging from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Unless systemic and drastic measures are instituted immediately, the costs to these veterans, their families, and our nation will be incalculable, including broken families, a new generation of unemployed and homeless veterans, increases in drug abuse and alcoholism, and crushing burdens on the health care delivery system and other social services in our communities,” the suit said.

10 Former Pentagon official calls Iraq war "a major debacle"

AFP

Sat Apr 19, 10:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – In a scathing analysis, a former senior Pentagon official has called the war in Iraq “a major debacle” that created an incubator for terrorism and emboldened Iran.

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” Joseph Collins wrote in “Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and its Aftermath.”

Published by the National Defense University, Collins’ paper is striking in that it comes from one whose position from 2001 to 2004 put him near the center of decision making that led to the war.
From Yahoo News Politics

11 Iran dismisses Bush, Brown nuclear charges

Reuters

Sun Apr 20, 4:36 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said on Sunday U.S. and British accusations that Tehran wanted a nuclear weapon were baseless and the Islamic state would not stop its peaceful atomic work.

U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was in Washington last week, pledged a united effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, possibly by expanding sanctions against Tehran.

“The stance voiced by the American president and British prime minister about Iran’s nuclear activities is not compatible with the reality of any of (its) activities,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said.

12 North American leaders for summit of under-fire NAFTA

by Antonio Rodriguez, AFP

1 hour, 31 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – The leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States meet here Monday for the annual summit of the North American Free Trade Agreement, amid sharp criticism of the pact in the US presidential race.

As US President George W. Bush meets with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in New Orleans, US workers’ unions and the Democratic White House hopefuls have lambasted NAFTA.

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are battling for the Democratic nomination, have warned that they are willing to re-negotiate parts of the agreement if elected president in November.
From Yahoo News Business

13 Colt’s grip on military rifle market called bad deal

By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer

23 minutes ago

HARTFORD, Conn. – No weapon is more important to tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the carbine rifle. And for well over a decade, the military has relied on one company, Colt Defense of Hartford, Conn., to make the M4s they trust with their lives.

Now, as Congress considers spending millions more on the guns, this exclusive arrangement is being criticized as a bad deal for American forces as well as taxpayers, according to interviews and research conducted by The Associated Press.

“What we have is a fat contractor in Colt who’s gotten very rich off our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

14 Despite export boom, manufacturers cautious about job growth

By DAN CATERINICCHIA, AP Business Writer

44 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – The massive cranes slicing the skies over Brazil, Dubai and China can’t come off the assembly lines fast enough at Manitowoc Co.’s manufacturing plants here and overseas.

But an insatiable global appetite doesn’t mean the Wisconsin-based heavy equipment maker is boosting its payrolls.

The company last year added about 1,000 workers to bring its total to 11,000 but has no plans to repeat that hiring binge as recessionary effects play out here and abroad, said Eric Etchart, president and general manager of Manitowoc’s crane segment. At best, Manitowoc may make some temporary employees permanent this year to help deplete a $2.88 billion crane backlog, up about 81 percent from 2006.

15 Amid strong farm economy, some worry about increased debt

BY DAVID PITT and HENRY C. JACKSON, Associated Press Writers

57 minutes ago

DES MOINES, Iowa – At a time of record agricultural profits, concerns are mounting that American farmers could be edging toward a financial crisis not seen since the 1980s farm-economy collapse.

Soaring land values, increasing debt and a reliance on government subsidies for ethanol production have prompted economists to warn that what some describe as a golden age of agriculture could come to a sudden end. At risk are the livelihoods of thousands of farmers, the health of hundreds of banks and the vitality of an agricultural industry that has been one of the nation’s few economic bright spots in recent months.

“We’re in a very risky time, and yet we don’t seem concerned about that risk nearly as much as we should be,” said Barry L. Flinchbaugh, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University.

The potential problem, economists said, is that strong demand for corn and other grains has caused prices to reach historic highs. That has led to record farmland values and steadily increasing debt as farmers borrow money to buy more land, finance the higher costs of fertilizer and seed and upgrade their equipment.

16 Investors eye more earnings, including BofA, Apple, Yahoo

By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer

40 minutes ago

NEW YORK – The stock market has reacted well to the recent stream of glum earnings. But this week, Wall Street faces an even bigger flood of first-quarter results, and as General Electric Co.’s bleak report earlier this month showed, bad earnings can even hurt a stock market with low expectations.

…

Overall, Wall Street has been pleased with how companies fared during the first quarter. Their upbeat mood, however, is relative. After months of shocking news – financial institutions on the brink of failure, demand sapped in the credit markets, and declines in the nation’s payrolls and discretionary spending – even poor earnings gave investors relief.

…

“The takeaway from that is that the news is still bad, but it’s not catastrophic,” said Claire Gruppo, the co-founder of the boutique investment bank Gruppo, Levey & Co. “There’s an underlying fear factor that it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. So when it just continued to be pretty bad, there’s a ‘phew’ factor.”

Idiots.

17 Daimler, BMW discuss sharing components

By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer

1 hour, 7 minutes ago

BEIJING – Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, is discussing sharing components and technology development with rival BMW AG, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said Sunday.

The luxury automakers see each other as direct competitors, and the possibility of cooperation reflects the intense pressure on automakers to cut costs amid slow sales growth in the United States and Europe.

“We are discussing potentially sharing components. And this might make sense specifically in regard to new technologies,” Zetsche told reporters at the Beijing auto show.

18 Energy producers in driving seat at Rome talks

By Alex Lawler and Peg Mackey, AFP

1 hour, 28 minutes ago

ROME (Reuters) – Consumer countries and international oil firms keen to gain greater access to the world’s energy resources are likely to walk away empty-handed from talks with producer nations in Rome.

Record high oil, which struck $117 a barrel on Friday, has helped to drive up the profits of oil majors, but it has also increased the spending power of national oil companies and made them ever more reluctant to grant access to their resources.

“The relative positions of international energy companies and national energy companies are changing — and not in our favor,” Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil and gas company Eni said in a speech at the opening of the International Energy Forum (IEF).

19 Oil multinationals of old admit powerless to influence prices

by Anne Renaut and Veronique Dupont, AFP

2 hours, 58 minutes ago

ROME (AFP) – Oil-consuming countries and international oil producers acknowledged Sunday they can no longer influence oil prices, as a global gathering of the energy elite got underway in Rome.

“In the 1970s, international oil companies (IOCs) controlled nearly 75 percent of global oil reserves and 80 percent of oil production,” said Paolo Scaroni, head of Italian petroleum group Eni.

“Now, IOCs control only six percent of oil and 20 percent of gas reserves, and 24 percent of oil and 35 percent of gas production. The rest is in the hands of national oil companies.”

20 Oil producers reject raising output

by Veronique Dupont, AFP

1 hour, 52 minutes ago

ROME (AFP) – Oil-producing countries have rejected calls to raise output amid record prices — five times higher in as many years — saying the rise in demand was artificial.

Kuwait’s acting oil minister said Sunday that supply and demand factors are not to blame for the soaring price of crude oil, which reached fresh highs last week.

Oil prices hit record highs above 117 dollars per barrel in New York, following a pipeline attack in Africa’s biggest producer Nigeria.

21 Central bank to unveil help for British banks: finance minister

AFP

Sun Apr 20, 6:07 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) – The Bank of England will unveil on Monday a plan to take over high street banks’ mortgage commitments in return for government bonds, Britain’s finance minister Alistair Darling said.

He said the scheme would help unblock the financial system in Britain which has been hit by the knock-on effects of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

He insisted that the banks would have to repay the money to the Bank of England and described the current economic situation as an “unprecedented shock to the system,” the like of which had not been seen “in generations.”
From Yahoo News Science

22 Loggerhead turtle nests lag, green and leatherbacks are up

Associated Press

2 hours, 44 minutes ago

TAMPA, Fla. – Florida’s beaches lost a substantial amount of loggerhead sea turtle nests in 2007, giving the state its lowest nest count in 17 years, wildlife officials reported.

Researchers found 45,084 nests for the threatened turtles, down more than 4,600 nests from 2006, according to newly released statistics from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Florida accounts for 90 percent of the nation’s loggerhead nests, which have decreased by nearly half since 1998, when the state reported 85,988 nests.

Loggerhead sea turtle deaths in Florida have more than doubled during the past decade, statistics show.

23 Buzzards or vultures by either name seen as ugly and pesty

By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 33 minutes ago

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Maybe if they were pretty, the ubiquitous buzzards that soar over Texas and elsewhere on their way to dine on some carcass wouldn’t be viewed with such repugnance or be considered nuisances.

“Unquestionably, they’re as ugly as sin,” says Ian Tizard, a Texas A&M University professor of immunology and director of the school’s Schubot Exotic Bird Center.

The misnamed birds – they’re really vultures, and either turkey or black vultures – range over much of the United States, and they’re even welcomed as a sure sign of spring on their annual March return to Hinckley, Ohio.

24 Green funerals make for eco-exits

By REGAN McTARSNEY, Associated Press Writer

Sun Apr 20, 3:53 AM ET

LONDON – It’s no longer enough to live a greener life – now people are being encouraged to be environmentally friendly when they leave the Earth too.

Cardboard coffins, clothes sewn from natural fibers, a burial plot in a natural setting. Green funerals attempt to be eco-friendly at every stage.

“People are trying to think about what’s the best way to live and with that, what’s the best way to die,” said Roslyn Cassidy, a funeral director for Green Endings, which provides eco-friendly funerals.

25 BASF presses officials to approve its GM potato

by Lenaig Bredoux, AFP

2 hours, 34 minutes ago

LIMBURGERHOF, Germany (AFP) – German chemical giant BASF is cranking up pressure on the European Commission to get its green light for a genetically modified potato, a world first the company has decided deserves a few pages of advertising.

It wrote an open letter to the European Union’s executive branch and bought newspaper pages to present its case after a meeting with EU environment minister Stravos Dimas ended in failure last week.

BASF has grown increasingly irritated with the commission, which has not authorised genetically modified organisms (GMOs) since 1998, and is pushing hard for a patent on its potato.

26 Austria rethinks environmental policy in bid to meet Kyoto target

by Sim Sim Wissgott, AFP

2 hours, 40 minutes ago

VIENNA (AFP) – Austria has been forced to reconsider its environmental policy after two reports indicated the renewable energy leader will likely fail to meet its Kyoto greenhouse gas emissions targets in 2012.

The reports issued last week by the Federal Environmental Protection Bureau and the Austrian Court of Audit said Austria was running considerably above its benchmark 1990 emissions rate instead of having achieved reductions and warned that this could lead to billions of euros worth of sanctions.

As a result, Environment Minister Josef Proell called Wednesday for a new environmental bill that would oblige regional governments to help meet emissions targets or fork over money when Austria has to buy credits to compensate for its excess greenhouse gases.

27 Multi-million dollar plan to pump water to Jordan’s capital

AFP

1 hour, 43 minutes ago

AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan on Sunday announced that a multi-million dollar project would begin in June to supply the capital with water from an ancient southern aquifer 325 kilometres (200 miles) away.

“The capital will get water from the aquifer for the coming 100 years,” Water Minister Raed Abu Soud told reporters, adding that the project in the desert kingdom was expected to be completed within three and a half years.

Abu Soud said a Turkish firm has been contracted to extract 100 million cubic metres (3.5 billion cubic feet) of water each year from the 300,000-year-old Disi aquifer, which lies 325 kilometres (200 miles) south of Amman.

28 Youths mobilise in name of tradition to rescue Cyprus donkeys

by Haro Chakmakjian, AFP

Sun Apr 20, 2:49 AM ET

RIZOKARPASO, Cyprus (AFP) – It’s the butt of jokes and the source of choice curses, but the donkey is an integral part of Mediterranean culture, and friends on Cyprus are working to protect one of the world’s last wild colonies from extinction.

Using a Facebook group and email, hundreds of young Turkish Cypriots and a handful of Greek Cypriots have mobilised to “Save the Cyprus Donkey” after 10 of the rare brown animals were found shot dead at the end of March.

“The enemy of nature is the enemy of humans,” read a banner unfurled by a small group of demonstrators at a sandy beach near Rizokarpaso village on the panhandle of Cyprus that has for decades been a donkey sanctuary.

29 Canada’s polar bears in dire straits: WWF

AFP

51 minutes ago

OTTAWA (AFP) – Some of Canada’s polar bear populations risk being wiped out within four decades because of climate change and human activity including hunting, the World Wide Fund For Nature warned Sunday.

Canada, whose frozen north is home to two-thirds of all polar bears, is contributing to the creatures’ decline by failing to take action to curb its emissions of greenhouse gases, WWF-Canada official Peter Ewins said.

“There is rapidly mounting evidence that many polar bear populations are in crisis as a result of sea-ice habitat loss, over-hunting and industrial development pressures,” said Ewins, head of species conservation at WWF-Canada.

“Without strong leadership from the prime minister (Stephen Harper) to change our outdated approach to how we manage our natural resources, some polar bear populations will become extinct by 2050,” he warned in a press release.

Finally, something I found interesting considering the source.

From Yahoo News Opinion

30 Christians should keep Scripture out of politics

By Uwe Siemon-Netto, The Christian Science Monitor

Fri Apr 18, 4:00 AM ET

St. Louis – What is Christianity’s proper role in American presidential politics? This question has gripped the 2008 campaign. From the dispute over the acceptability of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, to Mike Huckabee’s musings about conforming the US Constitution more to the Bible and the controversy over Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, the spiritual and secular realms have collided fiercely. Just this week, Senator Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton fielded questions from US religious leaders at a special forum broadcast on CNN.

More broadly, arguments over public policies – from war to illegal immigration – are increasingly being infused with scriptural justifications.

The media, of course, relish such controversy. So do many religious leaders, who use the occasion to offer the “real” interpretation of what Scripture says about a particular issue. As a result, religion and politics aren’t just mingling – they’re being wedded to the same goal: redeeming America’s body politic.

A largely Protestant nation that can trace its theological taproot to Martin Luther ought to know better. As the original Reformer, Luther understood how critical it was to separate church and state and, in a more important sense, the spiritual kingdom of Christ and the secular realm where God reigns in a hidden way through humans using reason as a guide.

Apr 20 2008

The Vermont solution: Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

(crossposted on Big Orange)

This is a new review of Bill McKibben’s book of last year, Deep Economy, from a critical-theory perspective; it’s informed by a fair reading of McKibben’s opus, observance of a recent speaking appearance by the author, and a reading of his DKos diaries.

There are a lot of citations of Bill McKibben on DKos; kudos to hof1991 for an oh-so-brief review, and to Gmoke for his 350 ppm or bust diary.  And of course to Bill McKibben himself.

posted on Flickr by lollyknit

Book Review: McKibben, Bill.  Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.  New York: Henry Holt, 2007.

Accumulating evidence of imminent, abrupt climate change due to the burning of Earth’s fossil-fuel endowment has apparently caught world society’s consumers by surprise.  Proposed “solutions” to the “problem” of “carbon pollution” are often of dubious value.  Often, we read of “alternative energy” being proposed as a “solution” to abrupt climate change without a real explanation of how “alternative energy” will do anything more than supplement the world’s voracious energy appetite.

Writing in a recent piece in Asia Times Online (“Capitalism at stake in climate crisis”), Walden Bello argues: “Psychologically and politically… the North at this point does not likely have what it takes to meet the problem head on.”  Bello’s argument is that the “rich” nations, especially the United States, are trapped in an economy “whose main dynamic is the transformation of living nature into dead commodities, creating tremendous waste in the process.  The driver of this process is consumption…” (2)  This is not cause for optimism about the American response to climate change.

A number of distinct ecological problems (abrupt climate change, of course, but also the overfishing of the oceans and the destruction of the forests) can be fingered upon overconsumption.  So the “rich” nations are flailing.  What is to be done?

In my forthcoming book, From Capitalist Discipline to Ecological Discipline, I will be suggesting a solution: for the past two centuries at least, the habits of world society have been increasingly conditioned by “capitalist discipline” – the discipline of the money system, which has obliged working people to work for wages.  This, in turn, has structured the world we live in.  At this point in time, “capitalist discipline” has built a world in ecological crisis, so what we need is a world society based on “ecological discipline.” “Ecological discipline” will be a form of conditioning which will be based upon the need to maintain ecosystem resilience.  It will have to be the organizing principle of the world society of the future.  It will demand that we think ecologically about everything we do.

Now, I know what capitalist discipline is.  I wrote about it in the second diary I posted for DailyKos.com, a year and a half ago.  But ecological discipline has been a harder thing for me to pin down.  What we need, in short, are local models of how to “behave ecologically,” so we can start where we are.  Changing our behavior will require, at the very least, a direct interface with the ecological world.  What are the American models for ecological discipline?

One popular author who seems to be asking questions and providing answers of this sort is Bill McKibben, who also wrote The End of Nature (a book which questions human management of the Earth) and The Age of Missing Information (a book which compares the content of television with the direct experience of nature).  This book, Deep Economy, addresses the current ecological dilemma head-on.  It’s like his earlier (1998) volume Hope Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly On The Earth, except this time with more of an emphasis upon persuading consumers.

At the beginning of the book, we are confronted with the matter of consumerism and its ecological problems.  In addressing consumerism at the level of principle, McKibben wants to persuade us of one thing: more is not necessarily better.

Since the end of World War II, he argues, the US economy has been dedicated to the pursuit of more – endless growth.  It’s gotten to the point where growth, McKibben tells us, “is no longer making most people wealthier but instead generating inequality and insecurity.”  (11)  The screed at the beginning focuses upon opposition to economic growth, though he does let through an important reason for why he thinks we ought to be unhappy with growth: “Almost all the growing wealth (of the economy) accumulates in a very few (silk-lined) pockets” (12).  This, of course, is telling; if we are not satisfied by growth, then that’s because it isn’t accumulating in our pockets.  We have, in short, been fooled by propaganda, and by ideology.

The argument of the first chapter proceeds to a short discussion of global warming (18-21) and of what a climactic disaster it will be, and of how difficult it will be to deal with global warming while our world society continues to grow economically (22-25).

McKibben then continues with a discussion of ecological economics.  The discussion is nothing pedestrian or Earth-shaking; he cites Robert Costanza as having

joined with twelve coauthors to publish a paper in Nature that for the first time tried to set an economic value on “ecosystem services,” such as pollination and decomposition that had always been counted as free.  (Their estimate of the wroth of these services was $33 trillion annually, far larger than the human economy taken all together.  (27)

But the estimation of monetary values as such is just made-up stuff.  “Ecosystem services” don’t have dollar values because they’re nobody’s labor to exchange.  There is no dollar value higher than the human economy.  If we were to destroy “ecosystem services,” there would be no way to recoup the resultant cost to society.  Environmental values, as Joan Martinez-Alier points out in The Environmentalism of the Poor, are more fundamental than dollar values; what kind of dollar value value is there in our freedom from cancer-causing agents, or in our right to breathe clean air?  The main reason we make up dollar values about the environment, as Martinez-Alier points out, is to use said calculations as a cudgel against polluters.  But how effective can that be?  

Dear readers, you might well ask why I am going on and on about this detail of McKibben’s book.  To be truthful, this sort of rhetoric pops up elsewhere in Deep Economy, as when (on p. 41) McKibben suggests that “in general, researchers report that money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income, and that after that point the correlation disappears.”  Now, I know that he’s written some brilliant stuff on the state of Kerala in India (in Hope Human and Wild), where people are dirt-poor but ostensibly live fulfilling lives.  But when you state everything in the universe in money values, you assume the existing money system as a given, and thus the existing power structure as well.  $10,000 means one thing in India, and quite another thing in southern California, and the reason for this is that southern California commands so much more money/ power than India.  The price I, personally, pay for living on about $10,000/yearly in southern California is economic insecurity.  Maybe I should move to India.  Can’t we get beyond this sort of rhetoric at some point?  I think we will soon discover that, starting with the $9.3 trillion US national debt, or with the trillions of dollars which change hands in currency markets each day they’re open, our money system is in need of a radical overhaul.  The main problem is this: people are subservient to money.  When we say we “work for money,” it is really that the money controls us rather than vice versa.  We need to bring into being a world where money, or more specifically the money system, works for us.  This is what the British women who wrote The Politics of Money were arguing.

McKibben concludes the discussion of ecological economics, at any rate, by citing an ecological economist who argues, “you can’t get richer, at least for long, by impoverishing the world around you.” (29) This is all nice and idealistic and contrary to the world of facts created by the neoliberals and described in Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.  The people in power have been getting filthy rich while bringing the world much nearer to ruination.  The concept of “moral capitalism” is confounded by such people.

At any rate, McKibben’s main point, throughout the whole first chapter, is that “we” (meaning world society) have been pursuing “growth” and “prosperity” well past the point at which it grants us any returns in terms of happiness.  This is a really good point to make, given the type of audience McKibben addresses: well-off college people.  I was in that audience Friday night, at Balch Auditorium on the Scripps College campus in Claremont, California.  McKibben was asked to speak on the subject of genetic engineering, though the themes of Deep Economy were intertwined with the rest of his talk: the excesses of the “more is better” model, global warming, the need for human community.  At any rate, McKibben’s meaningful effort, here, is to persuade the well-off that they would be just as happy if they would quit the relentless pursuit of wealth and get closer to community and to nature, and this is something worth applauding.

The rest of Deep Economy is devoted to this effort.  Chapter 2 is about locally-grown food, and why it’s better for you and for your planet than our global food megamachine.  Chapter 3 is a sustained criticism of the hyper-individualism of American society combined with a sustained argument that the rebirth of community would be facilitated by “a shift to economies that are more local in scale.” (105)  Chapter 4 is about community-based economics, from a specifically Vermont-based perspective; McKibben does probe his local environs in detail, yet is also focused however on how we all might return to community-based economics.

Chapter 5 is an overall discussion of global sustainability; McKibben talks about China, where he’s been.  He depicts the Chinese economy being adapted to American way of life, as fast as it can, and coming up against the ecological limits of mass production of commodities such as beer, or meat.  McKibben chronicles the growth of slums, as well, borrowing from Mike Davis’ Planet of Slums.  Briefly, McKibben discusses inequity, too.  “Most obviously, if the rich world began making less extreme demands on the planet, poor countries would have more physical margin to work with – a little slack.  This is desirable, of course, because the poor world is too poor.”  (197)  McKibben names the reason why the urban poor are poor: peasants are moved into the cities, where they’ve got nothing to do.  But the cause of rural poverty is – well, it’s domination.  

The so-called “free market” is actually a set of power-relationships, and the “rural poor” are getting aced out.  This McKibben can indeed see; yet he only discusses these power-relationships in “free market” terms.  On page 207 we are told about Ren Xuping, a millionaire Chinese rabbit entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist who teaches peasants to raise rabbits.  Ren Xuping is praised in this book for “turning people into capitalists” (209), but he has a real-life business competitor in this regard, a woman named Wang Yumei, who fits the mold of a “bigger is better” entrepreneur (210).  McKibben clearly prefers Ren Xuping; but, after all, the economic successes of Chinese rabbit-farming over, say, planting corn, are due to the comparative advantage of rabbit-farming.  When everyone in China has a comparative advantage, then nobody will have a comparative advantage, and all will be “poor.”  It is the system of comparative advantages, then, that will have to go, if we are to trust the future of ecosystems upon something more solid than the comparative advantages of rabbit-breeding in China.  “Markets” may be expedient, in the calm before the coming storm, but they won’t save us when that storm comes and the vast majority is left with nothing to sell or trade.

McKibben comes close to being an ecosocialist with his emphasis upon community engagement, which he calls “an unwillingness to embrace the individualism that often comes with modernity and a desire, instead, to build from solidarity with your neighbors,” (214) he praises the environmentalism of the poor in Bhutan, and he celebrates the success of socialist Kerala in India.  

His universe, though, is composed of anecdotes; this allows him to develop a good career as a writer, while pushing his versions of system analysis in the direction of immediate arguments to use in persuading immediately-present audiences.  Live lightly on the land, he tells the well-off.  His concern about global warming has led him to develop the website 350.org, which addresses global warming in idiosyncratic, yet communitarian ways.  When I asked him last Friday about shutting down the oil and natural gas wells and abandoning the coal mines, the only efficacious way of making conservation real, he suggested that the coal mines could be shut down with a strong communitarian effort but that oil and natural gas were “too valuable” and that every last drop that could be extracted would be extracted.  Such an answer only addresses 35% of the greenhouse gas problem, unfortunately.  If we can’t stop them from refining oil and natural gas, then where are we?  McKibben, then, is an example of one of the lead agents in discussing ecological discipline; and yet he himself is still sorting it out.

Apr 20 2008

Making music with what you have

One of the things I’ve noticed about bloggers is that, in addition to politics, many seem to be attracted to science fiction. That has never been necessarily true for me. But a few years ago I stumbled on a science fiction trilogy by Suzette Haden Elgin. The first two books in the series, Native Tongue and The Judas Rose really grabbed me. Here’s the publisher’s synopsis for Native Tongue:

Set in the twenty-second century, the novel tells of a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. Earth’s wealth depends on interplanetary commerce with alien races, and linguists a small, clannish group of families have become the ruling elite by controlling all interplanetary communication. Their women are used to breed perfect translators for all the galaxies’ languages.

Nazareth Chornyak, the most talented linguist of the family,…longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth comes to discover is that a slow revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them from men’s control.

So what Elgin does with these two books is to help us understand the role that language can play in both oppression and revolution. One of the very small ways I’ve experienced that is my frustration that our current language has only one word for the verb “to know.” Due to the patriarchal nature of our culture, Women’s Ways of Knowing have been ignored or discounted. I remember what an earth-shattering event it was for me to read that book as an adult and begin the process of reclaiming all that I “knew.”

The third book in the trilogy, Earth song, takes off in a different direction. I don’t know that I would recommend the book itself, the plot is disjointed and difficult to follow. But the message of this one is really powerful and has stayed with me the longest.

The story begins when the women accidentally discover that they have found a cure for hunger…music. They spend hours and hours talking about what to do with this discovery. They know that if they go public with this knowledge, the “powers that be” will find a way to control and distribute music much the way they do with food, and people will continue to go hungry. So they develop a strategy that is bold, subversive and courageous. They decide to apprentice themselves out as music teachers all over the galaxy. You may wonder why I call this strategy courageous. That is because they know, when they adopt it, that none of them will live to see the end of hunger. It will be generations before that happens. But they also know that this is the only way to ensure that the music belongs to the people.

I’ve thought so often about this story. The courage and patience and hope of it all. And then I’m reminded of the words of Rubem Alvez:

What is hope? It is the presentiment that imagination is more real and reality less real than it looks. It is the suspicion that the overwhelming brutality of fact that oppresses us and represses us is not the last word. It is the hunch that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe, that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual, and that, in a miraculous and unexpected way, life is preparing the creative events which will open the way to freedom and to resurrection.

But, hope must live with suffering. Suffering, without hope, produces resentment and despair. And hope, without suffering, creates illusions, naiveté, and drunkenness. So, let us plant dates, even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see.

This is the secret of discipline. Such disciplined love is what has given saints, revolutionaries, and martyrs the courage to die for the future they envision; they make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope.

And I’m reminded of this story told by Margaret Wheatly:

Yitzhak Perlman, the great violinist, was playing in New York. Yitzhak Perlman was crippled by polio as a young child, so the bottom part of his body doesn’t work well and he wears these very prominent leg braces and comes on in crutches, in a very painful, slow way, hauling himself across the stage. Then he sits down and, very carefully, unbuckles the leg braces and lays them down, puts down his crutches, and then picks up his violin. So, this night the audience had watched him slowly, painfully, walk across the stage; and he began to play. And, suddenly, there was a loud noise in the hall that signaled that one of his four strings on his violin had just snapped.

Everyone expected that they would be watching Yitzhak Perlman put back the leg braces, walk slowly across the stage, and find a new violin. But this is what happened. Yitzhak Perlman closed his eyes for a moment. Yitzhak Perlman paused. And then he signaled for the conductor to begin again. And he began from where they had left off. And here’s the description of his playing, from Jack Riemer in the Houston Chronicle:

“He played with such passion, and such power, and such purity, as people had never heard before. Of course, everyone knew that it was impossible to play this symphonic work with three strings. I know that. You know that. But that night, Yitzhak Perlman did not know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awe-filed silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. Everyone was screaming and cheering and doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had just done. He smiled. He wiped the sweat from his brow. He raised his bow to us. And then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet and pensive and reverent tone,

“‘You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.'”

Apr 20 2008

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Super Session?



Bloomfield and Kooper – Sonny Boy Williamson



Traffic – Dr. Mr. Fantasy



Beatles – Hey Jude



T-Bone Walker – Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  Find something better.  This is for your listening enjoyment while you are reading something in another tab or window.

Apr 20 2008

Time To Sacrifice, Over 5yrs. To Long Without!!

The first part of this post is especially directed towards those, the greater majority of this country, who do not have any Direct Connection to the Ongoing Occupation Theaters of Iraq and Afganistan, certainly not the Connection of those Serving, Mutiple Tours, and their Families and Close Friends !

The second part will be a Shoutout, and partial repost, with updated information, to All !

I received an e-mail from a local activist, and friend, and his group, with a great idea to not only Help the Returning Veterans, Help many aren’t getting from the Government, You, but to Finally do some Personal Sacrificing!

They are working with Nadia McCaffery, a ‘Gold Star Mother’, who’s son, Patrick McCaffery, who was Killed in the Iraq Occupation, leaving behind not only his Mother and extended family but a Wife and Child.

You know that Tax Rebate Check, some or all of you filing your taxes this year, are getting back! Well instead of going ‘Shopping’, as the ‘decider’ would like you to do, Donate All Of It, or at least part, a big part, to a Worthy Cause or Charity that are going to Help Those Returning from the Failed Policies most of you Readily Supported in the beginning, but slowly, way to slowly, have come to realize the Huge Damage we have done, not only to the Countries Invaded but to this Country as well. And the legacy we Responsible Adults are leaving to our Children, some of which is already rearing it’s ugly head !

The ones who need your help, Right Now, are the many who are returning and suffering from the wounds of War, physically and mentally, the deep mental scars some of the returning will live with the rest of their lives. All who serve in War Theaters are changed, mentally, from what they once were,  some experiance that change much more than the others, none escape !

The idea of the local group, but anyone anywhere can Sacrifice, is to Donate All or at least Some, of that Rebate Check to Nadia, his Wife and Child, to realize a Dream they have to Honor the Son and Husband/Father they lost and to Help his Brothers and Sisters who are returning after serving Mutiple Tours. That Dream is Veterans Village.org a place, actually a number of facilities in differant parts of the country, that returning Veterans can go to in seeking help for the Trauma of War and PTSD.

I wrote about Veterans Village.org in a number of posts before, parts of which are below:

First ‘Veterans Village’ Set to Open in California in November

A World War II veteran, who wants to remain anonymous, made the donation late last month after hearing McCaffrey speak in Petaluma two months ago about her vision for the Veterans’ Village program

SNIP:

Please Read The Rest Here

About The Veterans Village

Veterans Village.org

Veterans are the light at the tip of the candle, illuminating the way for the whole nation. If veterans can achieve awareness, transformation, understanding, and peace, they can share with the rest of society the realities of war. And they can teach us how to make peace with ourselves and each other, so we never have to use violence to resolve conflicts again”.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Sergeant Patrick Ryan McCaffrey

Foundation for War Veterans

Please visit the Veterans Village.org for further information.

Mission

The mission of Patrick McCaffrey’s Foundation is to promote mental and holistic wellness and palliative care among veterans returning from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially those suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), by providing a live-in retreat village, wherein with the help of trained professional staff and volunteers, veterans will find inner healing and an eventual re-entry into society.  The Patrick McCaffrey Foundation, named after Sergeant Patrick R. McCaffrey, the first California National Guard, since WWII, (from the 579th Engineer Battalion from Petaluma), to lose his life in Iraq on June 22, 2004, is committed to bringing healing and hospice, as well as career counseling and training, to veterans returning from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its founding member and President, Nadia McCaffrey, mother of Sergeant Patrick McCaffrey, wants to carry on the work her son would have pursued had his life not been curtailed so prematurely. Patrick, who did not expect to be deployed to Iraq, decided to honor the commitment he made to help people by going to Iraq as a leader and Combat Life Saver, bringing healing and love to his fellow soldiers and the Iraqi children.

Visit the Veterans Village Site for further information.

And this recent report:

GUERNEVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Merry Lane, a cul-de-sac shaded by redwoods in Sonoma County wine country, would seem a pleasant place to recover from the psychic wounds of war. Nadia McCaffrey’s dream is to set up a group home there for veterans plagued by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Group Housing for Vets Raises Concerns

I posted about Nadia McCaffrey’s, her sons wife and childs, dream of a Memorial to Honor her sons Service and Sacrifice, ‘Veterans Village’, Here. Part of that post:

Veterans are the light at the tip of the candle, illuminating the way for the whole nation. If veterans can achieve awareness, transformation, understanding, and peace, they can share with the rest of society the realities of war. And they can teach us how to make peace with ourselves and each other, so we never have to use violence to resolve conflicts again”.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Sergeant Patrick Ryan McCaffrey

Foundation for War Veterans

Visit the Veterans Village Site for further information.

Before the deployment to Iraq: Patrick McCaffrey with wife and daughter

PLEASE JOIN US IN MAKING The Patrick Ryan McCaffrey Village-Retreat for Veterans, a Reality.

A place of peace, a place to heal, a place to renew… …. a place built by gratitude.

Now the local group, and Nadia, would greatly appreciate All the help your Refund Checks would do, as would I, towards reaching their Dream. But I know many of you may know about other grassroots endeavors, started by others, to Help the returning Troops, or may have a favorite charity to donate to. On any donations check out, completely, the organization, Especially after the recent reports about Charities Dirrected towards Veterans, set up more to Enrich the Few than to Help the Veteran. Any Donations Twowards Legitimate Groups or Charities, Helping Veterans, Would Be Greatly Appreciated and Would Be A Worthy Sacrifice, that most aren’t feeling nor doing.

I would also suggest a donation to any worthy organization or charity that are Helping the Citizens of the Occupied Countries, Ravaged by our Invasions and Occupations. one of my favorite organizations is Doctors Without Borders. Though many of the NGO’s that were working in Iraq during the Sanctions will find it Extremely hard to return to help the Iraqi People, due to the Extreme Danger and the Hatreds now felt by many of those living the nightmare that has taken over their country since our invasion, many still have the connections with Iraqi Citizens they once worked with that can help their fellow country persons.

Don’t just Think about it, DO IT !! If Congress won’t raise the Monies needed, and were never thought about by anyone in the Ever Increasing Beat of the War Drums leading up to the invasions, especially the Illegal Iraq Invasion, than some of that Money Is Coming To You, You who aren’t Sacrificing, to go Shopping!!

The second request can be done by everyone, and it to will be a Sacrifice because I’m calling for You to do something that will directly hit your pocket book and wallets.

Recently I posted the following on some boards and sent out to individuals, “May Day! May Day! May Day!”

MAKE MAYDAY A “NO PEACE, NO WORK HOLIDAY”!, this link goes to the post on my site. The first part of that post is:

The following was written by Jack Heyman a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks


Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

While millions of people worldwide have marched against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and last week’s New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 81 percent believe the country is headed in the wrong direction – key concerns being the war and the economy – the war machine inexorably grinds on.


Amid this political atmosphere, dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers’ Day, to call for an end to the war.


This decision came after an impassioned debate where the union’s Vietnam veterans turned the tide of opinion in favor of the anti-war resolution. The motion called it an imperial action for oil in which the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being wasted and declared May Day a “no peace, no work” holiday. Angered after supporting Democrats who received a mandate to end the war but who now continue to fund it, longshoremen decided to exercise their political power on the docks.


Last month, in response to the union’s declaration, the Pacific Maritime Association, the West Coast employer association of shipowners, stevedore companies and terminal operators, declared its opposition to the union’s protest. Thus, the stage is set for a conflict in the run up to the longshore contract negotiations.


The last set of contentious negotiations (in 2002) took place during the period between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Iraq. Representatives of the Bush administration threatened that if there were any of the usual job actions during contract bargaining, then troops would occupy the docks because such actions would jeopardize “national security.” Yet, when the PMA employers locked out the longshoremen and shut down West Coast ports for 11 days, the “security” issue vanished. President Bush then invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, forcing longshoremen back to work under conditions favorable to the employers.


The San Francisco longshore union has a proud history of opposition to the war in Iraq, being the first union to call for an end to the war and immediate withdrawal of troops. Representatives of the union spoke at anti-war rallies in February 2003, including one in London attended by nearly 2 million people, the largest ever held in Britain. Executive Board member Clarence Thomas went to Iraq with a delegation to observe workers’ rights during the occupation.


At the start of the war in Iraq, hundreds of protesters demonstrated on the Oakland docks, and longshoremen honored their picket lines. Without warning, police in riot gear opened fire with so-called less-than-lethal weapons, shooting protesters and longshoremen alike with wooden dowels, rubber bullets, pellet bags, concussion grenades and tear gas. A U.N. Human Rights Commission investigator characterized the Oakland police attack as “the most violent” against anti-war protesters in the United States.


And finally, last year, two black longshoremen going to work in the port of Sacramento were beaten, Maced and arrested by police under the rubric of Homeland Security regulations ordained by the “war on terror.”


There’s precedent for this action. In the ’50s, French dockworkers refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and helped to bring that colonial war to an end. At the ILWU’s convention in San Francisco in 2003, A. Q. McElrath, an octogenarian University of Hawaii regent and former ILWU organizer from the pineapple canneries, challenged the delegates to act for social justice, invoking the union’s slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” She concluded, “The cudgel is on the ground. Will you pick it up?”


It appears that longshore workers may be doing just that on May Day and calling on immigrant workers and others to join them.


May Day protest


WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.


WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near Fisherman’s Wharf)

.

WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.


FOR MORE INFORMATION:  May Day!**ILWU Homepage**Transport Workers Solidarity Committee  or call (415) 776-8100.

A CALL TO ACTION ALL OUT ON MAYDAY TO STOP THE WAR!


I, and others, are calling for Everyone to show Solidarity with the Longshoremen, on the West Coast by taking the Day Off, International Workers’ Day, to call for an end to the war


The call isn’t for people to take paid sick days or holidays, it’s to take off this day, unpaid, by those who wish to show Solidarity, which would show a reduction of productivity and with no pay there would be no taxes taken for that days wages and used towards waging the war!


You don’t need to organize any large rallies, though some actions with press coverage would send the message better, you don’t need to do much of anything unless a need is present to do something as an individual or in groups, Just Take The Day Off In Solidarity and to End The War!!

Some updated information on ‘May Day’ Actions already planned:


From Dave over at AfterDowningStreet

Proposal for May First

UPDATE: There seems to be enough interest to do this. We’ve set up a system for you to post your plans in and find others’ plans in your district. Please POST HERE.

May 1st is shaping up to be quite a day of resistance, with strikes by the ILWU, the Teamsters, Postal Workers, plus immigrant rights rallies, and peace and impeachment activities. ( More info here. ) It’s Mission Accomplished Day, Downing Street Minutes Day, and May Day, the original Labor Day. If we were to send an announcement to all pro-impeachment groups’ biggest lists urging everyone to visit their congress member’s nearest office at high noon, local time, on May 1st, would you do it? Please post your comments below, so that we can gauge interest. Thanks.


Once Again: Don’t Just Think About It; DO IT!!

Apr 20 2008

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Super Session?



Bloomfield and Kooper – Sonny Boy Williamson



Traffic – Dr. Mr. Fantasy



Beatles – Hey Jude



T-Bone Walker – Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  Find something better.  This is for your listening enjoyment while you are reading something in another tab or window.

Apr 20 2008

Even Truman Would Turn In His Grave

`In Mishima’s Morning News the lead story by the New York Times is one of the most ‘must reads’ coming  out of the Iraq War. In painstaking detail, the Times shows, with exquisite examples, how the corrupt TV news outlets colluded with the Pentagon to sell and re-sell this war. These News Chiefs, despite claims of innocence go down as war criminals in my book,

But that is not what this diary is about.

I have a masters in public administration and I am 60 and retired after 15 years working for the government at the highest levels. This is some of the best investigative journalism I have ever read. I thank the New York times for publishing it. I now want you to do one more thing that is imperative to all your readers and the paper itself. I might ad the country needs you to do this also. Do not let this story drop. Keep it up dig deeper and keep us informed. If you do this this country may have a chance. I wrote my final paper for my masters on the power of the press. You have the power to make change more than any politician. The government knows this and that is why they spined those generals. Please I beg of you get this info out and not just for a day or a week but for months until they are held accountable to the people. My mother a Biologist is 89 and I asked her if there was ever in her lifetime anything as bad as this and she said no. I also agree with this. The country is falling on all fronts and if we are not careful it will slip away. Please try and find out for us how much Bush and Chaney have made on this war. Look into Bush Sr, who will pass his fortune to his son, and his connections to the Carlyle Group. They think we are all dumb.See if you can find these connections and than the real truth will be told.

– wixie, east Hampto

n

http://community.nytimes.com/a…

That is a quote from one of over 450 people who, at this hour,have already commented in the Times to this story, I cannot stress strongly enough how much I agree with Wixie – we cannot, must not let this story die.

No analysis of mine can do the story justice. You already have the link from Mishima. Read it.“

Apr 20 2008

Caught a Virus on My Computer

It’s called AOH.  Apparently.

Have you ever had that moment, when it just clicks?  The metaphors and cliches describing the the moment are myriad.  It dawned on me.  I was struck by the notion.       Then I saw it clear as day.

I was reading Booman’s recent observation about the press yet again  seeming to manipulate things in an anti-Obama way. And Boise Lib’s take on finger gate.  And plasticseapolluter’s catch of the job the foreign press is doing on our country’s embrace of torture and terror tactics, while the U.S. media more or less ignores these crimes.  And OPOL’s ode to a love — and to a life as an activist artist.

Just reading on a Sunday morning, when I couldn’t sleep.  And I got it.  Got something.  Finally.  Something I’ve maybe known.  But I got it.  Like when the lightning hit the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the road to Ragu.

It doesn’t matter what “they” say.  It doesn’t matter what “they” do.  It doesn’t matter who “they” are.  “They” can’t seem to stop the forces that are making our society able to communicate in real time on a peer-to-peer basis.

You tube?  It’s not just a reference for northern Michiganders getting out on the Rifle River anymore.

Blaaugg?  Not a slight lapse in etiquette after a particularly satisfying meal.

Sell phone?  Not a question for the lady running the garage sale, as you express interest in the old Bakelite rotary model.

I haven’t watched the television in a long, long time.

Our ability to communicate is ripping the lid off democratic forces.  They can’t control it.  They must be scared to death.  There is no one-source, one-way mass media to stuff it down our throats.

Obama is going to upset Hillary Clinton.  Something he should have never done.  Not in the old world.  Our country is going to elect a vibrant, wonderful black man as president.  (And I’m not wearing blinders, I know he is flawed — but to me he seems a whole hell of a lot more like “us” than any other candidate in my lifetime).  We’re going to elect him, because a majority of us who see him, like and respect and are inspired by him.

Not because he is a favorite of corporate donors.  Or party insiders.  Or the media class that tells us what to think.

They are loosing their grip on us.  We are the revolution.  And it really won’t be televised.  Who’d of thunk.

Truly.  Audacity of Hope.

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