Glenda in the Land of Oz

I'm Moving to the Peace Train

2006-08-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Well, the moving vans are here and I'm all packed up. I have made the decision to continue writing at The Peace Train, but will no longer maintain the Glenda in the Land of Oz blog.

I'd rather focus on one website and my committment to peace is there.

I also enjoy the community focus there as well as at The Blue Republic. My work against the war, against violence continues. I urge all you great bloggers to continue to carry the banner for peace and justice.

Come on over and read about the Codepink weekend of Peace and Uppity women!

And if you haven't joined, what are you waiting for?

Also, feel free to contact me over there. I will still try to get out and visit your blogs as often as possible!

Signing off, but not goodbye!

Guess Where I will be the next two days???

2006-08-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

I am off on Friday and Saturday to a Codepink Women's Retreat with lots of cool speakers.

I'll be back on Sunday! I will hopefully be coming back with pictures and stories.

Until then, please visit the Peace Train, and look at all the new things we have added!
And while you are at it try our sister site, The Blue Republic, if you haven't been there.

And to amuse you...a quote!

"Napoleon's campaign included a rapid conventional victory over Spanish armies but ignored the immediate requirement to provide a stable and secure environment for the people and the countryside.

The French should have expected ferocious resistance.

The Spanish people were accustomed to hardship, suspicious of foreigners, and constantly involved in skirmishes with security forces.

The French failed to analyze the history, culture, and motivations of the Spanish people, or to seriously consider their potential to support or hinder the achievement of French political objectives.

Napoleon's cultural miscalculation resulted in a protracted struggle.

The Spanish resistance drained the Empire's resources and was the beginning of the end of Napoleon's reign."

Now, does this scenario sound familiar?? Could it be that Bushpolean has met his Waterloo?

Cheney Visit Cost Taxpayers $4,500

2006-08-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - The tab from Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Boise is in and city taxpayers shelled out 4,500 dollars for police expenses related to his trip.

Though the visit was only a few hours from the time the Vice President touched down at Gowen Field until Air Force Two took off, Boise Police racked up 92 hours of overtime, what with the massages and pedicures that The Rifleman required.

Cheney was in town to stump for Republican first congressional district candidate Bill Sali and let the taxpayers foot the bill in this frontier town. In fact, he came full dressed in his frontier duds.

The first thing he did was to ask the attending syncophantic reporters if there were any shooting ranges he could visit, as he was keeping in fighting shape in case his country called him to defend his country from Ben Laden in Iraq or Afghanistan.

He brought his friend, little "W" to carry wood and polish his boots. Then, he left for Cincinnati Thursday to help fill Congressman Steve Chabot's campaign coffers.

The vice president will attend a private fundraiser there. He said that since Cinncinnati was a civilized town, and had a real public library, he would shave and put on real pants for the party.

Attendees will pay $1,000 per person or $1,500 per couple and it costs $2,100 to attend the reception and get a picture with Vice President Cheney. Gee, I wish I had that kind of money.

But I sure wouldn't spend it getting my picture taken with Cheney. Already have a picture of me and Bush that I keep face-down and hidden in the closet from his days as Governor.

Stop the Femicide in Juarez!!

2006-08-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

Since 1993, almost 400 women and girls have been murdered and somewhere between 70-4,500 remain missing in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico. I have been following the murders of these women for almost 10 years. Ciudad Juarez, an industrial border town next to El Paso has a population of around 2 million. I've traveled to El Paso and Juarez several times to speak at Border Conferences, once in 1998 and again in 2004.

While in Juarez, I met a woman named Esther Chavez who was trying to raise money to start the first rape crisis center in Juarez to help victims of violence. She was barely 5 feet tall and in her sixties. Esther heard the growing community alarm over the murders of over 200 women as well as the violence against Mexican women in general and decided to do something about it. She spoke out and brought global attention the problem of violence against women in Mexico.

Esther and her group of mostly women often walked the desert, looking for new bodies or remains of the dead, because the police either could not or would not do their jobs. Many of the uneducated young women were so poorly paid at the Maquilas (border factories) that the only place they had to stay was in the desert shantytowns, cardboard and wire homes with no water, sewage or electricity. Their buses dropped them off in the middle of the night on a lonely desert road. Sometimes the killers waited for them to get off the buses, sometimes they disappeared from a city street.

Of these dead and missing, many were killed by pimps, drug dealers, husbands and boyfriends. However, at least a third of the deaths remain unexplained and for a long time police had no suspects. Local authorities have dismissed the killings as a side effect to the city's mushrooming industrial sector, which brings tides of hungry migrant workers to the area desperate for work and money. Others have speculated that since mostly women are hired in the Maquilas, animosity against women by unemployed men has increased.

Most victims are slender, dark-haired girls between 14 and 18 years old who work in one of these factories. Many are killed on their way to and from work. Their bodies have been found - sometimes with their blue factory-issued aprons on -- dumped in the desert or next to the roads leading to the unlit squatter camps ringing the city. In some cases, the victims are mutilated and horribly disfigured. Many are strangled, then stabbed repeatedly. Adding to the homicidal maniacs the local heroin and cocaine distribution networks have made Juarez and its sprawling shantytowns one of the most dangerous places on earth.

While I was at this conference, I walked across the bridge with two other Latina women to Juarez. I noticed graffiti like paintings on telephone poles around the city. Each telephone pole was sprayed with a black figure of a woman or a cross, indicating places where women had disappeared in the city.

It was chilling to ride through Juarez, seeing so many of these posters.

Now there is what the authorities are calling a new break in the case. Edgar Alvarez Cruz, 30, was arrested on immigration violations in Denver and flown to the immigration detention center in El Paso, where he awaits extradition to Mexico sometime next week, officials said. Mexican officials said two other men, not identified, were in custody also.

The three men are accused of being part of a gang whose members raped and killed at least 10 of the women in Juarez, according to statements Thursday by U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza. U.S. officials called Alvarez Cruz's arrest a "major break" in the cases.

U.S. and Mexican investigators stated that part of the overall investigation focused on drug dealers who reportedly raped and killed women during cocaine parties to celebrate successful smuggling operations.

Now, knowing that these men allegedly killed 10 of these many dead and missing women, who killed the rest? Why is this being touted as the big break in the case?

And why does this not make the news in the way that the murder of one small white girl does?

I tried to watch the news yesterday evening and all 4 major channels had talking heads speculating about the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey. Not that her death was not also horrifying, but let's give equal time to the other faceless, nameless women who are not white and have died under equally cruel circumstances. Why after 10 years, is this all we can come up with in terms of finding these murderers?

Safe Sex as a Fashion Statement

2006-08-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

Condoms are in the news!!!

TORONTO (Reuters) - Condoms were very much in style as a fashion accessory at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, showing up on strait-laced men, shy teenagers and African grandmothers.

"There's a great need to de-stigmatize condoms around the world, especially in Africa," said Franck DeRose, executive director of The Condom Project, which aims to get people comfortable about condoms, especially those living in countries where the little piece of latex is considered taboo.

To do that, the project has a program that gets people making their own condom art pin. It all starts with a craft table, packaged condoms, scraps of colored paper, candy and other double-sided tape.

DeRose said that creating wearable art out of condoms attracts people who normally wouldn't wear the prophylactics, let alone touch them or even utter the word.

"It opens the door," said DeRose. "We find that we're very, very successful."

Almost 400,000 condoms have been decorated and turned into brooches or pins around the world including India, Thailand, Senegal and Burkina Faso, he said.

Just this week alone, about 30,000 of the pins have been decorated at the conference, DeRose said.

People from different cultures and backgrounds wear them, trade them and even argue over safe-sex related topics while making them, including when to broach the subject with kids, DeRose said.

"We're not pushing it on people. They come to us and the information is there," said DeRose, adding his group teams up with the local information groups in the communities where his team visits.

"I don't think it's healthy or appropriate to change a culture. But we can change the risky behavior within a community."

DeRose, an artist from Washington, D.C., came up with the idea three years ago while talking about ways to get more people to wear condoms to fight the HIV epidemic. The program has since spread around the world.

In Glenda's Garden

2006-08-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

I was out watering the zinnias late yesterday afternoon and noticed that there were 4 or 5 monarch butterflies, a hummingbird and numerous bees buzzing around in the garden,

If it hadn't been 103 degrees, I'm sure I would have appreciated that idyllic scene even more. There is also a honeybee in the purple ruellia, which proliferates somewhat like bamboo.

Many of the monarchs pass through Texas on their way to winter over in Mexico, where they can be seen lounging on the beaches with tiny sombreros.

You see, the problem is not getting into Mexico, but getting back out, as the border will be heavily guarded by the nonmonarchistas who claim that these butterflies are taking work away from American butterflies.

But you and I know that all butterflies work hard in this country no matter where they come from and the real ones profiting are the corporations, whom no one really likes to talk about.

Apple admits excessive iPod hours

2006-08-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

File under, Hey, I love my Mac and my iPod as much as the next person, but...!

and creates the iCowpod,
boosting the economy as well as
the sales forecast for Apple Computer!

Think this is farfetched?

Apple admits excessive iPod hours

The iPod is the world's most popular MP3 player

"Apple Computer has said a report of labour conditions at its iPod plant in China found workers did more than 60 hours a week a third of the time.

Staff making the world's most popular MP3 player also worked more than six consecutive days 25% of the time.

Apple said the hours were "excessive" and said its supplier would now be enforcing a "normal" 60-hour week.

The California-based firm said its report found "no evidence of enforced labour" or use of child workers."

OK, does anyone here want to sign up for a "NORMAL" 60 hour work week? Because you know they would do it here if they could. So what is the real problem here?

A report in England's "Mail on Sunday"alleged the plant's workers make roughly the equivalent of $100 per month and often worked 15-hour days, showing photos of dormitories where workers, mostly young women, sleep 100 to a room, and of stark cement buildings from behind high chain-link fences that resemble what we in the West call prisons.

Is the problem that the working conditions are so bad, the hours too long? Is it that Apple allegedly was slow in investigating these claims, perhaps hoping that the furor would die down?

Is the real problem that China and many poor nations have a gross oversupply of non-skilled labour? Lack of education? So when the only choice for poor Chinese women is working in horrid factory conditions or working as a prostitute, what are we to do?

If we boycott the product, does it help these workers? If we all write and demand that Apple and other corporations begin to set better working conditions, does this make a difference?

Will corporations begin to treat workers in poor countries better when their eye is on the stock price and short-term gains? What creates change? Tell me, how do we solve this moral dilemma? What helps poor workers pull themselves up when there is no bootstrap?

Jon Benet Ramsy's Killer Caught??

2006-08-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

Is it possible? Did they really catch the guy who killed Jon Benet Ramsey?? Hot DAMN!!!

Jon Benet was found, murdered in her family's home in December of 1996. She was just 6 years old. I was working as a therapist at a Rape Crisis Center when the news came out about her murder. I thought, as many did, that it had to be someone in the family or someone who knew the family. It usually is. But not always.

There are serial sex offenders, especially pedophiles who stalk their victims or become obsessed with a certain type of victim. A lot of my friends speculated that when the Ramseys made her into a sterotypical "sex symbol" child, they painted a target on her back. There were even rumors that the Ramseys were protecting her brother, and that he was the killer. No one really knew what to think.

Although I am still in the field, it is at a statewide level. These days I think a lot about prevention. Before we can work on preventing this crime, we need to have a better understanding about why people commit sexual assault.

Please tell me, if you will, your opinion: why do you think a person does this? What makes a person rape another person?

Madame Chiang Kaishek's Kimono

2006-08-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

LeftofCenter and Lily asked me to tell this story over at The Blue Republic a while back, and I am reprinting it here for those of you who might wish to read this story.

This is the story of how I came to be in possession of what I believe is Madame Chiang Kaishek's kimono.

My grandmother's younger brother, a rogue and a rascal, was one of the most colorful figures I ever met. We called him Uncle Henri. He was born just after the turn of the last century in New Orleans in the French Quarter, the son of a Frenchman and and Irish mother. When I was a child, he lived all over the world, although he swooped into Texas for holidays and visits.

During World War II, he was a codebreaker and photographer in the Navy because he was gifted with a near perfect memory, one of the better genes that somehow missed me. He could remember the details from a newspaper article he'd read years before and summon up dates and names. The MoMA in San Francisco has a collection of his black and white photographs, as he lived there in his later years.

During WWII, he was on the deck of the Battleship Arizona when it was bombed in Pearl Harbor. Few survived that day. I have Kodachrome slides that he took of the ships and aircraft carriers and navy personnel in Hawaii right before the bombing. Because he was topside that Sunday morning, attending Mass, he survived. He said he helped the priest give Communion to dying soldiers before the ship went down.

He lived in Copenhagen and Italy some years in the 1950s, brokered grain deals between the Pope and Nassar of Egypt, but before that he was in China.

Shortly after the end of World War II, China was engulfed in a full-fledged civil war. It was won in 1949 by the communists, led by Chairman Mao, with the old leader, Chiang Kaishek and the remnants of the Kuomintang fleeing to Taiwan where they were protected from annihilation by a US naval blockade.

This was where my Uncle Henri came in. He was living in China by the end of the war. He worked for IBM, supposedly, but my grandmother said he was really in China as an American spy.

My Uncle Henri told me this part of his story when he was still alive.

He said that when Chiang Kaishek was routed by the Communists, he came to my uncle and asked for help. My uncle went to the American Embassy and somehow obtained a white Cadillac and gave it to Chiang Kaishek for his escape. My uncle said the General was so grateful that he gave him one of his wife's best kimonos.

I showed this kimono to my friend Hong once when she was over for dinner. Hong grew up in China and is an engineer here. She was quite stunned when she saw it. She said it was not a kimono that an "ordinary Chinese person" would have, the workmanship and silk embroidery is too elaborate. She also told me that it is not one that would have been made for mass consumption.

So here is the question...was my uncle telling the truth? Is this really the kimono of Madame Chiang Kaichek?

Keeping Austin Weird

2006-08-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

You see, more of the weirdness I live with!

Austin FreakNEWS from the Austin Chronicle:

This was the scene during last week's First Thursday festivities, as neighbors mounted a singing demonstration in front of the South Congress Cafe, protesting the upscale Trudy's spin-off's prolonged refusal to comply with city code centering around an illegally built deck and fence erected atop a city sidewalk – all constructed despite four city stop- work orders.

The city plans to take Trudy's back to court after the business failed to meet the terms of a deferred adjudication agreement made following an initial lawsuit last year. Hard-hat-clad neighbors sang Sixties protest anthems, reworded to decry the eatery's injustices. "We're directing our collective frustration in a creative, South Austin way," said nearby resident Kathie Tovo.
Here's where it got weird.

At about the same time, a handful of fire-and-brimstone evangelicals arrived carrying signs depicting the damned engulfed in the flames of hell, and a dozen or so performers gorily made-up as zombies, advertising a new production, limped past the protest, completely bewildering passers by and creating a freaky scene of Village People meets Rocky Horror Picture Show. "This is so South Congress," someone said.

Just another day in Austin.

Tour of Texas, Signs of the Times

2006-08-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

In honor of the fact that I have to drive to Dallas today and back tonight, I thought I would post some pictures of (mostly) rural Texas that I have gathered for your amusement, that you might understand better the climate that Bush was raised in and might even give you, perhaps, some small compassion for his mental impairment and emotional underdevelopment.

Cowboy funeral home.

Not a real speed trap, just a picture of one...perhaps the city budget was shy one police car.

Well, I really didn't have to see this!

Sign for the Knox City Golf Club.

Because Bar-B Que is messy.

We are proud that no child is left behind ...Conan the Barbarian, required reading in this school district.

Pralines, yum!

Almost a palace by Texas standards, entrance through the mouth of the shark.

There's a limo ride in your future at Budget Casket, because burying your loved ones is just too damned expensive!

Truth in advertising in Kyle Texas, just south of Austin.

Perhaps if the troops just drank more of this, they wouldn't have war fatigue.

Get in the swing, seriously.

Mosaic bug. This one's for Mary.

Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear...this is actually a bar in the middle of nowhere.

Pretty self-explanatory.

Ususally there is a gun shop inside as well.

This truck is actually the sign for Little Joe's baithouse.

You also can tell that Texans do love their flag motifs. The flag has the ability to show up on just about anything.

Friday Dog Blogging

2006-08-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

When my small Boston Terrier gets stressed out (and it was around 105 degrees here yesterday) she sits by the back door and does yoga.

She likes to play with my granddaughter.

Sometimes she thinks she is an art critic.

She can also be quite dramatic, (I call it hystrionic) especially during a thunderstorm, although she is getting better. She has learned to "talk" about her discomfort and has done quite well in her doggie support group.
When she sleeps, you can hear her snoring though 2 closed doors.

She thinks she looks like a famous movie star.

What do you see?

2006-08-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

Back by popular demand!

Guess what this picture is!!!

Here's an opportunity to improve your puzzle skills a bit!

Try and guess what this is!

Is this a person or a chess piece?

Is this a goblet or a face?

Is this a skull or a couple?

Do you see a young woman or an old woman?

Is this a white vase or two side views of Bush?

Angels in the Architecture

2006-08-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Hi, friends!! Come join the Peace Train!!

I was thinking about my maternal grandmother recently. This is a picture of her, standing with her younger sister, Marion, whom we knew as Aunt Teet. Aunt Teet died at 93, but was still walking 2 miles a day right before she died.

Although few people know this, My grandmother was probably responsible for ending World War I.

My grandmother had a steel will, a great laugh and a strong impact on my life. She was a hugger and a kisser. When I was a child she lived about two miles away from us and was a frequent presence. She was a good cook and often brought over desserts or came just to visit and talk. My grandfather, who had planted armies of red amaryllis around the entire house, often went outside to tidy up the flower beds.

Momo, as we called her, loved to sew and made most of my clothes. By the time I was 6, all I had to do was draw a picture and she would whip up a pattern and make whatever I desired, not that I cared much what I wore at that age.

I remember drawing a picture of myself sitting on the bank of a creek with a cane fishing pole. By my side there was a can of worms. I was a tomboy. I loved to go down to the "scramble tracks" as we called it with my brothers to find crawdads in the storm ditch by the woods. We'd spend hours there, playing at being pirates and having adventures. I was allowed to run wild just like my brothers.

I showed her that drawing and asked for a simple dress with that picture on the front. She nearly laughed herself silly. She told me with tears in her eyes that it would be very hard to find fabric with worms printed on it.

She made the dress, but we substituted another fabric, although I cannot remember now what it was. What I do remember was that she took me to J.C. Penney's and let me pick out the fabric I liked, which made me feel very grown-up and tremendously pleased with myself.

This is a picture of me and two of my five brothers when I was in about the 4th grade. She made my coat. It had a brown velvet collar.

Even as an old woman, Momo had a beautiful smile, with deep dimples and blue-gray eyes. Her skin was white as milk and as a young woman, her hair was a rich sable. Her sister, my Aunt Teet, once told me that when Alice was young, she was known as "The Belle of New Orleans" because she was so beautiful and had so many beaus.

My great-aunt Teet was not beautiful in the same way, but she was handsome and original-looking, which I thought was more interesting. She had a clever, frank and generous disposition and her eyes twinkled when she looked at me. Some people barely notice you when you are a child, but I liked it when their eyes looked into mine and saw me.

And I liked to look into grownups eyes and "see" them, which sometimes made them uncomfortable. Sometimes I made a point to look at grownups so they wouldn't underestimate me just because I was a child. I let them know I was watching them. It was my way of feeling that power of the stare and showing them that I knew my own worth, so they'd better not trifle with me.

But I digress. Teet was never jealous of her sister, in fact, she did not care for beaus. Or for being pretty. She was quite intelligent in a thoughtful way, a voracious reader and was hooked on the New York Times crossword puzzle, which she finished every night in bed up into her early 90s.

Aunt Teet and her partner, whom we called Aunt Susie, lived together for 50 years in Tulsa and were devoted to each other. They took trips around the world together and brought back fabulous slideshows for us to see of Hawaii, Paris, Italy, all exotic faraway destinations for a kid growing up in Texas.

My grandmother, Alice Madeline Leleu, was a devout but not overly devout Catholic. She collected angels before angels became acceptable icons among the Protestant sects. Her house, kept meticulously, was full of angels. She had big ones, small ones, paintings, sculptures and angel coffee cups. She even had pink ceramic mother and baby cow angels with wings and shiny gold haloes. In retrospect, she was probably somewhat obsessive-compulsive about all her enthusiasms, but I just thought she was fun.

The walls had special shelves that my grandfather made to hold her collection of over 2,000 angels. We always knew what to get her for her birthday. A trip to the dimestore and we brought her our small offerings. She prized our gifts with all the reverence she gave to the ones her brother brought back from Denmark or Italy, where he lived for a time.

But her angels weren't just for show. She was in relationship with them. She talked to them daily, asked favors and made deals. She saw them. When she needed a parking space, she would start talking to them when we were about a block away from our destination. She would said, "OK, angels, fly your little wingies and find me a parking spot."

She said you had to give them travel time to get the job done. Sure enough, there was always a car pulling out right near the door of the department store. I don't remember her ever not getting what she asked of them.

My grandmother was born in 1898 in New Orleans' French quarter. She lived on Canal Street in a house that was torn down many decades ago. Her father, a Sorbonne-educated artist, grew up in a 16th century chateau in the south of France. Her mother was of Irish descent, the daughter of an engineer who oversaw the building of the New Orleans canal. Alice met my grandfather Joseph when she was 19.

Joe, my grandfather, was in the army, the youngest of eleven children who grew up on a hardscrabble farm in Severy, Kansas. He was playing the trombone in the Army band when they met at a military ball. He was 32 and shockingly Protestant, but she was not deterred. World War I was in progress and my grandfather was about to get sent to the front.

It was love at first sight, she told me. They knew each other only 5 days when he proposed. He had met his match in my grandmother. They got a dispensation from the priest and were married immediately.

Her family scraped some money together as a wedding gift to pay the hotel for their wedding night. It was hurried because my grandfather was scheduled to leave the next day for the European front, to fight in the war. I remember my grandmother telling me that she talked to all the saints and to her special angels to spare my grandfather from the war. Her 5 French male cousins were all dead, killed early in the war, as was an entire generation of young Frenchmen and she didn’t want him to go.

She said that when she woke up the morning after her wedding, they heard a great clamor down in the street. There was yelling and singing and strangers were kissing. When they opened their hotel window to ask what was happening, strangers yelled up that the Armistice had been signed and the war was over. We used to joke that she made a deal with her angels to end the war so that her Joe would not be sent away, and maybe we were right. She loved her Joe until the day he died, some 50 years later.

And that's how my grandmother, perhaps with the help of her angels, personally ended World War I.

How To Eat A Jalapeno

2006-08-08T04:10:00.000-07:00

I realize that many of you are not blessed to live in a place where nature provides one of God's great gifts, the jalapeno plant. Many of you from northern climes and other parts of the world may be wary of these potent peppers, and may have realized that the secret to Bush's rise to power is directly related to his intake of this lowly pepper. Well, that and stealing the election.

But I am here to tell you peacemongerers that the lowly jalapeno can give you the srength of giants and we must begin strengthening ourselves for the upcoming elections!

This small but potent pepper can fortify against the draconian influences of FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and others.

Jalapenos have the power to keep vampires like Condi away, as well as Hannity and Colmes.

However, they must be prepared correctly to get maximum effect.
The first thing, grow your own if possible and pick them fresh! One small bush will provide a lot of peppers! Here's mine in the garden.

Here's one way I like to eat them.

After washing the pepper, cut of the tops and slice longways. Some people wear plastic gloves, because the pepper seeds are hot enough to dissolve nail polish.

The seeds are quite small. Remove them unless you like that much heat.

Next, sautee in a pan with some butter, garlic, fresh parsley and some carmellized onions.

Put the cooked jalapeno mixure on top of a sliced, seeded avocado. Add cold tomatoes, chopped pecans, pinapple slices, even grated cheese for a salsa topping! Get a spoon and dig in! Bon appetit!

Iraq- Plans in Case of a Civil War

2006-08-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

Adapted From Newsweek
Exclusive: Iraq-Plans in Case of a Civil War
Aug. 14, 2006 issue- The Bushco insists Iraq is a long way from civil war, but the contingency planning has begun inside the White House and the Pentagon. President Bush will move U.S. troops out of Iraq if the country disintegrates into civil war, according to one senior Bush aide who declined to be named.

Bush's position on a pullout of U.S. troops emerged in response to Newsweek's questions about Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Warner warned last week that the president might require a new vote from Congress to allow troops to stay in Iraq in what he called "all-out civil war." But the senior Bush aide said the White House would need no prompting from Congress to get troops out "if the Iraqi government broke down completely along sectarian lines." (And how would they know?? What would be different?)

In sad response to this new contingency plan, Bush and Rummy joined Cher in an all-out show in Baghdad to win back the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people in a rousing rendition of "If I Could Turn Back Time."

If I could turn back time
If I could find a way I'd take back the war that hurt you and you'd stay

I don't know why I did the things I did I don't know why I said the things I said
Pride's like a knife it can cut deep inside
Words are like weapons they wound sometimes.

I didn't really mean to hurt you It wasn’t my fault, I know I made you cry, but baby

[Chorus:]
If I could turn back time
If I could find a way
I'd take back those bullets and bombs that hurt you…

The Book List

2006-08-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I was tagged by changeseeker to answer these questions!

(1) One book that changed your life? To Kill A Mockingbird, which I read when I was 12. It opened my mind as a southerner to facets and realities of racial injustice/inequity while I was still young.

(2) One book you have read more than once? The Hobbit by Tolkien

(3) One book you would want on a desert island? A survival book, perhaps The Black Stallion by Walter Farley because in the beginning it describes how to survive on an island.

(4) One book that made you laugh? I really must list oldies. The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi or The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek.

(5) One book that made you cry? Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud

(6) One book you wish you had written? Well, it will eventually have to be about the remarkable women in my family, my suffragette grandmother who attend Baylor University in 1917, (an unusual thing for a woman in Texas from a small town to do), the story of my French/Irish grandmother, who had 2,000 angels in her home and talked to them, and loved us fiercely, and my own mother, who graduated from college at 18, and became a translator, speaking 5 languages and danced in the ballet folklorico for several decades.

(7) One book you wish had never been written? Well, I am not one to censor books, as I think the reading public should vote with their pocketbook.

(8) One book you are currently reading? The Pulitzer-prize winning biography of Andrew Jackson, called the Age of Jackson by Arthur Schlesinger.

(9) One book you've been meaning to read? The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

(10) And tag five bloggers to do this, too. This thing has gotten pretty wide, so I'm not sure if my five have already been tagged, but they are: Earl Bockenfield, The Fat Lady Sings, ThePoetryman, JuBlue, and Tnkrbell

Dining in Fredericksburg, Texas

2006-08-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

I heard a lot of laughter coming from my director's office yesterday as I was heading down the hall. Boss Lady (BL) was laughing, hard. She was telling a co-worker about her dining experience in a small neighboring town called Fredericksburg.

BL is not a native Texan, in fact, she's been here quite a while, but some things still strike her as funny. The experience of eating at a Chinese restaurant in Fredericksburg, Texas struck her funny bone as being peculiarly Texas-ass funny.

Not that I have anything against Fredericksburg. In fact, it's a very pretty town. Situated in the rolling hill country west of Austin, it has small vineyards and peach orchards, wonderful limestone ranch houses and picturesque artist cottages built by the hard-working Germans and Czechs who settled parts of central Texas in the 1800s. It’s not too far from Johnson City, site of the LBJ ranch.

Apparently BL went into a Chinese restaurant in this small town for lunch. It looked Chinese in the traditional decor one comes to expect on the outside and was even run by Chinese owners. So far, so good. But the owners had made some small accommodations to the locals.

The first thing BL noted inside was the abundance of deer heads on the walls, which clashed starkly with the traditional Chinese decor. The other thing that struck her as odd was the presence of cream gravy on the menu. Apparently, many Texans found that they had extra rice at the end of the meal and wanted some cream gravy to top it off. Just their version of soul food.

Ah, Texas, gotta love it. Time isn't the only thing that gets distorted here.

The Time a Jew Partnered with the Klan for Justice

2006-08-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

I published his back in March when I was just beginning to blog.
Since I had few visitors then, I'm guessing that few of you have read this. So I'm reposting what I think is a fascinating true story!

I swear this story is true. In her final years, I met and befriended a sweet old Jewish woman named Miriam, who is no longer with us in this world. Or perhaps she is, and I can just no longer see her. Miriam died about 5 years ago. She was 93 years-old when she passed from this life and I still remember what a big heart she had. She loved to tell stories of her childhood and parents and the people she knew and loved. The year before she died, I visited her in Corpus Christi, and we sat together on her sofa and talked. She told me this story, which I am now about to pass on to you.

When Miriam's father, Hiram, and her mother, Hannah, emigrated to this country, they entered through Ellis Island, like many refugees from all over the world. After being processed and checked for head lice and other contagious illnesses, they were allowed to pass through customs, and, mingling with the many other tired strangers, they headed for the train station.

They bought train tickets with their meager remaining money and headed south, having no other intuitive or directional compass. They did not know anyone in this strange new country, but they were determined to make a new life for themselves. When the train finally reached the end of the line, they found themselves alone, standing by the tracks in a small rural decaying Mississippi town.

Without anywhere else to go and very little money, Hiram and Hannah decided to stay in Mississippi and raise their family. It was a time of anxiety mixed with expectation and hope, each day taking their feet further along the path into the unknown and away from their past, but they had faith.

After they settled, they discovered that there was another Jewish family living there, also immigrants from Eastern Europe. The father of the other Jewish family hired himself out as a handyman. Times were tough, but they all got by, and were always able to put some food on the table.

This small Mississippi town was all-white and all Protestant, except for these two Jewish families with their strange traditions, odd way of dressing and thick accents. And although many in the town looked down upon these two families, they were tolerated because they had skills the community needed.

The Black families, most descendents of freed slaves, lived in their own community a few miles down the road, not being encouraged or allowed to settle near the whites. Catholic immigrants, especially the rowdy intemperate Irish and noisy Italians, were looked down upon with suspicion as well. These townspeople didn't especially cozy up to Pope-lovers either. There was a pecking order. The Southern culture shimmered with an inbred quality reminiscent of Narcissus, who saw his reflection in the mirror, and fell in love with himself. What was familiar was what was tolerated and encouraged.

Miriam's father was a cobbler, and after a time, his hard work paid off and he was able to open a small shoe store. They co-existed peacefully with their neighbors, maintained a humble profile and kept to themselves.

There was a bit of trouble once when Miriam was a teenager. She was given the title of Tri-County Beauty Queen, and was the most beautiful girl in the three neighboring counties.

Miriam didn't exactly brag about her youthful good looks, she was beyond that when we met, but I saw a picture taken on her wedding day, and she was quite lovely.

The town had never selected a Jewish girl as the County Beauty Queen before and some Klan members were not happy with the election results, especially those who had daughters of the right age. These men and some women saw Miriam's reign as an insult to white American womanhood, saw Miriam as taking this title from their own girls.

Some muttered that the coveted position of Beauty Queen was something that defined the town, and should be given only to white Christian girls. They felt her winning was as if something pure, some part of their tradition was now lost to them, as other Southern traditions had been lost in the Civil War. The Civil War always lurked in the background of their psyches, never to be forgotten, never to be forgiven. It was an invisible cord that both bound them together and strangled their ability to change and move forward.

When the radiant Miriam rode in the parade float down Main Street, triumphant and somewhat giddy, she was unaware of this ill-feeling toward her. In an instant, she said, she went from ecstatic to terrified, as the float was doused with kerosene and set ablaze by one of those unhappy hate-filled men.

The hem of Miriam's dress caught fire, being one of those ruffled Southern confections. She nearly burned, but for the quick-thinking efforts of a classmate, a young Christian man who grabbed a blanket and smothered the flames on her dress, leaving her with only minor burns.

But the fact of Miriam being set on fire for rising above her station is not the story I want to tell. This is a story about domestic violence .

Making a Deal with the Devil

One day when Miriam was a small child, years before the Beauty Queen incident, she was playing with marbles on the wooden floor of her father’s store. She was young, about 6 years old at the time, so this would make it around 1913, right before World War I. When the other Jewish family came into the store to buy shoes for their children, Hannah noticed that there was something wrong with the Jewish man's wife. His wife kept turning away and hiding her face.

Hannah quietly went over to her, to ask a question, and saw the dark bruises hidden beneath her headscarf. Her question died away and she said nothing, when, looking into the woman's eyes, she saw her shame. She knew what caused those bruises. Hanna knew, in the way, that women sometimes know these things, that her husband was beating her.

Hannah was disturbed. Jewish men were not supposed to beat their wives. It was wrong and made all Jews look like animals. Back in the old country, the extended family, the community and the Rabbi worked together to stop this sort of thing, but there were no Jewish relatives, community or Rabbi here, only these two families.

The pieces came together in Hannah’s head. She had visited the woman a number of times over the years, bringing food and other small gifts, as she knew they were poorer of the two families. In this farming community, poor was always a relative term.

The woman always made excuses not to visit her back, but neither Miriam, or, I suppose, her mother Hannah, took "no" for an answer, both being strong, determined women with a stubborn streak. The woman finally confided that her husband didn’t like her to leave the house and got very angry when she disobeyed him.

She told Hannah that she knew a good wife was supposed to obey her husband, so she couldn't leave the house without his permission. Besides, she added, it only made it worse, because he drank and took it out on her and the children.

Hannah knew she had to do something, but didn’t know what. She prayed for guidance. Then she talked to her husband, asking him to reason with the man, but Hiram refused. Hiram said it would do no good, the man was a brute. But Hannah persisted and kept pestering Hiram until he threw up his hands in resignation and decided to take drastic action if only to get some peace and quiet at home.

It was in the late summer when the local sheriff came into Hiram’s store. Hiram approached him because he knew the sheriff was a Klan member, if not the leader. In small Mississippi towns, there are many secrets and no secrets.

These were not good times for a lot of folks economically, and this man had five children. Shoes for five children cost a lot, relatively speaking. Hiram asked the sheriff if he would like free shoes for all of his children to help them start school. The sheriff, not a stupid man, understood that Hiram wanted something, and they talked. In fact, they came to an understanding and the sheriff went home that night with new shoes for his family.

A few nights later, there was a burning cross in the front yard of the abuser’s home. The Klan members called the drunk Jewish husband out into the yard and hit him a few times, not enough to really damage him or keep him from working, but hard enough to hurt and to mark him. The Klan leader, in full regalia, told him that if he ever hit his wife again, they would kill him and burn his body in the woods. They put the fear into him and left him trembling and crying.

And after this "come to Jesus meeting" he never hit his wife or children again.

And that is how Hiram stopped the cycle of violence in that family with a strange, unholy alliance with the Klan, using, as it was, the only available tool he had to work with.

Oh, MY! Follow the Yellow Brick Road!!

2006-08-02T06:04:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful surprise over the weekend. The Fat Lady Sings nominated moi for the Perfect Post Award. Yes, the One we all read and look up to, who is herself an icon for writing, that other goddess of blogdom! I was nominated for my post about Sojourner Truth titled, Are You Ready For Truth?

I am honored and flattered and feel a speech coming on, but will not get tedious with all the thank yous to the people in my life and in the blogworld who have been so supportive of me since I began writing publicly just last February. And a special thank you to TFLS for her recognition and support.

So hurry on over to the Perfect Post Awards site and read all these other posts that are ripe for recognition. Just follow the Yellow Brick Road!

MELtdown of the Week

2006-08-01T06:02:00.000-07:00

Well, Mel Gibson has done himself in, at least with a certain part of America that has now begun to distance themselves from his anti-semitism.

As many of you have heard, he was drinking and driving. And there's more.

What happened when has was pulled over, goes something like this:

Ah. Now where to begin? According to REDIFF news:

Peppering his speech liberally with the F-word, Gibson began his tirade by threatening the cops, refusing to get into their car telling them that he 'owns Malibu' and will spend all his money to 'get even' with the police officer in question.
Then followed the racial slurs (pun inevitable) of an unbelievably anti-Semitic nature.
Suddenly venting fury on Jews, Mel abused them colourfully and said they were 'responsible for all the wars in the world.'
Turning to the cop, he asked, 'Are you a Jew?'
When not indulging himself in Jew-abuse, (read all the unprintable details here) Gibson used the choicest of profanities on the cops present, and highlighted the moment by insulting a female sergeant, yelling 'what are you looking at, sugar t**s?'

Well, the reaction has set in and the focus groups have spoken.

The ABC television network has cancelled a mini-series about the Holocaust it was developing with Mel Gibson, after the actor launched into an anti-Semitic tirade during his arrest for drink-driving.

So for those of you looking for a great example of the definition of irony, read no more.

He gets drunk, is verbally abusive, makes ethnic and religious slurs AS WELL AS SEXIST COMMENTS (which I've seen few comment on) and we are supposed to believe that it was the result of his drinking. Oh, my MEL-tdown, no you were carrying those 'tudes around with you when you learned them at your daddy's knee.

Hasta La Recount, Baby!

2006-07-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

There's trouble brewing in Mexico. Remember Mexico, the country recently shrouded in turmoil over immigration law, and more recently, loud cries of election fraud?

In the recent attention to the war(s) in the Mideast, there has been less attention to news coverage of our neighbor to the south.

Here's a synopsis. The PRI, party of Vicente Fox, is out. Mexico recently held a close election, as close as the one we had a few years ago when Bush stole it from Gore.

And in a deja vu experience, once again it was the leftist, or liberal party left out in the cold, by an allegedly slim margin. No mas!!

The liberal forces, led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have come up to fight for their election rights against the winning candidate, Felipe Calderon of the conservative ruling National Action Party, Calderon said yesterday that elections are won at the ballot box and not on the streets. Coincidence? How did Bush win? Because there sure was no demonstrating in the streets here, just a Hush! Hush! Let’s keep it civil and not make waves approach.

But Obrador has spoken up for the people! He has approximately 200,000 voters by some estimates rallying in the streets of Mexico City. They have closed off the business district, shut down traffic, and are demanding a recount! This is Lopez Obrador's third mass protest following the July 2 election in which he lost by 244,000 votes with more than 41 million cast.

Tapes have allegedly surfaced showing ballot boxes being tampered with by election workers favorable to Calderon. Is there a revolution in progress just beneath our noses?

"Secondary Blogtrauma"

2006-07-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

I was cruising the bloghighway when I noticed a recurrent theme at many of my favorite spots.

It seems that bloggers are suffering burnout from the newest outbreak of war in the Mideast. People were describing themselves as stressed out, needing a break, saddened by the outbreak of war in Lebanon.

And it's no wonder as the glory of bombs and rockets producing civilian casualties have been paraded into living rooms across the country. Every major television station competes to show the most horrifying, most whatever-will-draw-the-viewers kind of programming on the invasion of Lebanon.

I've tried to avoid watching too much of this new invasion. I can imagine the newscasters lining up on the frontlines where the bombs are bursting, like they do when there's a hurricane blowing in, standing in the blowing surf and rain, their bravado only overshadowed only by their egos.

I see this as a blogtrend. An overload of TV, too many pictures on the net of burned, maimed bodies.

Its 2:30 on a Friday afternoon and I'm calling it.

So listen up! Here's the diagnosis, secondary trauma.

I am now officially coining the term "Secondary Blogtrauma." What we in the psych-o-biz sector call secondary trauma is what affects the bystanders who witness violence or death. An example of this could be those children who witness domestic violence in the home, or soldiers who see their buddies killed by IEDs.

Even watching death and destruction over and over on TV, such as the fall of the twin towers in 2001, often affects people to the point of feeling somewhat dazed and traumatized.

"Secondary Blogtrauma" is akin to what Harry Potter experienced with the Dementors of Ashkaban. Too much wartime coverage on TV "just sucks the joy right out of you, and you feel like you'll never be cheerful again."

So here's what you do. Turn off the news. Take a break. Rent "Young Frankenstein" or "What About Bob?" or your favorite mindless Chevy Chase comedy. Eat a balanced meal. Sleep at least 8 hours. Call a friend. Nurture yourself, whatever that means to you.

Remember, those who blog and run away live to blog another day.

And if your symptoms persist, don't call me in the morning. Peaceout.

Day in a Life

2006-07-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

I was driving out of my neighborhood on the way to work, when I noticed how pretty the sky was. I pulled over and snapped a few pictures. The small rainbow in the top the sky picture just appeared. I did not add it, but decided a rainbow in Oz is always a good sign.

At work, I saw some birds outside in the tree and took a picture through my office window. I didn't realize there was a reflection from the flash, and guess what, there reflected in the glass was my own self-portrait, but no birds!

At lunch, I decided to go out and take some more pictures. It was hot outside, but I needed to get out of the office.

I got in my car and went to the Flightpath Coffee House to get some brew. They have good coffee, organic, shade grown, real coffee. It is a small, casual place, so named because it used to be on the flightpath for the old airport, before it was relocated south of town.

The Flight path Cafe was right next to Storyville vintage clothes Store, but I was in a hurry and kept going. I wanted to get over to the Elisabet Ney Museum, to see if it was open.

The Museum. was closed, but I took a few shots of the outside. It's an old home that houses the sculpture of Elisabet Ney, who sculpted in bronze in the 1800s. She was a woman pioneer in art in Texas.

The next stop was the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. I went to the local family-owned store around the corner from the museum. They have a cool mural painted on their store.

I needed a few other things not found there, so I drove down the street to Wheatsville Food Co-op, which has been around since the 1970s.

I passed by Amy's Ice Cream, home of hand-made, handpacked local ice cream. YUMMMM, but I needed to get get to the restaurant and didn't stop.

I was meeting a friend for lunch for his birthday. We both like sushi so we went to a place called Ichiban. They have a cool pond full of goldfish (carp) by the front door. The kind owner saw me standing there, snapping pictures of the huge carp. He threw some food into the water, smiled at me and left. The fish went into a fenzy, popping their heads out of the water.

I toasted my friend, ate lunch and went back to work. I walked up to the door of my office. It's always good to stop and smell the flowers and this canna lily was radiantly orange.

I worked for a while at the computer. I researched some legislation and answered a few phone calls. Then I started going through the Quark Bible. I'm learning some new software to update some manuals and brochures. Wow! I noticed it was almost 4p.m. Time to go home, as I had been there since 7a.m. The clouds were still gorgeous and I snapped a few more pictures. All in all, a productive and good day.

Sharia Law is No Picnic

2006-07-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

I have been writing about the injustice of what Israel is doing to Lebanon. In the sense of fairness, let me rant about Sharia law for a few minutes. Here is a heartbreaking story of the execution of Atefeh Rajabi in Iran. And what happened to the pedophile who seduced and raped a mentally ill minor child, because children, and those who are mentlly incompetent can never give consent freely...............? This is clearly wrong to me. What do you think?

Iran: Hanged from a crane aged 16

Sunday, 23 July 2006

EXCLUSIVE JUSTICE IRAN STYLE: SICK GIRL EXECUTED BY JUDGE SHE DEFIED Her crime? She had sex with an unmarried man.

By Susie Boniface

The Sunday Mirror - It was exactly 6am and the start of another blisteringly hot summer day when 16-year-old Atefeh Rajabi was dragged from her prison cell and taken to be executed.

Every step of the way the troubled teenager plagued by mental problems shouted "repentance, repentance" as the militiamen marched her to the town's Railway Square.

The Iranian judge who had sentenced Atefeh to death was left unmoved as he personally put the noose around her neck and signalled to the crane driver.

Kicking and screaming, Atefeh was left dangling for 45 minutes from the arm of the crane as the crowd sobbed and - under their breath - damned the mullahs.

Atefeh's crime? Offending public morality. She was found guilty of "acts incompatible with chastity" by having sex with an unmarried man, even though friends say Atefeh was in such a fragile mental state that she wasn't in a position to say no.

But Judge Haji Rezaii was determined she should hang, regardless of the rules of international law which say only adults over 18 can be executed, and that the courts have a duty to children and the mentally ill.

The brutal end to Atefeh's short life has shone a new light on Iran's Shariah law, where adultery, theft and rape all carry the same punishment - death. Officially around 100 people - some just children like Atefeh - are executed each year. But human rights groups say the true figure could be much higher in a country where only half of the women can read, only one in 10 have a job and two-thirds are beaten in their homes.

Life was never easy for Atefeh, who was brought up in the industrial town of Neka, 250 miles from Tehran and close to the Caspian Sea. Her mother died when she was a child and her father Ghasseem, a heroin addict, left her grandparents to bring her up. She suffered from bi-polar disorder, which led to severe mood swings from hyperactivity to depression. Worried parents told their children to stay away from her - something many regret now. "Perhaps we should have helped her instead," said Hamid. "I think the death of her mother had a devastating effect. Before that, she was a normal girl. Her mother was everything to her. After she died, there was no one to look after her."

Mina, a childhood friend, said Atefeh was abused by a close relative. "She never dared talk about it with an adult," said Mina. "If she had told her teacher they'd have called her a whore. Tell the police? They lock you up and rape you." Atefeh first appeared in court, accused of having sex with an unmarried man at 14. Over the next two years she was accused of the same crime with different men.

They denied it and were sentenced to the lash and then released. But Atefeh pleaded guilty and each time received 100 lashes and a prison term. Mina said: "Atefeh sometimes talked about what these 'moral' Islamic policemen did to her while she was in jail. She still had nightmares about that. Atefeh said her mood swings made it easy for men to take advantage of her, and that most of her lovers were in the security force."

Two of them were members of the anti-vice militia. They encouraged other men to sign statements saying Atefeh had engaged in vice, and even claimed she had AIDS.

It was when Atefeh appeared before Judge Rezaii for a fourth time that she lost her temper - and also her life. In a rage she tore off her hi jab - a headscarf - and told the judge she had been raped and it was his duty to punish her tormentors, not their victim.

Rezaii told her she would hang for her "sharp tongue" and that he would put the noose around her neck himself. It became a personal crusade as he travelled to Tehran and convinced the Supreme Court to uphold his verdict.

Two petitions by her friends, saying she was mentally unwell, were ignored. Her father produced her birth certificate proving she was 16. Yet the judges "decreed" she was 22.

Atefeh also wrote to the Supreme Court: "There are medical documents that prove I have a weak nerve and soul. In some minutes of the day and night I lose my sanity. In a society where an insane person can be serially raped it is no wonder that a person like me is the victim of such an ugly act."

The day before she died she wrote again, saying: "Repentance, repentance, repentance." In Iranian law anyone who shows remorse has an automatic stay of execution and a right to appeal, but she was ignored.

A local pharmacist watched Atefeh's execution on August 15, 2004. "She looked so young standing there," he said. "Rezaii must have felt a personal grudge against her. He put the rope around her neck himself. I looked around and everyone in the crowd was sobbing and damning the mullahs." The family's lawyer has now filed a suit of wrongful execution against the judge and is preparing a murder case. Her life is also the subject of a secretly filmed documentary, Execution of a Teenage Girl, which will be screened on BBC2 on Thursday.

One of Atefeh's teachers said the authorities wanted to make an example of her: "She wouldn't take injustice from anyone, but the mullahs equate these qualities in a girl to prostitution and evil. They wanted to give all the girls and women a lesson."

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said: "The killing of Atefeh is a catalogue of the most appalling human rights violations. The public hanging of a child, believed to be mentally incompetent, totally beggars belief. To hang a child flies in the face of all that is humane."

CRUELTY OF SHARIA LAW

PENALTIES imposed by Iran's religious mullahs include:

THEFT: Amputation of hands or feet for persistent offenders.

ADULTERY: Death by stoning.

UNMARRIED SEX: 100 lashes.

CONVERSION TO RELIGION OTHER THAN ISLAM: Death.

SODOMY: Death for adults, 74 lashes for consenting child.

LESBIANISM: 100 lashes, or on the fourth occasion death.

HOMOSEXUAL KISS: 60 lashes.

RUBBING ANOTHER MAN'S THIGHS OR BUTTOCKS: 99 lashes - on 4th occasion, death.

Are You Ready For Truth?

2006-07-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

This is a story from history that addresses race, women's rights, (and not just white women's rights), and the strength and ability to have a voice in a world where one grew up without one.

In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Jane Hunt and Mary Ann M'Clintock organized the first Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. There, they established the Declaration of Sentiments which spelled out the desire for women to share the same rights that men held.

At that convention, Sojourner Truth, a well-known former slave who tirelessly campaigned to end slavery, gave a riveting speech, "Ain't I A Woman?," in which she dashed all thoughts that women were too dainty or not smart enough to vote.

Sojourner Truth's life story was the basis for all of her speeches. She relied on her experiences as a slave, a woman, and an African American to serve as the arguments for her crusades

Part of the fascination with Sojourner Truth in her own time was due to her physical presence. She stood close to six feet tall and was thin and very darkskinned. Her dress was often Quaker-like, and she always wore a turban headdress

The most often quoted speech by Sojourner Truth, the one by which she is best known today, was delivered at the second annual Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron on May 28, 1851. Although there has been some controversy about interpretation, I still think it is a great story.

Source: National Anti-Slavery Standard 2 May 1863: 4.

Sojourner Truth

By Mrs. F. D. Gage

"Well, chillen, what dar's so much racket dar must be som'ting out o'kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de niggers of de South and de women at de Norf, all a-talking 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking 'bout? Dat man ober dar say dat woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to have de best place eberywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles, or gives me any best place,"; and, raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked, "And ar'n't I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm," and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing its tremendous muscular power.

"I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me--and ar'n't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it) and bear de lash as well--and ar'n't I a woman? I have borne thirteen chillen, and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but Jesus heard--and ar'n't' I a woman? Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head. What dis dey call it." "Intellect," whispered some one near. "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do with woman's rights or niggers' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" and she pointed her significant finger and sent a keen glance at the minister who had made the argument. The cheering was long and loud. "Den dat little man in black dar, he say woman can't have as much rights as man, 'cause Christ wa'n'n't a woman. Whar did your Christ come from?"

Rolling thunder could not have stilled that crowd as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with outstretched arms and eye of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated,--

"Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had not'ing to do with him." Oh, what a rebuke she gave the little man. Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of Mother Eve. I cannot follow her through it all. It was pointed and witty and solemn, eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause, and she ended by asserting: "that if de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all her one lone, all dese togeder," and she glanced her eye over us, "ought to be able to turn it back, and git it right side up again, and now dey is asking to, de men better let 'em." (long and continued cheering). "Bleeged to ye for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner ha'n't got nothing more to say."

While I do not go along with the part about women owning a pint, while men own a quart, there's a lot to be said for her sheer courage in speaking her truth.

Zimbabwe Gets Behind Bush

2006-07-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a line on some more of that precious freedom we are exporting to the world.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Times are hard and getting harder in Zimbabwe, where people too proud to cry about hunger, joblessness and misrule could soon find it too dangerous to joke about them.

Parliament plans to debate proposals next month to empower the secret police to eavesdrop on mail, e-mail and phones without any court approval.

The government denies any sinister intent, saying it is putting its anti-terrorism legislation in line with international practice.

International practice? Yes, Bush always denies any sinister intent too.

Don't they mean U.S. practice? More big brother, less freedom as American electronic eavesdropping becomes the international standard!

Condi Flying on Her Broom to the Middle East

2006-07-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

First off, a tip of the hat to both PTCruiser and Thepoetryman for submitting articles to the peacetrain.org this week . We are rolling and getting the website set up more and more every week! Please come visit and share your thoughts!

In other news, Condi Rice is postponing her trip to the Middle East to allow Israel time to break up some of Hezbollah's power.

Translation: kill more innocents, wreak more havoc, instill fear in the civilian population as well as Hezbollah. She's waiting, knowing more will be murdered while she sits this out for a few days.

She also wants to give Israel time to demonstrate to all of its neighbors that a well-armed and dedicated group like Hezbollah is no military match for Israel.

They want to make it plain to Syria and Iran what will happen to them if they ever get involved in a war, either by proxy or directly, with Israel.

How do I know all this? I read her blog! And you can too! Yes, as I have revealed previously, Condigrrrl has a blog! And notice in he blog pic that she truly has vampire fangs!!!

Want to read her blog entries? Go to: http://www.myspace.com/condigrrrrl

Alas, Condi has not been very good at making friends on MySpace. Now we know why. Shes a murdering vampire witch on a broom.

O Lebanon!

2006-07-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to all the innocents dying and harmed in Lebanon at this time, the victims of Israeli aggression. An entire country should not be shelled for the actions of one group, Hezbollah.

Khalil Gibran, author of the Prophet, is without doubt the most famous of all Lebanese writers. Born in the 1883, he grew up in a poor household. When his father was imprisoned for fraud, his mother raised the children. When his father was released from of prison, she decided to emigrate to the U.S.

Gibran's father didn't want to go, so she took the kids and went by herslf. What an independent soul she must have been.

She made her living as a peddler. In Lebanon, Khalil had no education and could not read or write. In the States, he went to school and became known for his fiery essays and art.

At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles partitioned the old Ottoman Empire, and placed Lebanon and Syria under the protectorate of France. After Syria and Lebanon achieved independence in 1943, both countries gradually came to accept their roles as separate national identities: Syria as the heart of pan-Arab nationalism and Lebanon as independent and sovereign but within the Arab world.

Three generations ago, Kahlil Gibran wrote a simple verse with the repeating line "you have your Lebanon, I have mine." In it, Gibran chided the politicians of his day who defined Lebanon by their intrigue and their vain boastings. To Gibran the real Lebanon was its prophets and poets, its beauty and the vitality of its daily life. He died in 1931 without seeing his homeland gain its freedom.

It is still a good read.

You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon
(written after the first World War, in the 1920's)

You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty. Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East.

My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.

You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.

Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they are as ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.... They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.

They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. (I love this line-Glenda) These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, "When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born"?

Who among them dare to say, "My life was a drop of blood in the veins of Lebanon, a tear in her eyes or a smile upon her lips"?

Those are the children of your Lebanon. They are, in your estimation, great; but insignificant in my estimation.

Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.

They are farmers who would turn the fallow field into garden and grove.

They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.

They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.

They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin the silken yarn.

They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.

They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.

They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.

They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.

They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.

They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.

These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.

They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty, and truth.

What will remain of your Lebanon after a century? Tell me! Except bragging, lying and stupidity? Do you expect the ages to keep in its memory the traces of deceit and cheating and hypocrisy? Do you think the atmosphere will preserve in its pockets the shadows of death and the stench of graves?

Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a dress? Verily, I say to you that an olive plant in the hills of Lebanon will outlast all of your deeds and your works; that the wooden plow pulled by the oxen in the crannies of Lebanon is nobler than your dreams and aspirations.

I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me, that the songs of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you. I say to you that you are achieving nothing. If you knew that you are accomplishing nothing, I would feel sorry for you, but you know it not.

You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.

California

2006-07-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

I was driving to work this morning, thinking about the turmoil that is rolling across the middle east like a large grass fire, and listening to an old song, "California" being sung by Joni Mitchell.

"....Sitting in a park in Paris, France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had ......"

I started think about where I was as a young high school student when that song came out, and still, they still won't give peace a chance.

But I will not give up the dream, no matter how dark it looks in the world, no matter how cruelly people and nations treat each other.....will you? Because if we give up the dream, what do we have left?

So sing on, write on, keep breathing, chant, fight for truth and justice, because some days, it just doesn't come easy.

My Strength Is Not for Hurting

2006-07-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

Check out part of the cool ad campaign by Men Can Stop Rape!

Working to end sexual violence- It's not just for women anymore!

What's on Your Mind?

2006-07-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

The conflict in the Middle East is giving many of us pause to reflect on the continued destruction in that region, in terms of individual, group and regional destruction and loss.

Here are thoughts about peace as expressed by those wise sages throughout history.

A tip of the hat to beachblogger for the quote above.

A tip of the hat to time for the quote above.

Friday Cat Blogging- The Pallas Cat

2006-07-14T03:42:00.000-07:00

The Rare Pallas Cat

The Pallas's cat is also known as a Manul. About the size of a large domestic cat, the manul is covered with long course fur, sandy to grey in color with white tips on the guard hairs which gives an overall 'frosted' appearance.

The legs are short and stumpy compared to the overall body size - the small broad head has high set eyes, and low set hair covered ears. The head has a striped facial ruff.

The tail of the manul cat is tipped with black and has darker rings toward the end, similar dark markings can also be faintly seen across the side of its back. The range of the manul extends from Iran through southern Asia to parts of western China. They are an endangered species with some zoos participating in breeding programs.

And so it has begun...Iraqi Retribution

2006-07-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

And the retribution has begun, with undoubtedly more to follow. There is NO way the Bush administration can spin the violence done to this child and her family into gold. More soldiers are marked for torture and violence.

Associated Press/AP Online; 7/11/2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An al-Qaida-linked group claims it killed three U.S. soldiers last month and mutilated two of their bodies to avenge the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by troops of the same unit, an institute which monitors extremists Web sites said Tuesday.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council made the claim in a 4:39 minute video posted on the Internet which included the mutilated bodies of two of the soldiers attacked June 19 near Youssifiyah southwest of Baghdad, according to a statement by the SITE Institute.

The institute released still pictures from the video showing two of the American dead, one of whom had been decapitated.

According to the institute, the statement by the insurgent group said the video was released as "revenge for our sister who was dishonored by a soldier of the same brigade."

Two sergeants are among five American soldiers charged in the March 12 alleged rape-murder and the killing her parents and a younger sister. The U.S. military released the identities of the suspects Monday.

Rape/Murder Victim in Iraq Was Only 14

2006-07-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Five US soldiers have been charged in a rape and multiple murder case that has outraged Iraqis, as proof emerged the rape victim was a child of 14, and not over 20 as US officials insist. The 14 year-old teenager lived in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the human rights minister said on Monday.

Although U.S. military has claimed the girl allegedly gang-raped by five U.S. soldiers was an adult over the age of 20, documents show the girl was just 14.

Reuters news agency authenticated the rape/murder victim's age on Sunday by examining her birth certificate and identity card.

By Friday though the military backed away from those claims as Reuters and others began probing the matter. On Friday Army spokesman Paul Boyce said the U.S. military now believes the alleged victim was between the ages of 14 and 20.

In addition to raping and murdering her, the soldiers allegedly killed both her parents and 6 year-old sister, and burned the house to cover their crimes.

However a Multinational Corps Iraq news release, which announced the preferring of charges against five more U.S. soldiers in relation to the matter, and was issued as late as Sunday, described the rape victim as, "a young Iraqi woman."

What is the advantage of the US pre-emptively naming the victim as an adult? It makes it easier to blame the victim. We’ve all heard it before in every rape trial in America. You know she wanted it, what was she wearing, she was leading them on, she said no but meant yes. It’s harder to accuse a child of provocative behavior. When a child is raped and murdered, setting up a defense for the soldiers becomes tougher.

Under the equivalent laws in the US, no American girl of 14 would be named as an adult or "a young American woman." Let’s call this victim what she was, a child. Her dead sister, aged 6 was also a child. American soldiers entered her home and killed two adults and two children. This is a fine way to bring democracy to Iraq, raping and killing children.

Come Join the Peace Train

2006-07-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Peace Train is rolling! We are adding new things every day. A special hat's off to Dude at the Blue Republic and Earl, who have both been working hard with me on this project. Please come and join us to organize for peace.

Saturday Morning Sunrise

2006-07-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

I got up early and took my dog on her morning walk before it got too hot. The sun was just coming out and there were clouds scattered about the sky. I took pictures.

For those of you who sleep in, this is an approximation of what I often see in the sky! It is a sight that uplifts and transforms!

It began to get lighter outside.
Glorious!

I pulled my head out of the clouds to notice the small things, a tiny frog clinging to the side of the curb. They have been popping out all week. My dog thinks she has to smell each one of them.
The wild Mexican Sombreros are just about done for the season.

A patch of Zinnias coming up down on the corner.

Wild sunflowers mixed in with a native purple plant called Bee Balm. It is the delight of beekeepers as it makes the honey sweeter when the bees pollinate it.

And the inevitable struggle of plants to grow in tiny cracks in this limestone cliff.

Thoughts About the Nature of Truth

2006-07-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

Peace-it's not just for hippies anymore!

2006-07-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

I don't know about the rest of you, But I was in a state of "shock and awe" yesterday, seeing the amazing response from all of you fellow bloggers!

I started out reading your posts and going from site to site until I visited each and every one of you. There were around 60 participants in this event and, after entertaining my family all afternoon, I went back to reading your posts until 8p.m. last night! That's a lot of peaceful writing, my friends!

It was truly inspiring to read your thoughts, watch your films, laugh at the cartoons,to know how much you care about this issue of peace, and all the other social issues that intersect peace.

Peace-it's not just for hippies anymore! We are evolving as a blogger society to see the extended destruction that war, erosion of our civil rights, and loss of faith on our government can bring to us as a society. And I hope we are evolving to the point where we are ready to commit ourselves to becoming active in our demand for a more responsive, transparent government.

We have started something amazing here as a group, as a community, we are together in a way that the conservative forces do not believe us capable of. Let's keep the momentum going and give the right something to worry about, an ORGANIZED community!

POST FOR PEACE!

2006-07-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

The response to the Post For Peace Blogothon has been wonderful. Thanks, everyone, for standing for peace in this time of war. Because, to paraphrase the words of reggae singer Cedella Marley Booker, if you don't stand up for truth, then you'll fall for anything!

Here are my thoughts, also posted at The Blue Republic, with a surprise announcement at the end.

A Chinese proverb says that time changes nothing; people do. When we apply that proverb to the problem of peace, it is sometimes difficult to know just what is effective in trying to create and sustain it. In this country, people who actively work for peace, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, the Crawford Peace House and many, many others, are often reviled and ridiculed for disagreeing with the war in Iraq. On this 4th of July, I’d like to propose that peace is patriotic. Peace makes us all stronger!

So what is peace? Peace is a puzzle that requires work. Peace is more than the absence of conflict. And peace making is more than stopping war. It includes embracing democratic ideals and protecting human rights.

To create peace, we must work for peace, law, order and justice as opposed to war, chaos and revenge. Violence creates more violence. Peace work includes insuring the continuation and strength of the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution and fighting those who would water down or eliminate our basic rights.

To sustain peace, we need international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, and we need to follow them without picking and choosing which parts suit our political agenda. We need to actively listen to and cooperate with other institutions that promote peace, such as the United Nations, instead of acting like the U.N is our lapdog. Assassinations, torture, wiretapping, and preemptive war are all counter to peace.

In 2003, just prior to the outbreak of our invasion of Iraq, TIMEeurope.com asked their (mostly European) readers: "Who really poses the greatest danger to world peace? Iraq, North Korea or The United States."

The publishers recorded nearly 700,000 responses. And the tally was: (6.7%)North Korea, (6.3%) Iraq and (86.9%) The U.S.

The Europeans feared that we were the biggest threat to peace and the Iraqi war has confirmed their worst fears about us. Numerous factors, such as justice, power, national interest, ethnic rivalry, hunger, the environment, values, human nature, and economics, have an impact on world peace.

Today's real borders are not between nations, but between powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated. Today, no borders can separate humanitarian or human-rights crises in one part of the world from national-security crises in another. Conflict and wars often lead to poverty and economic problems that continue the cycle of poverty and unrest and more war. Scarcity of resources, greed and lack of education contribute to war as well.

Sustainable development is also a factor in creating peace. Sustainable development is more than just the maintenance of resource flows; it requires that community members are in agreement about which shared interests override their individual ones. Ending poverty and war go hand in hand with peace and are dependent on creating a social organization to facilitate social consensus and peace. And sustainable development must be created in ways that do not destroy the environment of the region.

With these issue in mind, I'd like to announce that I am partnering with The Blue Republic to create a sister website, The Peace Train.org, whose mission is to explore the ways that we can all work toward a better understanding of what peace is. Additionally, its goal is to serve as a hub for peaces activists around the country and hopefully, the world, and to help in the work of making peace a reality. We will be adding to this site over time to include other features, such as a place to coordinate antiwar activities regionally.

This is a huge undertaking and I want to publicly thank Jeff and Dude for their support and help. Dude has single-handedly volunteered his time to do the physical setup of the site. Without his support, I could not imagine getting this done. I have so much to learn. I also want to thank all the others who have given me support on this project. You know who you are.

Dude and I have a lot of ideas and welcome your further help to make this both an interesting, educational and useful place to come and work (and play) for peace. If peace is to become more than just a mantra, it must address the specific needs of people in specific communities through their own collective and collaborative efforts. Let’s all join together as a community to work toward making peace a reality. So I urge you to come on over to The Peace Train and join! (It's free!)

And Glenda will stick around here as well, at least for now.

Here is the blogroll of all those who put in the time on their 4th of July holiday to POST FOR PEACE. Please visit these sites and see what they had to say:

Earl Bockenfeld's Radio Weblog
Tnkrkell in Space or a Gay Grad Girl Growing Out
Elizabeth Branford- Consider The Boot
B Shilliday-LeftofCenter
Advocate 1 and Brandon-Coalition for a Republic Free America
Enigma4ever - Watergate Summer
Sumo - Summo Merriment
Pinkfem- Pinkfeminist
ladycelticfire
Beth - Here I Am
James - Genius Of Insanity
Betmo - Life's Jouney
Celtic Fire - celticfire
Weezielou - weezielou
Divajood - Journeys With Jood
Michael Bains - Silly Humans
Peacechick Mary - Knock Knock
BZ - Intrepid Flame
JM - John's Blog
PTCruiser
Stella - Swiftspeech
Mary - Get Your Own
guerillasinthe midst - GUERRILLASintheMIDST
Dizzy Dezzi - I'm Jus' A Lil' Dizzy!
Time - Time
The Poetryman - Poetic Justice
Pissed Off Patricia - Morning Martini
Neil Shakespeare
Sarah - An American Aries
Charlie - Highland
Dreams
Lorraine - Here's The Thing
Snave - Various Miseries
Libby - The Impolitic
Lew Scannon - Unbrainwashed
Ron Nasty - The Nasty Page
Diane S. - A Stone, A Leaf, An Unfound Door...
Grish - The Weekly View
Ann - The Tulgey Wood
A Rose Is A Rose - Ravings Of A Semi-Sane Madwoman
Changeseeker - Why Am I Not Surprised?
Kvatch - Blognonymous
Cali - Nite Swimming
Dusty - It's My Right To Be Left Of Center
Steve O. - Naked Politics
John Good - Left In Aboite
Tabor - One Day At A Time
Angie - Ang's Weird Ideas
Donnie McDaniel - The Katrinacrat Blog
Glenda - Glenda In The Land Of Oz
Elizabeth Branford - The Blue Republic
Orange_Gearle
Anita- Desiderandum
RJB- Words Have Power
Robin Andrea-Dharma Bums
Windspike
Amy- Assembly of Divine Realities
Elizabeth Branford - Lose The Noose

On Posting For Peace!

2006-07-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

I was caught up in meetings and work demands the past few days and have not been really consistent about coming to my blog, so I was amazed to see the great initial response.

One one the biggest complaints I have heard by the Democrats and progressives is that they do not have a clear platform and that there is no organization. I suggest that WE ALL begin, here and now, to create a network of like-minded people who agree to work together to hammer our message loud and clear, that we want the troops to come home now!! Sure, there are only 20 of us now, but what if next week we have 50, then 200 the week after, and something as simple as people coming together creates a national movement?? What if we as individuals can really make a difference.

That is something to ponder. I am willing to commit to help make that happen if you all will join me. As individuals, we are weak, as a group we are indefeatable.

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity." ~ Louis Pasteur

July 4th. Let's Post for Peace!! Join in!!

2006-06-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about the coming 4th of July holiday and what an opportunity it is for expressing our pariotism by supporting peace.
I want to give you all a heads up on this early, in case you want to join in on a cooperative project I want to do with all of you.

I would like to invite all of you who support ending the war to join with me (and others that I hope to arm wrestle) to join in a project I call Posting for Peace.

Just put Posting for Peace in your headline banner on the 4th of July and write something about why you are against the war, or post a drawing, or a photo. Whatever peace means to you. Be creative!

Please let me know if you are interested in this and I'll add your link to my post.

Going down to So Fi

2006-06-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

My daughter called me up and invited me to go with her to a cactus and plant sale, so I grabbed my camera and went with her. It was a beautiful day, hot and sunny, just perfect for shooting pictures.

We drove by one of the new eateries, Baby Greens, on the way to the coffee shop. My daughter told me that they had good food, and that a lot of it is vegetarian. And it's right next to the bus stop.

We kept on going and finally reached the coffee shop, a place called Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse and Cafe, a small place with both indoor and patio seating. It is one of many small mom and pop establishments on South First, which is nicknamed So Fi by the younger generation.
My daughter and I both prefer to support smaller businesses rather than the Big Box Corporations as often as possible.

So Fi is an older inner neighborhood in transition in Austin. As prices go up, the properties become more expensive, so what was once a heavy residential Latino neighborhood is becoming trendy as the working class occupants are being pushed further and further to the cheaper outskirts of town.

Once inside the coffee shop, I looked around. There was a poster on the bulletin board inside the coffee shop. If any of you know 14 year-old Jeremy, tell him his parents are looking for him. It's not safe out on the streets.

There was also a Book Project container in front of the coffee shop, so feel free to bring down your old books to donate to those who need them. Looks like they need some.

Seems like a simple solution to the problem of those who have too much stuff they don't need and those who have too little.

Heading back to the car, I stopped to look at some beautiful blue-lavendar plumbago that is in full bloom all over town right now. Even in the heat of summer, one can always find something that can adapt to the heat. I've seen plumbago bushes at old abandoned homes, where there is no one to water it, and still in full bloom in the heat. So you can have a bit of beauty and conserve water as well.

We walked by Bouldin Creek on the way back to the car. It has rained this week and there is water running across the limestone rocks. Many Austin neighborhoods have access to creeks and parks. We got in and drove down the road to the small group of businesses that were holding the cactus plant sale.

After parking, we walked some more. I passed a gate to one of the businesses and noticed a grouping of signs. Peace signs!!

I thought, here is a business tha does not deal in bullshit! Here is a business that is proud of their stance against the war!! I peeked in, but despite the open sign, the proprietor was not in. They were selling handmade glass and metal wind chimes. I decided to come back later and support this business.

We walked up the street to the small store that was selling the plants. Actually, it looked like a cooperative effort with several nearby shops involved.

There were plants inside and out. They were large and small. There were venders at tables selling handmade jewelry and pottery.

Here are some of the other pictures. Each cactus plant was a small work of beauty.

The spines and colors are delicate works of art, all are small universes unto themselves.

Enjoy!

Global Warming Field Trip

2006-06-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

Forget the neutrality of "climate change." In a report to Congress, the National Academy of Sciences says global warming is the real deal. After two millennia of relatively stable temperatures, our planet is the hottest it has been in 400 years.

So what are we going to do about it?? Al Gore says in his movie "An Inconvenient Truth," that there are some concrete things that we as individuals and as a nation can do to reverse this pattern.

I decided to ask my good friend, and the president of his college Science Club and Chess team president, Happy Feller. I asked Happy about his personal plan to fight global warming, since he is The Happy Man on Campus and a Science and Environmental Brain Award recipient as well.

He invited me to hang out with him. So we started walking down the street to the bus stop together. We stopped briefly and talked to our good friends WeezieLou and Earl, who was spreading mulch on his wife's flower beds. (Be sure and click on Earl's link, as he has some handy tips for you as well on his Friday night blog.)

Neither Happy nor I smoke, but he saw another neighbor smoking and talked to him about cigarette smoke polluting the atmosphere. I was unimpressed. How can that make a difference, I wondered?

Next we went to the library where he looked up the addresses of his state and national congress varmints and wrote letters to all of them imploring them to act quickly on this issue.

He also caught up on the back issues of Mother Jones while we were there and read a few revolutionary links that Celticfire and Ladycelticfire had sent him. He also said hi to Stella, who was using the computer in the library, checking out the poetry section. Happy got on the computer and read a few sites that had good information.

An article written by Elizabeth Brandon at The Blue Republic caught his eye. He read that and smiled as he scribbled a picture of a small lily.

Then he went out and we got some lunch. We ran into LeftofCenter, who was there with his family and he gave me some great photography tips. We sat down and ate hurriedly.

How much energy had gone into making the food we ate, I wondered, and in air-conditioning the restaurant? Energy that was heating up the planet.

We got to the copy shop and Happy made Xerox copies of the list he had created with ideas that we as individuals can do to lower the pollution in the air. He was going to post them on his neighbors' front doors, especially his close friend Rex, who had good intentions, but thought it was his patriotic duty to buy a new gas-guzzling SUV.

His list wasn't very long, but gosh, darn, he tried. And he made extra copies of the letters to his congressvarmints, too, while we were there, a few even had his buttcheck prints on them. Then it was time to mail the letters. We took the bus. It was a hot Texas day and it made me wonder how much the buses were polluting the atmosphere. I happened to look up on one of the overpasses and noticed some anti-war posters. I figured they were the work of PTCruiser! Oh, how we both giggled over that.

We finally arrived at the Post Office just before it was closing time. We bought the stamps and the letters to Congress were mailed! Mission Accomplished. What else could we do? It was still light out, barely. Soon it would be time for me to go home. As we were coming out the soor, we saw Sumo heading in to check her peace mail. And Peacechick Mary was right behind her with Pissed Off Patricia, who was still drinking her morning martini.

We got to the corner and saw Graeme, who was heading off to a union rally. By the end of the day, I was really tired of fighting global warming and decided to take a break.

We headed toward 6th Street and engaged in a friendly game of pool with the poetryman. I was ready for that warm glass of beer while I sharpened my poolstick and called corner left pocket in a game of stripes and solids.

But I was still not satisfied. Weren't there more things we sould be doing to help reduce the effects of global warming?

Since Happy Feller wore me out, I decided to ask my readers if they could help fill in the blanks on this weighty global warming question and help come up with some suggestions for people, things they can do in their own lives to help out. Please tell me, what do you do, or what would you like to start doing?

What is Happiness?

2006-06-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

What is happiness? The Dalai Lama says: "The meaning of life is happiness." And many would respond, "YES! But how to find the illusive happiness map?" We used to have mood rings that clued us in by changing color. It's remarkable that no one has come up with a comparable tool that could tell us whether one has reached a state of happiness.

Could it be that happiness does not actually exist as a complete state? It's intangible and comes closest in its nature to pulsing butterfly wings amongst flower petals or the whirring of a hummingbird's wings as it delves for nectar.

Happiness comes in particles-in-motion known as moments.

Each moment is a bead with its own shape, color, and texture. No bead is like any other. Only when there are enough to string together into a rosary, do your nerve endings register happiness.

As I was walking into the sunrise this morning, the birds riotously gossiping, I felt one of those perfect heart-stopping moments when sky and birdsong fused, the world was perfect and within reach and anything was possible.

So, dear readers, please tell Glenda, what makes you happy?

Murtha vs. Rove

2006-06-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

Murtha vs. Rove: Stepping up the recent disagreement on the Iraq war, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha ridiculed Karl Rove on Meet the Press Sunday.

Rove criticized Murtha's call for a quick withdrawal. He rebuked the Democrats' "old pattern of cutting and running."

In response, Murtha said, "You can't sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying 70 pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels hit with IED's every day, seeing their friends blown up-their buddies blown up -- and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, D.C."

How did America come to trust those who have never been to war to run one?

Murtha is a patriotic American who obviously loves his country and understands the horrors that the troops are facing in Iraq. Horrors that many on the so-called left oppose. Iraq is in tatters, nothing has worked the way it was envisioned by the Bush group, we now have more enemies than ever in my lifetime, and this country feels less safe than it ever has in my lifetime.

The home needs of our country have been left to flounder while we turned our eye to the oilfields of the middle-east: schools, our community infrastructures, health care, social security, to name a few.

The Bush obsession with Iran and Iraq reminds me of the eye of Mordor focused on finding the Ring of Power while the lands allied to Mordor wither and grow bleak. There is a darkness, a desperation, a hunger to his seeking control in the middle-east, beyond any desire to create democracy there, and there is an old-fashioned value called honor that has been lost in the process.

Murtha is a true patriot who has put his money where his mouth is. He has fought to defend and uphold the liberty of this country and the principles upon which it was founded. Rove, on the other hand, is focused on increasing his own power and the power base of the Republican Party at the expense of the soldiers who are bravely willing to put their lives on the line for us.

New Toys For the Kids!

2006-06-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

Our culture is in a lot of flux. There is change coming so quickly to our SOCIETY, some good, some not so good.

I decided to design some new TOYS to help parents prepare their kids for the coming "Big Brother" society, as a way to help them learn the ropes and fit in with others.

Words Are Power

2006-06-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

People from all over this country and all over the world have called on Bush to end this war in Iraq. We share this sentiment and stand in solidarity with antiwar activists in this and other countries. We believe that the war in Iraq is wrong and immoral. We believe that the war in Irag weakens this country. We cry out against the innocents who have been slaughtered and the soldiers dead and wounded.

Please visit the other sites below to see a tour of antiwar photos. This is the voice and the cry of those who oppose this war, those who stand against oppression and stand for justice. Please stand with us and call for an end NOW!

Read their words at:
http://considertheboot.blogspot.com/
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107064/
http://losenoose.blogspot.com/
http://pinkfem.blogspot.com/
http://swiftspeech.blogspot.com/

Boston

Houston, Texas

Berkeley, California

Minnesota

Apple Investigating Claims of Slave Conditions in Chinese iPod Factory

2006-06-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

Apple is investigating claims that Chinese female workers at a factory in Longhua, in communist China, which manufactures the high-fashion iPod nano music players, earn only $50 a month, work 15-hour shifts, and endure "slave" conditions, contrary to the company's stated employment policies.

According to a China Labor Watch project coordinator, Xiao Min Zheng, the minimum wage in Shenzhen, where Longhua and the iPod nano factory are located, is 690 renminbi, or yuan, or about $80 a month.

However, the Mail reported that half of the workers' paychecks were automatically deducted to pay for a primitive factory dormitory with 100 beds a room that was strictly run and did not allow visits by the workers' families or anyone who did not work at the factory.

According to the Apple Web site, the company claims it does not tolerate violations of its supplier code of conduct. "Recognized standards such as International Labour Organization Standards (ILO), Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Social Accountability International (SAI), and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) were used as references in preparing this Code."

Go here to see the Apple hallmark ad "1984" that was an eerie homage to George Orwell's novel of the same name that introduced the Macintosh PC during the Super Bowl a little over 20 years ago?

Ironically, it is a woman who runs down the workers' gray drab halls carrying a sledge hammer. She, in vivid red shorts, is the one who smashes the hypnotic screen, freeing the oppressed workers. Ironic isn't it, that women workers are the ones being opressed in a country far, far away?

Apple, do the right thing. We are watching you!!

Does America Keep Its Word?

2006-06-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

The US president, George Bush, made his first visit to Baghdad's green zone the other day.

The president said he had come "not only to look you [the prime minister] in the eye", but "to tell you that when America gives its word, it keeps its word".

Mr. president, what about when YOU give your word?

Like when you promised survivors of Hurricane Katrina on Thursday that the federal government "is going to be with you for the long haul," when you promised to eliminate US dependence on oil, when you promised to fire the White House leaker in the Valerie Plame incident, and then turned around and promised to fire the leaker only if Plame were identified by name?

How about when you promised that preventive war, regime change, and unilateral action would stop proliferation, spread democracy, and lead to a new era of great power, instead more foreigners hate the US now?

How about after promising to uphold safeguards against hazardous carbon dioxide emissions, you Bushwhacked those protections, allowing US power plants to continue their deadly assault on our planet's terrestrial systems?

How about when you promised to be a "uniter not a divider." Or when you promised to be a leader "with humility." Instead, you've humiliated this country, and it is more polarized than it has ever been in my lifetime?

Like many politicians, you exaggerated, misled, and promptly forgot your promises. Instead of union, you gave us ruinous federal budget deficits, launched a costly and illicit war by lies, and ruined the diplomatic efforts of American statesmen, to make the U.S. the most hated nation in the world. And this is just a short list.

So much for your promises.

So Rove Got Off Scot Free

2006-06-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

I think I just stopped believing in karma.

It doesn't seem to come for Karl Rove.

Where are the consequences of all the evil he has done in his life?

He has been a manipulator without conscience for most of his adult life.

And possibly, now that I think about it, as a child.

Contrary to what this implies, not getting indicted does not mean Rove is innocent.

Nor does it mean he is an angel, despite pictures to the contrary.

Magic Wand

2006-06-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

I got the most creative spam this morning.

The subject stated "What matters is not the length of the wand , but the magic in the stick."

Usually, I automatically delete all spam since I don't need viagra OR cialis. Or any of the other drugs the concerned people spam senders seem to think I might want to possess, but this one seemed so...personal, so imtimately considerate of my attention, as if it were hand-written to Glenda.

Disappointingly, it was for cialis.

But when I checked my wand, and ruby red slippers, the magic was still there, sparkling over all of Oz.

Now, for those of you who are apt to read too much into this, sometimes a wand is just a wand.

Friday Doll Blogging

2006-06-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

I went to a great party last weekend. I won a prize...a doll!!

I have to marvel at how far women have come since the early struggle for women's rights.

Her name is Action Angel. (Note to feminists: she can be active yet still demure and sweet!!)

And above all, she is dressed in a hot costume with slimming red satin pants and tiny black combat boots. (Birkenstocks are definitely OUT this season!) And her long blonde tresses never become tangled when she is in Action!

It should also be noted that she carries a shield and an assault rifle. Now some would say this self-defense thing has gone too far, or is she now supposed to be both aggressor or protector?

However, she also has a medical bag, to patch up those she must shoot when she is being active but also in angel mode. There seems to be some conflict between whether she is huntress or nurturer of perhps a bit of both.

And what does the shield guard against, not bullets? It is a large shield, does she also fight people with swords accasionally? Are there ninja adversaries out there that I am unaware of? Is this in response to terrorists that may lurk in the halls of our shopping malls? The mystery deepens.

Women, wake up, it's a new day- Madison Avenue dictates- your roles are changing!
(And your draft cards will be in the mail shortly.)

Finding a Place of Gratitude in the Heart

2006-06-07T06:36:00.000-07:00

I have come to see gratitude as primary among the spiritual virtues, the wellspring, as it were.

True gratitude is magnificat; that is, it magnifies. Not just me, but others in my life as well.

Gratitude is not strictly a private emotion but uses the personal to convey something more universal, stories that others may also claim as their own or relate to in their own lives.

Gratitude can reverberate throughout one's relationships with others and the world like a small stone skipping across the pond.

I often get this sense of gratitude from trying to "see" and "feel" the world around me, trying to find a balance between activism and gratitude. I try to practice this on a daily basis, although not always successfully.

That is one reason I am often found with my camera strapped to my shoulder. I want to document the beauty of the world, not just the grisly injustice.

Yesterday I climbed up on a ladder (from a safe distance) to take these pictures of swallows nesting over my front door.

I find the new life growing so close to the heart of my home is a beautiful thing.

I often watch as the parent birds fly out from under the porch and across the front garden.

Watching a bird in flight still fills me with the same sense of awe it did when I was 8 years old.

When I pay attention and stay in the present I can become like that bird, flying over the garden and back to its nest.

Violent Baghdad deaths top 6,000

2006-06-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

The bodies of 6,000 people, most of whom died violently, have been received by Baghdad's main mortuary so far this year, health ministry figures show.

The number has risen every month, to 1,400 in May. The majority are believed to be victims of sectarian killings.

But observers say the real death toll could be much higher.

Meanwhile police said nine severed heads were found near Baquba to the north of Baghdad - days after a similar discovery there...

The 2006 death toll at the Baghdad mortuary appeared in two local newspapers and was confirmed to the BBC by officials who asked to remain anonymous because the issue is so sensitive.

One reason for the sensitivity is that government officials fear more detailed information on these killings could further enflame sectarian tensions, the BBC's Andrew North in Baghdad says.

Tuesday's gruesome find followed a similar discovery on Saturday

But no-one believes these are the true figures from the violence in and around Baghdad as many bodies are not taken to the morgue, or are never found, he adds.

The nine severed heads had been wrapped in plastic bags and left in a fruit box by the side of a road near Baquba, 60km (35 miles) north-east of Baghdad, police said.

But there is no civil war in Iraq, according to Bush.

Rumsfeld hints at greater military ties

2006-06-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

Items compiled from Tribune news services
Published June 5, 2006

HANOI, VIETNAM -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that the United States wants to expand its military relationship with Vietnam but has no plans to seek access to military facilities with this former enemy.

Arriving in Hanoi just days after the United States signed a trade agreement with Vietnam, Rumsfeld planned to meet with the U.S. military team involved in finding and identifying the remains of hundreds of U.S. servicemen still missing in action from the Vietnam war.

En route to Hanoi, Rumsfeld talked only generally about his goals for the U.S. military relationship with Vietnam.

"I don't have a wish list" he said, "I had so many liberals in my hair, I just needed to get out of town, and I know this trip will piss off the Chinese, so win-win."

Rummy then smiled gaily and then ran into Hotel Nam to binge on Hot Cheetos and wine coolers. He has a war to run and an ex-enemy to woo.

The War in Iraq: Rebuttal Time

2006-06-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

For those of us who want an end to the war in Iraq, how do we argue convincingly against the war?

We often hear reasons why we cannot leave Iraq. I believe that it is important to be able to articulate why you support or do not support this war.

I read this article and think the author nailed the points very well. It's a slightly long read, but by plowing through it, I guarantee you will get a better understanding of the war, and why we need to bring our troops home now.

Iraq War Fallacies: Proponents of Keeping Our Soldiers in Iraq Repeatedly Offer the Same Rationale for Their Viewpoint. Here, Their Most Often Cited Reasons Are Refuted.

by William F. Jasper

FALLACY: If the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq now, the country will collapse into chaos, civil war, and dictatorship, and will almost certainly end up being ruled by a regime hostile to us.

REBUTTAL: That is certainly possible if we pull out now, but we have no guarantee against that same outcome if we remain in Iraq three more years, 10 more years, or 20 more years, after expending thousands more lives of American soldiers and hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars. In fact, the current "friendly" regime we have installed is very friendly with Iran, and the growing Baghdad-Tehran axis should be a major concern to all Americans.

When Iran's foreign minister visited Iraq in May of 2005, he was warmly received by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. Mr. Jaafari is a radical Shi'ite Muslim and a disciple of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, who, it may be recalled, labeled the United States the "Great Satan," inspired the overthrow of the pro-American Shah of Iran, held our embassy and American citizens hostage, and launched a new age of terror. Prime Minister Jaafari, "our ally" in Iraq, made an historic pilgrimage to Tehran in July 2005, with eight of his cabinet ministers in tow, to lay a wreath on the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini. Jaafari spent nine years (1980-1989) in Iran, and at Ayatollah Khomeini's behest, became a founding member of the Ayatollah's Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

With Shi'ite Muslims comprising 90 percent of Iran's and 60 percent of Iraq's population, and Iraq's pro-Iranian radical Shi'ite "pope," Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, being the most influential religious leader in the country, we are already witnessing the transformation of Iraq into an ally of Iran.

FALLACY: The huge turnout of Iraqi voters in the January and December 2005 election proves President Bush's hopeful vision that this "is the beginning of something new: constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East."

REBUTTAL: It "proves" nothing of the sort. Iraq has no history of "democracy," constitutional or otherwise, and it is the height of imperial conceit to expect a couple of elections under a military occupation to change thousands of years of cultural, religious, and political tradition.

Ancient Iraq (formerly known as Mesopotamia) is often referred to as the "cradle of civilization." Yet from the time of the Sumerian empire to the Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Mongol, and Turkish empires on up to modern times, Iraq has always been under autocratic, dictatorial, or tyrannical rule. For a relatively few brief periods, it has enjoyed relatively benign autocratic rule, but never genuine self-rule and limited, constitutional government. During World War I--the war to "make the world safe for democracy"--British troops drove out the Turks and replaced them as Iraq's occupiers.

In 1920, Britain accepted a League of Nations mandate to occupy Iraq and prepare it for independence, under the British-installed King Faisal. Despite 12 years of British occupation (1920-1932), Iraq was then and thereafter regularly in turmoil, suffering assassination, coups, attempted coups, and revolution. All of which is not to say that Iraq will never become a peaceful republic, but to point out how ludicrous it is to suggest that it is on the cusp of doing so.

About the only thing any of the warring factions in Iraq agree on is getting U.S. forces out of Iraq. Independent polls (USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll in April 2004; U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority poll in May 2004; BBC/Oxford Research International poll in December 2005, to cite a few) show that Iraqis of all persuasions--Sunnis, Shias, Communists, Kurds --overwhelmingly look unfavorably on the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, and a majority favor an immediate U.S. pullout. By continuing to stay where we are not wanted, we only assure that we will alienate all sides in this tragic corner of the world.

FALLACY: But we must support democracy if we hope to stop terrorism. As President Bush said in his second Inaugural Address: "So, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

REBUTTAL: If "democracy" is our Holy Grail, then President Bush will have to be willing to accept majority votes that may be unpalatable. After all, Venezuela's Communist leader, Hugo Chavez, was democratically elected. As was his pro-terrorist, anti-American Marxist comrade, President Lula de Silva of Brazil. Ditto for Iran's democratically elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And there are the recent victories of the radical Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's parliamentary elections. Then there's our supposed democratic ally, Pakistan, which supports a multitude of terrorist groups, and whose spy chief, General Mahmoud Ahmad, is implicated as a paymaster for the 9/11 hijackers. The UN General Assembly is filled with democratically elected despots.

We may believe the autocratic monarchical regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain to be less than ideal, but who can believe that we will benefit if Iranian or Iraqi-style democracy were to sweep jihadist mullahs to power in those countries? Our Iraqi occupation is making that more likely, as each passing day stokes the anti-American fires of the extremist factions.

The United States is not and never was a democracy. Our Founding Fathers, wisely despising democracy as a dangerous fraud, gave us a constitutional republic, which guarantees the rights of all, especially minorities. It subjects us all--and especially the government--to the "rule of law," another goal frequently proclaimed by the Bush administration. However, the U.S. Constitution provides no authority for the president or Congress to establish global democracy or "end tyranny" throughout the world, even if it were possible to do so. Bush's attempts to do so are a gross usurpation of power and blatant violation of the rule of law he claims to desire to promote.

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy," said President John Quincy Adams. "She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

FALLACY: We must not lose our resolve because of setbacks and casualties; we must "stay the course" in the war against terror.

REBUTTAL: Stay which course? And for how long, and to what end, and at what cost? We have been the victims of a gigantic, serial bait-and-switch scam, with constantly changing goals and definitions. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, the American public rightly supported military attacks on those responsible. The Bush administration made a generally acceptable case for pinning culpability on Osama bin Laden and for attacking al-Qaeda's bases in Afghanistan, as well as the ruling Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

However, after gaining approval and momentum for the Afghan invasion, the Bush administration and the foreign policy elites repeatedly misled and lied to the American people in order to expand the "war on terror" to include Iraq. After failing to provide any evidence to back its insinuations that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, the administration shifted gears: Saddam was a future terror threat who was amassing a huge arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). We were in imminent danger, we were told, of nuclear or biological weapon attacks by Saddam's agents or terrorist surrogates. Saddam must be removed immediately.

Saddam was removed. U.S. forces demolished his regime within three weeks of landing on Iraqi soil. Saddam has been captured, his sons killed, and most of the rest of his cabal of despotic, sadistic megalomaniacs killed or captured. However, after turning the country upside down, no WMDs or WMD program could be discovered. Instead of declaring "mission accomplished" and bringing our troops home, the administration changed the U.S. goal in Iraq to one of national reconstruction and establishing "democracy" and ending tyranny--not only in Iraq, but throughout the entire world.

By December of 2005, we had already sacrificed more than 2,300 American lives and spent $228 billion. Administration officials have been saying for nearly two years that we are on the verge of beating the insurgents, but we are no closer than when we started. Former Secretary of Defense Colin Powell stated in December 2005 that it will likely be "many years" before U.S. troops can be pulled out of Iraq. According to Linda Bilmes, who teaches budgeting at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, if the war lasts five years, it will cost Americans about $1.4 trillion. That's a lot of taxes for a bankrupt nation. And the toll in blood will be even more costly. Are we willing to sacrifice our sons' and daughters' lives on the Iraqi sands and indenture future generations of Americans for the ever-changing goals of this "war on terror"?

FALLACY: George W. Bush did not lie us into war. He made the best decision he could based on the intelligence he had--and the Democrats, using the same intelligence, came to the same conclusion.

REBUTTAL: That "consensus" only proves either bipartisan ignorance or bipartisan treachery. The evidence that was used as the strongest argument for invading and occupying Iraq has been shown to be false, and there is strong reason to believe that elected officials in both parties knew the evidence was false, or at least highly suspect. Those who challenged the phony "intelligence" have been vindicated.

FALLACY: President Bush is our commander in chief and it is our patriotic duty during this time of war to support him. REBUTTAL: It is unpatriotic not to question the conduct, direction, and objectives of this undeclared war. Even if genuine intelligence had conclusively shown that Iraq was indeed involved in the 9/11 attacks and/or was planning an attack on the U.S., the president is constitutionally required to obtain a declaration of war from Congress before starting hostilities. And Congress is required to go on record with a declaration of war, not simply authorize open-ended military action pursuant to some United Nations resolution. It is not unpatriotic to question the conduct, direction, or objectives of this undeclared war.

FALLACY: But Iraqi forces are rapidly being trained and are nearly ready to take over. It is irresponsible and immoral to pull out before they are capable of surviving without us.

REBUTTAL: According to General Shahwani, head of Iraqi intelligence, the insurgents have around 40,000 "hard core fighters." The only estimates from U.S. intelligence officials are that the insurgent numbers are "somewhat smaller." According to the Pentagon, the U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi Security Forces now number 100,000. Must we stay another two or three years and train another 50,000 or 100,000? And, if so, will that be sufficient, or will the timelines and numbers be shifted again?

If 150,000 U.S. troops--equipped with America's high-tech weapons and our overwhelming air and sea support--have not brought the Iraqi "insurgents" under control in nearly three years, it is highly unlikely that the Iraqi military, police, and government, which are saturated with anti-U.S, elements--Sunnis, pro-Iranian Shias, Communists, al-Qaeda jihadists--will do so in short order. Like it or not, this is a complex and intractable conflict that the Iraqi people must work out for themselves. We cannot do it for them, nor should we try.

FALLACY: We are helping make life sustainable after U.S. forces leave by providing schools, hospitals, water and sewer systems, and training our replacements to run the infrastructure. We can't let this all go down the drain.

REBUTTAL: Undoubtedly, there is some good that has come from our presence in Iraq. But the major humanitarian and reconstruction effort has been put in the hands of the most corrupt institution on earth, the United Nations.

Humanitarian aid is being handled by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which is composed of UN agencies such as UNICEF, UNESCO, UNHABITAT, UNFPA, UNIDO, UNIFEM, UNHCR, UNDP, UNEP, FAO, WHO, and ILO. All of these agencies have atrocious records for waste and corruption. Iraq's reconstruction has been placed under the auspices of the UN Development Group Iraq Trust Fund (UNDG-ITF), which includes most of the same agencies as UNAMI. These are all the same UN miscreants who gave us Saddam's multi-billion dollar "oil-for-food" racket, one of the biggest heists in history. In short, the Iraq aid package is an outrageous scheme to further enrich Kofi Annan's corrupt minions and politically favored corporate cronies, while further impoverishing American taxpayers.

FALLACY: It is better to fight the terrorists in Iraq than to fight them in the United States.

REBUTTAL: Tragically, the war in Iraq is making it more likely that we will be fighting the terrorists here in the United States. First and foremost, as the 9/11 attacks clearly demonstrated, our nation is wide open to terrorist attacks because our borders are a sham and our immigration and customs security are a joke. The 9/11 terrorists had easy access to our country, violating our visa "security" with virtual impunity. Rather than taking serious measures to close the gaping holes in our borders that allow millions of aliens to freely come and go without security checks, the administration has chosen to deplete our defense forces to dangerous levels by deploying our military to the far corners of the Earth.

At the same time, our military actions in Iraq are bringing in new terrorist recruits faster than we can capture or kill them. Don't take our word for it. The Bush administration itself has admitted this. "Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S, jihadists," CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 16, 2005. "These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism," Goss testified. "They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries."

Likewise, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the same Senate panel: "Our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment.... Overwhelming majorities in Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia believe the U.S. has a negative policy toward the Arab world." Adm. Jacoby said the Iraq insurgency had grown "in size and complexity over the past year." That testimony by Goss and Jacoby comports with the evidence from Muslim sources as well as independent media sources, terrorism experts, and security analysts.

In the asymmetrical warfare of terrorism, it is dangerously delusional and counterproductive to use massive military force against small, clandestine groups that mix with local populations. It is tantamount to using a sledge hammer or a shotgun to take out a mosquito in the living room or nursery. The collateral damage is unacceptable for the objective.

Iraq War Fallacies: Proponents of Keeping Our Soldiers in Iraq Repeatedly Offer the Same Rationale for Their Viewpoint. Here, Their Most Often Cited Reasons Are Refuted. William F. Jasper; The New American, Vol. 22, January 9, 2006

Blooming Friends

2006-06-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

The peak season of my flower garden is here and I picked out the best of the best of my 2006 daylily blooms.

These have all bloomed in my garden in the past month or so. This is my awards drumroll to my garden and a thank-you for a splendid performance.

Ethics lessons for US Iraq troops

2006-06-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or does this seem like a solution that is not a solution. These soldiers already get this training in boot camp. Why didn't it take? Why do the commanding officers think this will change anything? What a farce!

Bush policy has pushed them to the point where they are snapping!

Some have been on three tours of duty in an environment that is a walking exploding PTSD petri dish.

Expect more of this. This war is lost. Get over it, Bush and bring our troops home!

For full story, click on the top headline.

The US says it is still investigating what happened at Haditha

US-led troops in Iraq are to undergo ethical training in the wake of the alleged murder of civilians in Haditha.

For the next 30 days, they will receive lessons in "core
warrior values", a military statement said.

Correspondents say Haditha, where US marines are suspected of massacring up to 24 Iraqi civilians, could
have a huge effect on US public opinion.

In a separate incident, US forces were accused of shooting dead a pregnant woman as she was rushed to hospital.

Walking Under the Stars

2006-05-31T01:35:00.000-07:00

Unless it is thundering and pouring down rain, which isn't very often, my husband and I walk our two dogs every day around 5:15 in the morning. It is cool then in the Texas hill country where we live. We are surrounded by green woodlands, a nature preserve with canyons and there is a large lake nearby. We usually walk about two miles in morning and frequently walk another two miles at night, after it cools off.

Lately I have been paying attention to the abundant life around me as I walk underneath the Little Dipper, directly above us this time of year. I love hearing the whippoorwill's soft cry at the same place on the road. There is some comfort in the lonesome regularity of its call.

Yesterday my large lab was nosing around in the grass and stuck her nose right on a big tarantula. It reared back to bite her just as my husband pulled all 80 pounds of her away. The tarantulas are large here, about the size of an open hand spread, but they can blend in with the grass and leaves, especially in some places where the streetlight is dim.

Although they can jump up to about 5 feet, they are not aggressive and generally scoot by you to get on the road where it is warm. I took a picture of one a few days ago as it sat on the sidewalk.

I do keep an eye out for rattlesnakes, as they sometimes come up from the canyon to seek water in the sprinkler systems when it is dry. In the old days, my grandfather, who was a rancher, told me that they smeared bacon grease on snakebit dogs and usually they survived, having no anti-venom then.

Yesterday, as we approached a wooded area by the side of the road with large old oaks trees, I heard a loud snort and knew there were deer nearby. Two large does ran out into the clearing in front of us.

We've seen coyotes on the road, but they do not come close, preferring to watch from a safe distance.

There are also armadillos and possums, and cottontail rabbits, the nocturnal creatures not evident in the daylight hours.

The rabbits stay snugly hidden after daylight to avoid the numerous red-tailed hawks. I once had a hawk swoop down on a litter of white kittens in my back yard and tried to take off with one of the kittens in its talons. The mother cat jumped on the hawk, spitting and furious and it released the baby unharmed, feathers flying as it tried to make its getaway. I think the hawk mistook it for a rabbit.

Maintaining a Healthy Relationship, Part 2

2006-05-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

To have a healthy relationship requires that we keep love alive. This requires a serious commitment to the relationship and considerable effort from both individuals in the relationship.

Maintaining a healthy relationship is not a job for one. It takes two! However, if both people are willing to work at it, on a daily basis, it can become a reality.

The essential elements of a healthy relationship are:

1. Healthy self-esteem.

2. Showing emotional vulnerability.

3. Openly expressing your feelings.

4. Showing respect and admiration for your partner.

5. Openly admitting when you are wrong.

6. Maintaining open lines of communication.

7. Playing together on a regular basis.

8. Sharing intimate time together.

9. Honestly confronting issues that may have a negative impact on the relationship.

10. Negotiating mutually agreed solutions to problems in the relationship.

11. Disclosing your personal boundaries.

12. Respecting your partner's declared personal boundaries.

13. Acknowledging when you are feeling resentment toward your partner and talking about it-openly.

Working on Relationships

2006-05-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

There was some discussion over at The Blue Republic over the weekend about what makes a healthy relationship. There's a great discussion forum over there, so if this interests you, go over and sign up. It's free!

A group of us also had some discussion here last week about why some relationships work, why some relationships don't.

The biggest problem with relationships is that most of us have never had a role model for one.

We usually don't get taught in school or at home the common behaviors and thoughts that keep us from being happy or successful. Most of us try to figure it out on our own.

Keeping love alive requires work. I don't mean to imply that it is drudgery, but that it requires effort, time and energy. No matter how emotionally close two people seem to be, their relationship must be renewed-daily.

Relationships are dynamic, always in a state of flux. In fact, the only constant in a relationship is that it is dynamic. It changes moment-by-moment, interaction-by-interaction.

There are also some things we do that hurt our relationships. Some of these destructive factors include:

* Giving up the things you love to do, your interests for your partner. (Do you resent it that you never go skiing anymore?)

* Nagging at your partner. (Even if you just want to make him/her a better person.)

* Doing something to get even with your partner. (Ah, well, there was the incident of the plastic snake under the pillow that night.)

* Talking about your partner behind his/her back. (That bitch/bastard!)

* Blaming your partner for your feelings of unhappiness. (if only s/he would X, then I could Y.)

* Expecting your partner to change. (I know if I just love him/her enough, s/he will quit having affairs and lying about them.)

* Thinking "if my partner really loved me--he/she would know what I need without me having to tell him/her." (What, you're NOT a mind-reader?)

* Avoiding intimate time together. (Just another half-hour, dear, I'm almost to level 19.)

* Flirting with persons other than your partner. (If s/he doesn't know about it, how can it hurt?)

* Considering having an affair (seeking love outside of your relationship).

There are probably more, feel free to add your own list.
What are the positive thing we can do to enhance to make our relationships flower. Ah, more on that tomorrow!

Cards For Every Occasion!

2006-05-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, time for a humor break!!!

We have had some great discussions here this week on a range of topics from relationships to racism, to classism and sexism. I was thinking about how our society has changed lately, and how it hasn't changed.

I was thinking that I should hawk a line of "NonHallmark" cards to celebrate the new types of special dates in our society, so I put together this line of new event cards.

Here's a selection:

Hell's Angel Induction!

To My Senator on the Occasion of His Latest Junket
Please Pay Your Child Support!

Home School Graduation Cards!

Condolences on Being Called Before the Grand Jury for the 5th Time

Congratulations to My New Girlfriend, From a Stalker

On Your New Covenant Marriage!

CONDOLENCES FOR HAVING YOUR PHONE TAPPED

KUDOS On Quitting AA!

Mixed Feelings About Your New Job?
On Embracing Intelligent Design!

On Your New Undergarment Design Company!
Looking Forward To Your Coming Rapture!
On Graduating From BDSM Training!

Kudos on Your New Botox Injection

On You Marriage to Your Cat!
For the President's Birthday, with no sympathy!

Upon the Occasion of Your Congressman NOT Getting Indicted

IDEAS SUGGESTED BY OR INSPIRED BY READERS:

Sympathy Card for Ex-True Believers of Bush, VIA peacechick mary.

CONGRATULATIONS ON HAVING A SUCCESSFUL BOOK BURNING EVENT! via Callooh.

CONDOLENCES ON BEING UNDEREMPLOYED: Via Weezielou!

Condolences to Mother Earth, via M.D.

Cards are also planned for "On Your Secondary Virginity" the "Fatherland Day," "Invitation to A Lethal Injection," and "Congratulations To Cheney, Bush is Now Emperor."

What is wrong with us????

2006-05-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

Betmo asked this question in the comment section for the previous post: the indigenous peoples of all continents are victims of abuse, neglect, drug use, etc……i think that it is fair to ask- what is wrong with us wasps?

Ay, betmo, let me say what I think is going on because I've been thinking about this for years.

1. When a culture has a strong patriarchal message that boys should be hyper-masculine, like John Wayne, (strong and aggressive), and girls should be hyper-feminine, like Barbie, (not like that bitch Hilary, what a mandyke!), both boys and girls suffer, boys shut down emotionally and lose some of their empathy and girls become more passive, bake cookies, and feel less in control of their own lives. Now this is a generalization, not to say all people in the US are like this, OK? But this is a cultural directive in general.

Just look at Dubya and Laura as an example. They are icons of a hyper-masculine man, who likes to swagger, but is emotionally inept, and poor Laura looks like an intelligent woman whose job is to be in a blankly supporting role at all times. These are stereotypical and rigid gender roles that make men and women less happy and less sensitive to others because they are not operating from a place that includes being in touch with their authentic inner self. It is a kind of programmed adaptive behavior that gets rewarded in many ways. And those churches with dogma based on men-in-control patriarchal doctrine also reinforce these skewed gender roles.
Now other things are also going on as well.

2. This culture has a history of exploitive relationships with nonwhite cultures because cultural messages tell us that whites are superior/better/smarter, whatever to nonwhites, hence there is racism and classism or white class superiority.

3. Some whites in this culture, particularly males have a sense of entitlement and at the same time see change all around them that indicates that their preferential place is disappearing to women, nonwhites, immigrants, etc, and they are angry about it.
4. There is economic insecurity (outsourcing, unstable economy, etc) which makes the precarious situation worse.

5. There is war, even worse. More instability.

6. Sound like the makings of the perfect violent storm? Aggression is a learned acceptable way to cope with anger in a patriarchal culture. Whom is it safe to hurt and bully to burn off displaced anger? Poor nonwhites and women.

Even easier to hurt and humiliate poor nonwhite women, especially since you have been raised to believe that women are there to serve your needs. Domestic violence and sexual assault are about expressing power and control in a sexualized way. So when some men feel out of control and angry, they beat or rape women, Indian women, Latino women, or whomever they can hurt to feel back in control of things. The native peoples are at the bottom of the pecking order and serve as an outlet for frustrations. They don't seem really human in this schemata.
They may not even feel pain like you and do.

Now this is admittedly a somewhat simplistic answer, because women of all races are vulnerable to sexual violence, and FBI profilers report different types of rapists with differing motivations, so understand this is a very general answer.

However, most rapists target those women where they feel they can 1) dominate and control, 2) get what they want (entitlement) and 3) where they will not get caught or prosecuted. They more often target women like prostitutes, homeless women, and poor women (or incidentally inebriated women, rape involves alcohol use in almost 70% of the reported incidences).

However, it is usually only when a middle class or wealthy woman is sexually assaulted that it makes the news. Have you noticed that high profile cases are almost always about white women who are not poor?

Violence Against Native Women

2006-05-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

There were some comments on the previous post about statistics regarding the rates of violence against native Americans. Here is the research.

ACCORDING TO A REPORT BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, AMERICAN Indians and Crime (Greenfield and Smith, 1999), rates of violent victimization were higher for Native women than for all other groups in the United States. Natives are more likely to be victims of crime than are any other group in the United States. People of a different race committed 70% of violent victimizations against Natives. The report also notes the rate of violent crime experienced by Native women between 1992 and 1996 was nearly 50% higher than that reported by African American males, long known to experience very high rates of violent victimization. According to the Department of Justice, 70% of sexual assaults of Native women are never reported, which suggests that the number of violent victimizations of Native women is actually higher (Ibid.).

Greenfield, Lawrence and Steven Smith 1999 American Indians and Crime. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing, 4.

Defunct prison reopens as immigrant detainee center

2006-05-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

Since it opened, T. Don Hutto Private Prison in Taylor has fought to stay relevant, having had financial problems from lack of enough prisoners in Texas.

Then the Department of Homeland Security stepped in with a new contract for T. Don Hutto – as a place to detain illegal immigrants waiting to be deported out of the United States.

This is the first official detainee facility for illegal immigrants. Entire families are bused there to wait for their processing back to their country of origin, which is most often Mexico.

I know a man who works there, a seasoned prison guard. I will call him Tommy, obviously not his real name. Tommy is a seasoned hard-ass prison guard, but a good man.

He described the incoming immigrant families holding screaming children in their arms. He described the guards taking their fingerprints, taking the fingerprints of the babies.
He said it was disturbing to the most hardened prison workers to see poor families being held like prisoners, the children behind bars, crying, all of them crying.
He said they were all poor and frightened. He has been around criminals for many years. These are not criminals. They are poor and desperate.

What I heard disturbed me too. I don't know what else to say. The internal picture of fingerprinting babies offends me.

So much about the methods of this administration offend me.

We say that they should not come into this country illegally. But if through fate, you found yourself a poor uneducated Mexican, what would you do? And if your children were starving, wouldn't you do anything to feed them, to try for a life with some hope?

Wiretapping Frenzy

2006-05-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

I'm still mad as hell about this whole wiretapping intrusion. The 4th amendment is written as:

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 warrents 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

The analogy that came to me as I was driving to work this morning is that Bush broke into my house, put on my old cheerleader outfit, including my underwear, and did a big cheer in the living room. That just ain't right.

Impeach Bush! Posters

2006-05-14T05:53:00.000-07:00

These are up here for you to use. Enjoy!

We are not mining personal information

2006-05-13T19:56:00.000-07:00

How Does US Policy Impact Other Cultures?

2006-05-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

On first glance, this is a nice wool rug, that appears to be from the middle-east. Well, it is that, but on closer inspection there is more.

This rug came from Afghanistan during the first Gulf War. My husband brought it back to the states.

If you look closely, it is a new design.

There are tanks, warplanes, and machine guns woven into the design.

Before the war, this design was unknown in this part of the world, just a symptom of some of the ways we change the thinking of other cultures when we go to war in their land. This is a very tiny change compared to the gift of democracy we have brought over there, the thousands of deaths, both military, police, and innocent civilians, children, the aged, people who lived in a cruel dictatorship and have come to know an equally cruel American occupation. Is this true, are we bringing democracy or just another version of our corrupt government practice?

In twenty years, will Iraq be a new wonderful culture, ruled by a democratic Iraqi system or a failed state similar to Afghanistan or Somalia? There are signs that recovery can happen. Iraq doesn't have to be a Somalia; it can be a Lebanon, but will it come at the cost of a quarter century of slow progress?

DeLay to bow out on June 9

2006-05-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been worried because Tom has been stalling about setting his resignation date. It is now official. Tom has a date to leave!!!

Letter to House speaker makes congressman's departure official
By SAMANTHA LEVINE and KRISTEN MACK

U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay announced Thursday that June 9 will be his last day in Congress
The Sugar Land Republican, who disclosed his intention to resign in April after being engulfed by legal problems in Austin and Washington, made his departure official in a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
"I have recently made the decision to pursue new opportunities to engage in the important cultural and political battles of our day from an arena outside of the U.S. House of Representatives," DeLay wrote, (and also because I am a crook and likely to spend time in prison for my crimes.)

"As a result, I am informing you of my intention to formally resign as the representative of the 22nd Congressional District of Texas to be effective at the close of business on June 9, 2006."
DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty said the timing gives him "the opportunity to work on a few of his priorities before leaving." (Like working out at the gym?)

Whoo-Hoo. Don't let the legislative door hit you on the way out.

Glenda's Flowers

2006-05-11T03:42:00.000-07:00

These are individual flowers from my garden that I photographed and placed togethert in a wreath. Blooming daylilies!

Is Karl Rove Tap Dancing His Way to An Indictment?

2006-05-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

width: 260px; height: 400px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8025/2146/400/52538210.DSC_8551.jpg" alt="" border="0" />FMNN asks the salient question in regards to the possible impending indictment of Karl Rove, otherwise known as "Official A:"

HOW HIGH CAN KARL ROVE JUMP?

Indeed, the month of May, 2006 could hold the answer to Ambassador Joseph Wilson's question, "Wouldn't it be fun to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs?"

Question 6-Q: Do people often lie in these circumstances? Why would Libby and Rove lie?

A: Again, to quote Mr. Fitzgerald from the press conference, it's "important that witnesses who come before a grand jury who may be under investigation, tell the complete truth. ... And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime. ... And I'd say this: I think people might not understand this. We, as prosecutors and FBI agents, have to deal with false statements, obstruction of justice and perjury all the time. The Department of Justice charges those statutes all the time."

Thus, it appears that Libby and Rove have betrayed the public trust, and lied to cover up the truth about their participation in the campaign to destroy the Wilsons. They are common thugs. Shame, shame, shame on them.

Taking a Break

2006-05-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

Glenda and Pink Feminist are taking a short break to spend time with family.

We'll be back next week!!!!!!

Thinking About Bush

2006-05-02T04:39:00.000-07:00

More musings about why we need a change of government!

Defining the November Campaign Slogan

2006-04-29T02:53:00.000-07:00

In an article published in the New York Times today, author Tim Roehmer asks what the pussilient Democrats will do to show some leadership and define the issues instead of once again letting the Republicans take the ball and run as they sit back and react, eyes blinking like lizards in the sunlight.

He suggests giving them a campaign slogan and writes:

In January, President Bush's adviser Karl Rove outlined the issues he believes will lead Republican candidates to victory in November: national security, the economy and taxes, and the courts. Democrats cannot allow Republicans to define the terms of the debate. Instead, they should take a page from history and from a different Karl.

In 1946, Karl Frost, an advertising executive, suggested a simple slogan to the Massachusetts Republican Committee: "Had Enough? Vote Republican!" Frost recognized that these simple words could unite his national party and blame its opponents, who controlled Congress, for causing or failing to solve the many problems facing the country, including meat shortages, economic difficulties and labor unrest. The strategy worked: in 1946, both houses of Congress flipped.

Sixty years later, Democrats would be smart to turn Karl Frost's slogan on Karl Rove's strategy.

He goes on to suggest the slogan, Had Enough? Vote Democratic! It sums up the feeling of the country right now.

The Demos need to get back in the ring and come out swinging instead of being on the defensive.

Here are some "variations on a theme"campaign ads that I would like to see.

width: 400px; height: 311px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8025/2146/400/planekid1.jpg" alt="" border="0" />

What happened to Those Accused of Abusing Detainees?

2006-04-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

From the NY Times

Was Karl Rove Wiretapping Fitzgerald??

2006-04-27T04:28:00.000-07:00

According to the Seattle Times, Karl Rove testified yesterday for more than three hours before leaving a federal courthouse unsure whether he would be indicted, according to a source close to the presidential aide.

Recently, Josh Bolten came in and started cleaning White House staff. Rove's reduced--but still influential--portfolio at the White House was initiated amidst a flurry of other beheadings and ax in the back demotions, layoffs and buh-byes. Were some of the other "Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out" firings a cover to distance him from the president? Did Bushcamp know something was brewing because they were covertly listening in on communicaions from Fitzgerald's office?

One has to wonder if those who brought us the NSA wiretapping have been keeping tabs on correspondence and communications out of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's office. Did they gather information this way and know he was about to be called in again or possibly indicted soon? Or was the timing of his demotion and consequent testimony brfore the grand jury yesterday just "co-incidence?"

Tony Snow or Herman Munster?

2006-04-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

Tony Snow, named as the new White House press secretary, is no stranger to lying.

An outspoken conservative presenter for Fox News radio and television, he is the first Washington commentator to be appointed to the White House role, proving that the press is not part of the liberal media, as charged by Crush Limbaugh and other conservatives. He is used to lying as the press and will now do an excellent job of lying to the press.

Having worked as chief speech writer for President George W Bush's father when he was president, Mr. Snow can claim to straddle both press and politics. Well, he straddles something, could it be Bush himself?

He replaces Scott McClellan, who announced his resignation under pressure as part of a staff shake-up. With unfortunate apologies to Fred Gynne, who did nothing to merit this slander upon his good looks.

Give Left of Center a Big Round of Applause

2006-04-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

Do you know how rare it is for a stranger to reach out and offer help to another person?

Left of Center has just been awarded a permanent citizenship award in OZ. Thanks, friend.

Clashes in Athens as Rice visits

2006-04-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

Athens police have fired teargas during a clash with anti-war demonstrators protesting against a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Some protesters hurled petrol bombs, sticks and stones in return. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and military victory, and also the patron of the city of Athens, rose from the rocky ground and was seen hurling lightning bolts at Condi as she held on tightly to Bush's head. Condi remained unperturbed during the entire event, but then Athena did not know that the vampire Condi is invulnerable to lightning bolts.

"We were just trying to bring Democracy to Greece, but these people don't even know the meaning of the word.....Oh, you say this is a Greek word?" Condi quipped to reporters.

Ms Rice is also meeting Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis as part of a five-day trip to Europe that also includes Turkey and Bulgaria.

Republicans urge Bush to fight high gasoline costs

2006-04-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Rotters) - Republican leaders urged Bush to fight back and investigate whether oil companies are gouging consumers. They also wondered aloud whether by invading Iraq and failing to institute an oil-conservation policy they themselves had worsened the problem. If the latter proved to be the case, they urged Bush to bitchslap himself.

U.S. retail gasoline prices are forecast to keep rising as no one in the government wants to offend the oil lobby... Republicans fear they could lose the Senate and House of Representatives in this November's congressional elections if voters retaliate against them for the high fuel prices and for all their other screw-ups, and especially for starting the War in Iraq.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a frist-class jackass who is exploiting this situation for his own gain and possible run for the presidency and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the guy who failed tp deliver his promise on the lobbying disclosure bill, wrote President Dubya and asked him to direct the U.S. Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on price gouging.

"Go get ‘em, tiger,” they said. “Anyone trying to take advantage of this situation while American families are forced to make tough choices over whether to fill up their cars or sell their children should be investigated and shot," the lawmakers said in their joint letter to Bush. Bush put on his boxing trunks and waded in swinging.

Josh Bolten Breaks Away

2006-04-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the latest in the string of shuffle-ups at the White House includes new chatter that Harriet Miers may be removed from her job as President Bush's counsel. Scotty McClellan was axed recently, showing the way Bush repays years of loyalty and lying under fire and ex-Kommander Karl Rove recently woke up to find a horse's head on his pillow.

Republicans said that Tony Snow, a commentator for Fox News and a former speechwriter for Mr. Bush's father, was in negotiations for the job of White House press secretary. Experts say his ability to lie to the press and to the public far exceeds that of Scotty McClellan and that Josh Bolten welcomes a true professional in the ability-to-lie arena.

"Lying is a must in the War against Terrorism," Bolten was quoted as saying by an unnamed source. He added. "The immigration problem can only be solved by lying. We must pretend that we are recruiting Mexicans to vote for us, while secretly building a VERY BIG wall across the border with detention camps spaced every 10 miles or so. We also must continue to pretend that the economy is robust, the the War in Iraq is making progress and democracy is making headway there, while denying the fact of a civil war. In fact, I have a laundry list of lies that I want John Snow to polish as soon as he comes on board.

Josh Bolten then broke into a gleeful breakdance and spun around a few times, thinking about who to fire next.

Lizard pic..in Honor of Earth Day!

2006-04-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

This lovely green anole was wandering along the brick facade of my home this morning.

They often lurk by the front door and try to run inside the house.

I know it's spring because this little guy got in the front door before I was able to catch him and take him outside again.

When they feel threatened, they puff up a red ball in their throats to look poisonous and scary to predaors.

They are also called chameleons and are able to change color very quickly.

He is the tiniest dinosaur in my garden and I salute his ability to survive and change on this Earth Day.

Poor little lizard, but his cold eyes remind me of Cheney.

Historical Bush Approval Ratings

2006-04-21T22:54:00.000-07:00

Update on Tom DeLay and the Ruckus in Brazos County

2006-04-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Have been following the goings-on down in Brazos County, Tom DeLay's old district here in south Texas close to Houston. Thanks to Juanita, home of Juanita's, World's Most Dangerous Hair Salon, who keeps me up on this, there is a new mini-drama going on down there.

Seems there was a ruckus on April 6 when some of Tom DeLay's brownshirts were told to attend a political rally for the Democratic contender Nick Lampson and started aggressing, pushing and shouting at his supporters.

One woman, Marsha Rovai, a 69 year-old retired CPC worker was assaulted and knocked down by two of these goons. One of them, the guy in the white Tee shirt and "failure to communicate" sunglasses, as shown in the photo, was one of the aggressors, and is also the head of the Grand Jury in Sugar Land, Texas.

To see pictures posted by Miz Juanita:

This website is dedicated to ground zero for democracy. Thanks to Congressvarmint Tom DeLay and Governor Rick Perry, the good people of the Texas 22nd will soon be the only people in America since 1776 to have taxation without representation. Our forefathers shed blood over this. However, our local Republicans think it's just hunkey dorey, and they will hit you if you try to say otherwise.

Anyway, it just gets better. The assulted woman, Marsha Rovai, went to the Sugar Land Police Department to make a complaint and file charges for assault and the police refused to take her statement.

Juanita says:

That's not surprising since the Mayor of Sugar Land, David Wallace, is a close friend of Tom DeLay's and is openly running for the Republican nomination for the seat.

By the way, the Democrats had permission to be there and the Republicans did not.

If you could please let the City of Sugar Land know that you do not believe it is acceptable for men to do to Marsha what they did, it might send a message that every citizen has the right to expect safety in Sugar Land Town Square. Please be polite, make no threats, or use bad language. We don't want them to think that you're a Republican, now do we?

So Juanita posted the phone numbers of the Sugar Land Police Department and City offices and asked people to call and protest. This is one righteous troublemaking woman! She added:

I have a theory that the more crap you put up with, the more crap you're gonna to get. Let's face them down right here right now.
One more thing, Dexter says, "Exercising free speech and opposing Democrats on their voting record is not against the law.” You'd think the foreman of the Grand Jury would check the law before he spouts off. Remember: Dexter was instructed by DeLay's campaign manager to "wreck" Lampson's press conference.

Texas Penal Code, Section 42.05

42.05. DISRUPTING MEETING OR PROCESSION. (a) A person commits an offense if, with intent to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting, procession, or gathering, he obstructs or interferes with the meeting, procession, or gathering by physical action or verbal utterance.
(b) An offense under this section is a Class B misdemeanor

Anyway, yesterday Miz Marsha Rowe went back tothe Sugar Land Police Department with a lawyer, and there was achange of heart as they took her statement. Juanita reports:

Marsha Rovai returned to the Sugar Land Police Department today with a highly respected lawyer and it was all the difference between day and night.

Two officers interviewed her, asked her for copies of the tapes, and promised to review the case. Thank you to everybody who emailed the police chief

.
INFREAKINGCREDIBLE! Kudos on reporting this and mobilizing people, Juanita!!

In Glenda's Garden

2006-04-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

I think I keep reverting to writing about my garden not only because it is my oasis, but because it gives me a breather from the evil that is world news, politics and the Rebublican party. And it helps me to be still and focus on the beauty that surrounds me and renew myself.

Anyway, on Easter Sunday, I found that the first of many daylilies had opened. Last fall, I planted over a hundred tubers in my various gardens. I found lots of "good deals" on end-of-season closeouts on Ebay and ordered them in bulk.

Unlike many of my more girlie friends, I do not splurge too often on shoes and accessories, but love to shop for plants.

Daylilies are easy to grow and do well in most climates. They will freeze back in the winter, but if you cover them with a blanket of mulch, they should come up in the spring.

I planted many of them randomly to see what would come up. Kind of like opening a Christmas present, each budding flower is a gift.

This is a peach ruffled daylily with what is called a slight picotee edge, a color variation slightly darker on the edge. I love the green and yellow throat on this one.

Managing Today's Threats to Homeland Security

2006-04-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

I went to a Law Enforcement Training Conference in San Diego three years ago to find out how they train their own.

I am still getting emails that mistake me for a police officer, some trying to sell me more effective Tazers, body armor, better nightsticks and pulverizing Bad Guy sprays.

Here is one that keeps coming in for a national conference . Anyone out there want to go to this? Gotta admit, it's real tempting....would you be interested in attending a conference like this, if it was free?

Homeland Defense Training Conference®

Managing Today's Threats to Homeland Security
With a Special Focus on Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN)

June 15, 2006
Renaissance Hotel, Washington, DC

Special Keynote Speaker

Frances Fragos Townsend, Special Assistant to the President for Terrorism

Crawford Peace Rally with Cindy Sheehan- Pics

2006-04-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

I have written a two-part story of the trip to Crawford. The first past will be posted soon, possibly this afernoon at The Blue Republic, so go on over there and check it out Here are some pictures I took over the weekend at the rally in Crawford, Texas.

Camp Casey

Cindy Sheehan carries the cross of the Bush policy at Crawford, Texas

The Yellow Rose, on the corner of the main highway into Crawford. The Republican ladies stand on the corner sometimes to yell out that, "God Loves You!"and "Honk if you love Bush!" There is a big sign on the front of the store that says "World's Largest Bush Selections" and"Sale!"

Marching along the road in the noon heat.

Bringing water to the marchers on bicycle and a sign painted on a wall at the Peace House

The protesters walked the Staions of the Cross along the road and prayed.

The end of the march at Camp Casey.

Quick Update on the Crawford Peace Rally

2006-04-15T07:34:00.001-07:00

Well, the first thing I did was take this picture in the bathroom before I left for Crawford yesterday. As you can see, Glenda's magic was still working as the camera flash illumined a peace sign within the reflection. Someday I hope my grandchildren carry on this work of waging peace.

The big news from Crawford, already reported over at The Blue Republic, was the scoop that 14 protesters, including Daniel Ellsberg were arrested in a peaceful demonstration yesterday afternoon. When we arrived, we saw them being carried off in the paddywagons with full sirens blasting. Originally, they reported 16 arrested, but I'm not sure the police counted them correctly. It seems there were only 14. Of course, one has to wonder, if under the influence of Bushco, whether the Crawford public schools actually have math on their curricula.

The city of Crawford has been passing ordinances to make it more difficult for people to assemble peacefully to voice their opinions. Last fall, they made it illegal to park one's car on the grassy side of the road, out in the country. Now there is a more recent ordinance against walking or standing anywhere on the side of the road, and especially close to the entrance to the Bush ranch. Freedom of speech? Freedom to assemble? That's Commie propaganda!

Thanks goes to Ellbserg and his staunch companions who made the decison to test the validity of this ordinance, knowing they would go to jail. They ended up in the Waco jail, while friends and supporters tried to rouse a judge to come hear their case on Good Friday. When I left late yesterday, they had not yet been successful. Time will tell when they will be released.

Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, the protest will come to Austin.

The Crawford Peace House website reports:

April 17 Day of Protest in Austin.

Start: 04/17/2006 - 11:00am

End: 04/17/2006 - 8:30pm

Timezone: US/Central

Description:

11am - 12:15 pm
ANTI WAR RALLY with Cindy, De De, Juan Torres, Bill Mitchell and others from Gold Star Families for Peace and Ann Wright, and other Camp Caseyites yet to be determined. LOCATION: UT East Mall, near MLK statue

I will be there. Come on down!

Goin' to Crawford Today

2006-04-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Sorry I have not been able to post for a few days. Besides having a hectic work week, I am organizing to travel to Crawford later this morning to attend the antiwar rally with Cindy Sheehan, Codepink, The Gold Star Families for Peace, and the good folks at the Crawford Peace House, without whose year-round work and efforts, this would not be possible. This is probably no surprise for those who check in here from time to time.
I will come back, loaded with pictures, so check back. I’ll also be posting at The Blue Republic, where they will be publishing the Crawford Travelogue Journal. Come check it out.

In the meantime, I posted a question there last night.
I was wanting to burn a CD to play in the car, antiwar songs for inspiration.

With the help of the others at The Blue Republic, we came up with a nice list, but could still use more. Any good antiwar music you can add to this list??

(By the way, most of these can be listened to in part on the Apple iTunes store. ITunes, if you don’t have it is a free download for Mac or PC, and you can hear podcasts free as well on it.)

Here’s the list so far:
Peace Train by Cat Stevens
War by the Temptations
Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan
Imagine by John Lennon
The Great Mandella by Peter, Paul and Mary
War by Bob Marley
F*ck Bush by Madeline Hsu Li
Freedom by Jimi Hendrix
The Times They Are a Changin' By Bob Dylan
With God on Our Side by Judy Collins
We Shall Overcome by Joan Baez
Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Guns on the Roof by the Clash
Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire
The Dove has torn her wing by Jacques Brel
A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan
The Universal Soldier by Donavan
Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds
Where is the Love? by the Black-eyed Peas