Anti-Bush despite my dream in which I was Laura Bush and loved George and was so grateful to him for making me the First Lady that - although I knew he was really doing a bad job - I decided I was going to work for his re-election because being the First Lady was so much fun and I sure didn't want to give it up...

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Virtual March - Global Warming

Laurie David has started a virtual march on Washington for action on global warming. The reason? Read her words:

"Don’t let anyone tell you a “little” global warming is no big deal. As human beings, we may not notice the difference between a cold day and a freezing day, but invasive species like the Bark Beetle do. And it spells disaster for our nation’s forests.

Just a 2 to 3 degree rise in average temperatures have allowed the larvae of these locust-like pests to survive what were once freezing and deadly winters. This “small” shift in climate has upset nature’s delicate balance: plagues of Bark Beetles are infesting not only the forests of Cody, Wyoming, the gateway to Yellowstone National Park, but hundreds of forests from Arizona to Alaska, decimating the trees they inhabit, leaving behind a veritable tinder box of dead wood in their wake. The combination of global warming, bark beetles, and America’s forests is the perfect storm for wildfires on a monumental scale.

As CO2 levels in our atmosphere rise, and temperatures continue to increase, Bark Beetles will just be one insect on a long list of destructive species that will defy nature’s way, taking advantage of new, man-made climate conditions, thus wreaking havoc on our planet’s natural resources. You can find out more at Stop Global Warming.

Please understand that this grim vision is just a vision. The future of the Earth can and will be preserved with your help. So spread the word and direct your families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues to www.StopGlobalWarming.org today. The March is growing by the thousands and with each new marcher the demand for change only grows louder. And we’re just getting warmed up."

Sign up and "march" today.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

The Big Lie

Did you listen to Bush's speech?

If you didn't, you missed nothing except a bunch of lies spoken unconvincingly. It was the same old tired rhetoric.

We had to go into Iraq.

That's a lie. We didn't.

We're making the world safer.

That's a lie. The world was far safer - we were actually safer - before the war. Certainly at the very least 1723 people were safer and the 40,000 troops who are returning with severe physical and mental scars were safer.

We're keeping Iraq from falling into a civil war.

That's a lie. There's already one raging. Iraqis are killing Iraqis.

We're keeping Iraq from falling to terrorists.

Okay, help me out with the logic of that statement. We are fighting terrorists daily - they have made Iraq into a hell hole - but Iraq hasn't fallen to terrorists?

Sure it has. Terror affects and controls everyone's behavior there.

Unless he's admitting that he has created a civil war in Iraq. So was he admitting that Iraqis are killing Iraqis and these are not "terrorists" in the strictest sense of the word but people who want to reclaim their homeland from a foreign occupier?

You can't have it both ways, George.

His arguments are as full of holes as the Missile Shield.

But my ears perked up when G.W. talked about "murderers who kill because of 'ideology'."

It was like he was talking about his own administration and neo-con advisers.

Really, sentence after sentence could be applied to them. It was the classic case of projection: the pot calling the kettle black.

The people who worked to put Bush - the front piece - into office did so to implement policy based upon their ideology.

They call it a right wing ideology, but it is so far "right" that it has traveled in a circle and is now clearly on the side of the lunatic fringe. This administration's ideology is aligned much more closely with the philosophy of communism circa 1917 than it is with historical conservatism.

The Orwellian double speak that they use in which black is called white and killing 100,000 people - not to mention the wounded - and dooming the Iraqi people to live with daily terror is equated with giving them freedom. He keeps repeating it, but it still does not make it true. It's propaganda.

In fact Bush's twisting of facts and ignoring the reality of suffering that he has created by following his advisors - Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, et al - is classic. There is no liberty when you can't walk down the street without being taken out by a suicide bomber.

But Bush gave them that life, that daily terror.

And he calls it freedom.

But it isn't freedom.

It's THE BIG LIE.

Even bigger than WMD.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

It could take how long, Don?

"Anyone who tries to estimate the end, the time, the cost or the casualties in a war is making a big mistake."
– Donald Rumsfeld, 6/27/05

"It [the war in Iraq] could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
– Donald Rumsfeld, 3/7/03


More than 1,720 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 40,000 permanently injured in Iraq. I've seen two men in my town who are now home from the war as amputees.

In Iraq, 100,000 Iraqis have died and virtually everyone in Iraq has lost a friend or relative.

Instead of looking for an exit strategy - since we know our presence incites insurgents to attack their own people in order to chase us out - we are building bases and settling in for an endless war. Instead of calling a cease fire, Donald Rumsfeld has admitted he negotiates with insurgent groups as soldiers die.

The reason for staying in the war is clearly to justify the deaths of those who have already died. But Mr. Rumsfeld - if I understood him correctly - is now saying this war could take a dozen years.

His "six weeks" war turned into over two years. Now he's saying it will be a dozen years. Perhaps he plans no end at all.

After all, if these neo-cons with their ideas of "creative destruction" have to pull out, the world will see the absolute folly of their beliefs - and this disastrous foreign policy that has been built upon them - and Republicans will be turned out of office.

So, to help Republicans remain in office, Bush is insisting we will remain in Iraq - now for an initial estimate of twelve more years.

This means an entire generation of Americans will be killed or crippled by this war.

It makes no sense to justify the loss of 1720 men and women through the deaths and disfigurement of an entire generation of our sons and daughters.

This war was lost when Donald Rumsfeld told the Pentagon to ignore the State Department report that predicted the disaster we have and gave strategies for avoiding it.

Donald Rumsfeld's failed experiment has gone far enough and far too many have suffered already.

I am not alone in this view. In the poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, more than 40% of those polled said the war in Iraq was becoming analogous to the war in Vietnam.

It's time for an exit strategy.

Write to your Congressional representatives and tell them to support H.J.RES.55, the new bipartisan resolution calling for the Bush administration to announce a plan by the end of the year for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq - and to initiate the plan as soon as possible.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Delusional Sociopaths

Frank Rich wrote today about how this Administration's intent is "not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense."

As he writes: "If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio."

Tonight I watched BBC news. It made Fox's blurbs look like cotton candy that has fallen in dirt: besmirched fluff.

One story: Turns out Donald Rumsfeld has been negotiating with "insurgents" for months as they've been killing our troops.

So why doesn't he just call a truce and negotiate in earnest so our troops stop dying?

We all know why. It's all just strategy and a big board game to him.

So completely untouched by the tragedy and pain suffered by so many, it's obvious he has no empathy.

Isn't lack of empathy a symptom of the sociopath?

Plus he suffers from perceptual blindness. He only sees what he wants to see.

Usually delusional, sociopathic people are placed in institutions so they are unable to harm others.

Unfortunately, our government is run by these sociopathic lunatics and they are hurting people right and left.

And that's why this Administration wants to get PBS in lockstep with their perception. They don't see that we lost the war in Iraq about two weeks after we started it due to Rumsfeld's bungling.

(Remember, he's the one who told the Pentagon to ignore the State Department report that predicted the chaos we've seen for two years.)

But they don't care. They like "creative destruction" - as long as they aren't the ones losing legs - or family members - over it. Rumsfeld's still talking about years of commitment.

What he's talking about is a whole generation of young Americans being slaughtered - and he's okay with that.

He's okay with 40,000 people coming back without arms, legs, eyes.

Really, it's all right with him.

No big deal.

Imagine.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Federal Psywar Against Americans

From: Federal Psywar Against Americans
LewRockwell.com, June 23, 2005

Sam Gardiner has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. During Gulf II he was a regular on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as well as on BBC radio and television, and NPR.

Q: Can you give some examples of false or exaggerated stories put out by the Bush administration in the build-up to the war?

Gardiner: In the summer of 2003, we know from the Downing Street Memo that the Administration was talking about justifying a war by arguing that Iraq was the nexus of terrorism and WMD.

The terrorism argument was what propaganda literature would refer to as the big lie. The Administration's objective was to make enough arguments connecting Iraq to terrorism and Bin Laden that the American people would believe Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks. They used a technique called the excluded middle. Iraq supports terrorists. The attacks were by terrorists. Iraq must been behind the 9/11 attacks.

We the know WMD story fairly well. We know the story of the uranium from Niger. We know about the aluminum tubes that were not for uranium enrichment. We know the biological labs Powell showed to the UN did not exist.

Beyond these there are many exaggerations that have gotten very little notice. Let me mention just a few.

A New York Times reporter was told by the Administration that Iraq was buying excess quantities of atropine to get ready for chemical warfare. It turns out the quantities were consistent with the Iraq use of the substance for routine medical purposes.

The President told us in a speech in Ohio that Iraq had drone aircraft that could possible deliver chemical weapons into the United States. When that facility was found, the officers reported that it looked more like a school project than a serious military program.

The Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the Council on Foreign Relations that Iraq had the capability to attack US computers. They did not.

We were lead to believe a Navy pilot shot down during the first Gulf War was alive and being held in Baghdad. He was not.

We were told on the State Department web site that Iraq was forming units of children to fight the United States. Iraq did not do that.

We were told the French were supplying air defense missiles to Iraq. That was not true.

There were many more...

Saturday, June 25, 2005

6/25 Denver Rally re: Fox's Bias

News Hounds reports that Students for Responsible Journalism will hold a peaceful rally and protest at Fox's Denver media facility, 100 E. Speer Boulevard, this Saturday, 25 June 2005 at 1PM.

Several area students will speak at the rally concerning media bias and Fox News' openly deceptive coverage of the Iraq war and Bush administration policy.

Students for Responsible journalism will deliver a letter to Fox's local affiliate asking it to please help counter Fox News' deleterious effect on the informed civic participation of American citizens by taking time out of their vacuous local news broadcast to objectively cover national and foreign policy issues.

In addition, the letter will call on the Fox News Channel to conform to some rudimentary principle of fairness in its news reporting, and seek to undo the damage done by years of deliberately propagandizing and misinforming the American public.

Students for Responsible Journalism is a nonpartisan student group formed to demand journalistic integrity from today's corporate media.

For more information, quotes or sources, please call Mickol Heck, Allegra Scarano, or Terry Topping at 720.366.9388.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Irrational Politicians Create Angst

Eleven days before Terri Schiavo died, Tom DeLay declared: "Terri Schiavo is not brain dead. She talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort. Terri Schiavo is not on life support."

Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican and a physician from Oklahoma, said: "All you have to do is look at her on TV. Any doctor with any conscience can look at her and know that she does not have a terminal disease and know that she has some function."

Thanks to an autopsy, however, now we know without a doubt that they were full of beans. Terri Schiavo could not feel, think or see.

In fact, she had no function and was, in essence, a cadaver on life support.

Her personhood and her soul - as we define it - had departed that body which was being kept alive for two reasons: 1) to punish Michael Schiavo for having the audacity of trying to get on with his life and 2) because the Schindlers refused to let go and get on with theirs.

It takes a lot of love to act rationally and look at facts. It takes a lot of strength to let go. It takes a lot of integrity to not call people names when they are defaming your character.

Michael Schiavo appears to have been the only sane and loving person involved in the Terri Schiavo fiasco and he has been vindicated.

But have these irrational - and shamelessly manipulative - politicians apologized for helping to create such angst in the American psyche?

Of course not. No apologies, no regrets, no retractions, no consequences.

Instead - and to his shame - Governor Jeb Bush is holding a grudge. He has been proved to be a politician who - like the others - catered to irrationality to get support from angry and frightened people who - for all their talk about God - obviously have no belief in an after life or they would not fear death so much.

Either that or they believe in an ogre of a God that is going to punish them mercilessly for eating that extra pint of ice cream while holding back on the tithes.

There are two lessons here.

First: we need medicine and science. Human emotions are not reliable indicators of reality - especially when the emotions that serve as our lens of perception are primarily anger and fear. Anything else is like handing our decision making over to angry ferrets.

Two: These leaders - who hold the fate of our country, and the fate of other countries such as Iraq in their hands - are irrational and clueless.

They make decisions without evidence and/or as strategy to garner support from people operating from the lowest emotional denominator, fear.

There's a great irony here how they feed the fear that the State will kill you all so they can get more political power so that the State can kill you.

Because it's not that the protestors are wrong in principle.

Not at all. They fear that government will kill people unnecessarily.

Probably because the government already kills people unnecessarily. The State is killing Americans in Iraq by the hundreds and Iraqis - who are not even counted as people - by the thousands.

The State has tortured people to death in Abu Ghraib.

And, of course - yawn - hardly worth mentioning that the State executes people by the hundreds.

Add it all up and the state kills a lot of people.

In fact, President Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, signed the Advance Directive Act giving physicians the right to override a guardian's decision and desire to keep a loved one alive if the physician and an ethics committee thought that keeping the patient alive was futile.

So Bush as Governor would have been in favor of pulling the plug on Schiavo.

But he didn't mention that during the Schiavo debacle.

Truth is, he's AC/DC. What ever current of public opinion serves his purpose - Alive or Dead - he can argue it. Either way.

He'll argue to "save" a dead body yet argue for an optional war that turns alive and healthy people into dead bodies.

He'll rile up people for all the wrong reasons and then direct them in disastrous policies of decimating our army and keeping a dead body alive in perpetuity.

That's Bush-Think.

He is one sick puppy.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Too High A Price

Today I ran across this:

"In the evening's most emotional moment, Hersh talked about a call he had gotten from a first lieutenant in charge of a unit stationed halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. His group was bivouacking outside of town in an agricultural area, and had hired 30 or so Iraqis to guard a local granary. A few weeks passed. They got to know the men they hired, and to like them. Then orders came down from Baghdad that the village would be 'cleared.' Another platoon from the soldier's company came and executed the Iraqi granary guards. All of them.

"'He said they just shot them one by one. And his people, and he, and the villagers of course, went nuts,' Hersh said quietly. 'He was hysterical, totally hysterical. He went to the company captain, who said, "No, you don't understand, that's a kill. We got 36 insurgents."'"

This exerpt comes from the report of a speech given by Sy Hersh, the Pulitzer winning journalist who broke the story about the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam.

There are people on both sides of the political spectrum who are Sy Hersh's enemies because he doesn't pull punches. Corruption is corruption. Wrong is wrong. And murder is murder.

But this story has not gotten out. For one thing some sources are in Iraq and still in the military. He knows they are in danger telling a story like this to a reporter and he doesn't want to name them so they killed. One day they will testify and all the truth will come out.

Republicans said there was no torture in Abu Graib. Then then said there was torture but it was a mistake. Then they said it was the work of a few soldiers. Then it came out that torture has been a U.S. policy generated from the top rungs of government.

Republicans said the Koran was not defiled. Republicans lambasted Newsweek for airing the story. Yet the Pentagon now admits that Korans were defiled.

They will deny stories like this. One of the reasons they are trying to kill PBS is because PBS airs the truth.

Sy Hersh has never reported an untruth. He says there are truly good people inside government who are shocked and appalled by what is going on. This is an immoral war yet no amount of bodies or dead woman and children is too high a price for the 8 or 9 cultists running this ideological experiment who have gotten control of our country.

The question is: is it too high a price for the rest of us?

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Condoleezza - On The Wrong Side

Congress has voted to cut U.S. funding to the U.N. This despite the fact that that the U.N. is trying to clean up its act or that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended all the housecleaning that Congress is now insisting upon. (Or that we created the U.N. after WWII for peacekeeping.)

Since Annan took the initiative, I suspect that this Administration is afraid Annan might succeed in cleaning up the U.N so it becomes the respected institution that it was created to be and can actually can tell the U.S. it can’t invade other countries with impunity. That's probably why this Administration was calling for Annan to resign a while ago.

But Bush et al need not worry if Bolton gets a seat at the U.N. The obstructive and argumentative ambassador - coupled with Congress’ latest good will to the world gesture of withdrawing U.S. funding - is sure to make the U.N. more ineffective than ever in solving the world's chronic problems of starvation and lacks in medical care, education, sustainable development and human rights.

Let them eat cake.

But I digress.

While Rice is hypocritical in recommending an ineffective bureaucrat to the U.N. when even she, as Secretary of State, could no longer tolerate his obstructionist attitudes, she has displayed a new burst of hypocrisy regarding "liberty."

Yesterday, while in Riyadh, Rice lectured the Saudi Arabian government on the benefits of establishing liberty even as she participates in the most repressive and anti-liberty U.S. Administration since Richard Nixon’s.

Get this: according to yesterday’s St. Petersburg Times, Rice told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that she was “concerned” because of violence visited on “peaceful supporters of democracy.”

Whose? Ours or theirs?

Because she should be concerned about ours.

Our own “peaceful supporters of democracy” – many of whom were seniors – had a strong taste of oppression during protests against FTAA in November of 2003 when Miami police got the word to get the protestors off the streets.

The protests were attended by average Americans. People who attended came back and told stories about being aggressively harassed by police, blocked from getting to the protest site, reporters being ordered to shut off their cameras, posters announcing the protests torn down and a "police attack" on innocent people as dissent was stifled.

In a group of 15,000 protestors, about 12 started throwing rocks. That led to over 250 people - most of them innocent of any wrong doing - being pepper sprayed, beaten and arrested.

Virtually all the arrests were found to be unwarranted.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said: "It is clear that the protesters' basic right to have their voices heard was severely restricted, and that all Americans' civil liberties took a one-two punch in Miami."

Amnesty International issued a statement saying: "The level of force used by police does not appear to have been at all justified."

There were reports that at least 10 detainees were beaten in jail and Amnesty International had received four reports of sexual assault while in custody.

Did Rice ever address these abuses in the good ole US of A?

No. She wouldn't be Secretary of State now if she had.

Tragically for this country it's not liberty she cares about, but her career. And her career hinges on her parroting what the Bush Administration wants: finding strategies by which it can exert complete American political dominance over the rest of the world.

Gee, there was another country once that wanted to dominate the world and invade “as needed,” wasn’t there?

Of concern – and this should be of concern to all Americans – yesterday Rice declared “that the United States was no longer willing to accept regional stability at the expense of political freedom.”

Think about that.

No longer willing to accept regional stability

What? As in how we were no longer willing to accept regional stability in Iraq?

Call Hussein a monster – he was – but the region was stable. Iraqis were not being blown up in restaurants as they were trying to grab a quick lunch. 100,000 more of them were alive before we invaded than are alive now. And how many were killed just in the last 4 days? 71? And how many wounded?

There used to be a police force that actually could keep people from being murdered on the streets. There were jobs. There was electricity, water, housing. And the beautiful and ancient city of Baghdad was not a cesspool of ruin.

Incredibly, I think Rice is saying that the United States is willing to invade any place, any time under the guise of “promoting liberty” even if we create the same chaos - the same regional instability - that we created in Iraq.

No wonder Iran wants nuclear weapons. Iran sees that Rice isn’t standing in Korea and making such announcements. The last thing Iran wants is a decimated society and destroyed infrastructure.

And please don’t insult your own intelligence by telling me Iraqis are any more free now than they were under Saddam. They are just under a different –and nightmarish – brand of tyranny in which occupation co-exists with chaos and – despite all the troops – neither order nor safety is maintained.

As Harold Meyerson writes in The Washington Post today: "More than two years after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled, the drive from downtown Baghdad to the airport is still a crapshoot with death."

If you think this is just "liberal" propaganda from a patently conservative publication, then do me a favor. Take a vacation and go to Iraq. See for yourself. If I’m full of %$ I will close down this blog and join the Republican party.

But if you find that all the happy news you’ve heard – about how well things are going in Iraq – is a tissue of lies, you better come clean – if you make it home alive.

Any way I look at this incredibly well-educated and talented woman, I come to one sad conclusion: Rice is a hypocrite selling flawed ideology – and lies – for the sake of advancement of her own career.

The real tragedy is she appears to believe them. If she didn't, she would be such an asset on the side of real ideals.

I would like to believe she has a master plan: be a black woman who attains great power and then use it for good.

But I grow tired of seeing her on the wrong side.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Condoleezza Rice: Tragic Hypocrite

Conservative publication The Washington Post published an article entitled Policy Shifts Felt After Bolton's Departure that talks about how Condoleezza Rice pushed John R. Bolton out of the State Department.

Rice pushed him out because - it becomes clear - he was the worst type of bureaucrat: the type that blocks pragmatic solutions to real problems.

On the list of things broken by Bolton - that Rice wanted to fix - was a stalled program to keep Russian nuclear fuel out of reach of terrorists. Once Bolton was out of the loop, progress was made.

So - maybe this is a stupid question - but why didn't this Administration just can him? Or do one of those things they do with "liberals" - find him a basement office somewhere where he has no work and wait for him to get bored to death and resign?

Because keeping nuclear fuel out of the hands of terrorists sounds pretty important to me. You'd think it would be important to the President, too, given that his Administration - and his Congress - have been shutting down civil liberties in this country allegedly to curb terrorist threats.

Yet it would appear that Bolton was working at cross purposes both to Bush's stated desires and the well-being of the American people.

Bush let him be. But when Rice was appointed to Secretary of State, although she apparently couldn't just kick Bolton out, she got rid of him using the Peter Principle. She kicked him up to a higher level by promoting him as an ideal candidate for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. where - if he is confirmed - he will be able to demonstrate even more incompetence.

Rice has since begun to turn State Department policy around so it is more pragmatic and effective.

Well, that's score one for her - doing the deal with Russia to protect nuclear fuel is a biggie. But she gets a demerit for now trying to foist this petty and ineffective bureaucrat on the U.N. - as if the U.N. doesn't have enough problems.

Or is that the point? Maybe this Administrations wants to make the U.N. look even worse - and less effective - than it is.

Yet we need the U.N. more than ever so nations can work together, step up and solve the horrendous problems facing the world including desertification, sexual trafficking, starvation, the AIDS pandemic and the genocide in Dafur that is going on as you read this.

For Rice to tout Bolton just to get him out of her way is more than hypocritical. It's tragic.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Sex Trafficking and Sex Education

30-year old Bulgarian-born photographer Mimi Chakarova risks her own safety to document sex trafficking and other human rights violations.

Her experiences are discussed in Chronicling Conflict, published on-line today by Alternet.

Sex trafficking is a multi-billion dollar illegal activity that equals the drug trade.

As with drugs, the U.S. is a major trafficking destination. There is an internal trafficking circuit that stretches from Honolulu and the West Coast into Canada and the Eastern seaboard.

According to the Report on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States, 200,000 to 300,000 children are victims of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States alone. (See report "Overview of the CSEC in the United States").

It is a misconception, according to Captive Daughters that the women and children who are being exploited go into the sexual slave trade knowing they will be used as sexual aids.

On the contrary, poor women from other countries typically think they are being rescued from poverty by people recruiting them to work in legitimate businesses.

The children, of course, are simply abducted, never to see their families - if they have any in this time of widespread war and chaos - again.

50,000 of these unfortunate victims are trafficked into the U.S. every year. And who uses them?

Men with money. Lots of money.

In other words, it's highly likely that a large percentage of those rich Republicans who support candidates who talk about "family values" are paying to use abducted women and children as sexual entertainment.

Let's face facts.

People who scream about the immorality of people who care about each other having consensual sex are screwed up. They have to be.

Who in their right mind would object to people loving each other and creating stable homes?

Why aren't these Bible thumpers going after the real perverts - those who pay to rape sexually enslaved women and children?

You know the answer because you've read the stories. It's become a cliche how people who thump the Bible and condemn others always seem to have something nasty to hide themselves.

If you missed one such story, for instance, about Dr. W. David Hager, a prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), check it out.

And let me share just one instance of this kind of hypocrisy that I've experienced personally.

The first year I went off to college I attended my pastor's alma mater. (Trust me, this wasn't planned.)

It was a small Christian school with a curriculum that seemed like an extension of high school and was, frankly, rather boring.

When Pastor XXX stumbled upon me working in the college bookstore, he asked me how I liked the school.

I was honest, telling him what I've told you.

He turned red and screamed "You probably don't like the school because they won't let you sleep around!"

Between you and me, I was still a virgin at that point. His attack - and his choice of accusation - stunned and hurt me.

It all made sense about a year later when my mother wrote to me that "to everyone's surprise, Pastor XXX has been having a secret affair with one of his parishioners. His wife is divorcing him and he has been fired."

There you go. The kettle projecting upon the pot. When he was screaming at me, all red-faced and holier-than-thou, he was aware - and obviously feeling very guilty - that he was having wild monkey sex with a woman not his wife.

One more point (after I tell you that I switched to a secular university that challenged my mind and had me working my tail off, but never bored me.)

Don't think your kids are safe. Even in this country women and children are abducted and forced into slavery. All those missing children on milk cartons didn't just run away. There are fewer "runaways" or "bad girls/bad boys" than you think. A lot of them have been abducted and forced into prostitution.

Kevin Bales, world authority on slavery and author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy documents that 27 million people - that's 27,000,000, nearly the population of Canada - are currently enslaved around the world. Most of them are women and children used as sexual toys/punching bags.

According to Maria Dolan who wrote a review for Amazon.com: "Bales insists that even a small effort from a large number of people could end slavery, and devotes a large chapter to explaining the practical means by which this might be accomplished. 'Are we willing to live in a world with slaves?' he asks. As a sign of his commitment, all his royalties...will go toward the fight against slavery."

Yet is this Republican leadership doing anything meaningful about cracking down on this terrorism of women and children? Are the Bible-thumpers mobilizing their minions to fight slavery and sex trafficking? Are they educating people about it?

Of course not.

On the contrary, in more and more schools these immoral boneheads are preventing teachers from even talking about contraception or STD's. Gonorrhea is making a strong comeback in the high school crowd thanks to them. There's no way teachers are going to be allowed to warn kids about sex trafficking.

So what exactly is the real agenda for keeping kids ignorant of all things sexual?

You gotta wonder.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Rapists Are Terrorists

Today in A Free Woman Nicholas Kristof follows up on the life of Mukhtaran Bibi, a Pakistani woman who has transcended the politics of hate despite atrocities inflicted upon her.

Ms. Bibi received world-wide attention thanks to Mr. Kristof's articles detailing how three years ago a village council that was upset at her brother sentenced her to be gang-raped as his punishment.

After the four men - who had brought false charges against her brother - raped her, Ms. Bibi was forced to walk home "nearly naked before a jeering crowd."

Expected to commit suicide - which is what women in her culture are expected to do after such emotional trauma in order to avoid loneliness, humiliation and social ostracism - she defied tradition by not committing suicide and, instead, testifying against her attackers.

The four were sent to prison and she was awarded a small amount of money which she used to start elementary schools in her village and hire protection against her assailant's relatives.

However, in an effort to kill Ms. Bibi's growing popularity as a role model - and to "protect" Pakistan's image as a "good" country - President Pervez (must be pronounced 'perverse,' don't you think?) Musharraf jailed Ms. Bibi to quiet her and released her attackers.

Astonishing.

One can only wonder - if he is so supportive of rape and rapists - what does he do to outright murderers?

Does he say: "Hey - we didn't like those people anyway" - referring to the murder victims - and find the murderer more targets?

It would make as much sense.

After much public outrage, President Perverse has just released Ms. Bibi. However, if he wants to create a good image for Pakistan, he needs to jail rapists - not their victims.

The U.S. Senate issued an anti-lynching ban last week, along with an apology for not condemning and banning this brand of U.S. domestic terrorism sooner - like two hundred years ago.

I think it's time the U.S. Congress stood up and issued a proclamation that rape is not just a crime against women that destroys lives, but a crime against humanity.

And I'd like to see the 87 Senators - who humbled themselves to apologize for the Senate's history of ignoring the terrorism of lynching - now issue a proclamation against the terrorism of rape. (You can just bet that the 13¹ Senators - all Republicans - who, unbelievably, didn't become co-sponsors couldn't be bothered with that little "women's issue.")

I'd like to see the 87 with conscience send a copy of that proclamation to President Musharraf with a letter to the effect of: Your efforts "against terror" are meaningless unless you campaign - vigorously - against the terror that no one talks about - rape.

Rape is domestic terror. Rapists at home and abroad are terrorists. They deserve to be prosecuted as such.

Which reminds me why I really like gay men who have good sex lives and long-term partners.

They never rape women.

That's always left to the "moral" majority.

To help Ms. Bibi - who has, herself, enrolled in 4th grade - continue her program of educating women and speaking out, you can send donations to:

Mercy Corps
Mukhtaran Bibi Fund
Dept. W
PO Box 2669
Portland, OR 97208-2669

To stay informed on such international abuse issues and/or to contribute to efforts to eradicate abuse, visit Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women.

¹Alexander, Lamar (R-TX), Bennet, Robert (R-UT), Cochran, Thad (R-MS), Cornyn, John (R-TX), Ezi, Michael (R-WY), Gregg, Judd (R-NH), Hutchinson, Kay (R-TX), Kyl, John (R-AZ), Lott, Trent (R-MS), Shelby, Richard (R-AL), Smith, Gordon (R-OR), Sununu, John (R-NH), Thomas, Craig (R-WY)

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Their Love Is Here To Stay

Today the article Gay or Straight? Hard to Tell documents two changes in how men dress themselves that is making it difficult to accurately identify a man's sexuality based upon his appearance.

The first is the growing trend of heterosexual men to be well - and fashionably - attired.

Coupled with this trend (no pun intended) is the the second: the fact that gay men are dressing less to impress and more for function as they move - as a group - toward more stable relationships and the homely kinds of chores that go with family life.

So maybe this is a clue to the Christian Wrong's current round of rabid anti-gay sentiment: they can't tell who's gay any more and it scares them.

They must feel like - well, gosh anybody could be gay.

Yes, your nightmares are coming true. Gays are like pod people - they're taking over. One day you'll wake up and find out that - oh your god - you're gay.

Of course our fears are that one day we'll wake up and find out you've taken over.

Oh, wait. That's already happened.

But I digress...

It's a confusing time for those who want people to be divided into just two groups: the haves and the have no rights.

A new study, published in the journal Child Development, confirms what the Christian Wrong is desperately trying to shout out: that the children of gay and lesbian parents are just as well-adjusted as people with heterosexual parents.

Actually, I would have thought they would be more well-adjusted, at least more well-adjusted than parents who beat the fire and brimstone drum or lie with phrases such as: "I love you but God hates you."

The fear that the "God Is Hate" people feel in regard to gay and transgender people goes so far as to interfere with national security.

David Schroer, a 25-year Army veteran and former Special Forces commander, spent his career defending America's freedoms. He had the ear of the Vice-President as a highly respected expert in his field. With these qualifications he was hired for the position of terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress.

However, when he advised them that when he started the position his new name would be Diane, he got a flip-flop shod kick.

The Washington Post reported that Ms. Schroeder is now being told that, because of her gender change, she is no longer fit to serve her country in her area of expertise.

Is there anything that won't be sacrificed by these erroneously labeled "Christians" in the vain attempt to keep people from being themselves?

Fortunately, there are packets of sanity. Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr., president of the 180,000 person Navajo Nation, stopped a ban on same-sex marriage on the Navajo Indian reservation.

Shirley, who "strongly supports family stability," vetoed the legislation because - as he says - "same-sex marriage is a non-issue on Navajoland. So why waste time and resources on it? We have more important issues to address."

Shirley also stated that such a measure "goes against the Navajo teaching of nondiscrimination and doing no psychological or physical harm to others."

Good for the Navajo Nation. We should be so lucky to have such a President.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Bush Administration: Anti-American

It happened just as the Republican Wrong threatened.

The hand-selected committee voted to cut funding for PBS. Now it goes to Congress and the vote is likely by Wednesday - just one weekend and two working days away.

It will take every American who cares about the future of America to turn this around and I'm talking every American who isn't afraid of Big Bird and all he represents.

I'm talking e-mails and phone calls out the yin yang.

I'm talking sacks of letters being dumped on our nation's capital that makes that scene in Miracle on 34th Street - where bags and bags of letters addressed to Santa Clause (who's on trial for claiming to be Santa Claus) - look like child's play.

Without public outcry in a big way, this Republican Congress will get in lock step and defund PBS not partially, but completely.

It's all part of a crack down on creativity and education.

Why, you might ask. Why hate educational TV? Why try to kill all the beauty and creativity and information PBS provides?

Why? Because people watch it. And because people watch it, it's dangerous to the goals of this Administration.

When people are educated and allowed to blossom, there is diversity and they tend to form independent opinions based on a variety of sources. They also tend to figure out what makes them happy and they do it.

Subsequently, educated and creative people don't tend to go for things that kill them off like unnecessary wars and more mercury in the water.

For two centuries America invited the most diverse and creative people on this planet to her shores. America attracted and gave birth to people who won Nobel prizes, found cures, created new technologies and pioneered new art forms.

America was an exciting place where people like Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein, Bob Hope (yes our icon was British) - came, pursued their dreams and gave us incredible gifts.

But diversity of all types frightens the people in power now. They want to contain it, control it, destroy it if they can. They want one way of thinking only.

My theory is that they are afraid of their own inner demons so they are targeting everyone else as containing them.

If they accept the well-supported theory that homosexuality isn't a choice - and if they bothered to read up on how many people are born with gender identity issues - they might realize their anti-gay stance just isn't realistic.

It's hard to believe that here we are in the 21st century with crises snapping at us like alligators in a swamp and all these folks care about is what kind of genitalia your lover has.

You know, I wonder if maybe these guys have never really been all that attracted to their wives.

Maybe the whole "gay issue" really pisses them off because it looks like gay people have better relationships than they do.

Or it could be deeper than that - as it so often is - when people demonize others.

What if, secretly, their own sexual feelings give them thoughts like:

"Ohmygod--whatifi'mgay?"

What better cover is there for self-doubt? It's been done so often it's a cliche.

Of course they wouldn't want to acknowledge anything of the sort. So what better distraction from questions about their own sexuality than to attack the people whom they fear might, one day, claim them as their own?

J. Edgar Hoover did it. In public he was rabidly anti-homosexual, but in private he was a cross dresser, among other things.

The real irony is that homosexuality isn't barred in the Bible. Go look.

But even if it had been - like all those dietary laws that were so necessary to save lives until pasteurization and modern sanitation made them irrelevant - it would have been an edict of practicality - to encourage a population with high infant mortality rates to have sex that produced children - and enough children to survive.

You know, it used to be a mortal sin, if you were Catholic, to eat meat on Friday. Then the church realized it was a silly thing - although with the mercury levels in fish these days it could be deadly to require the eating of fish - and announced that people could eat meat on Fridays...after all.

Oops. All those people who died thinking they were going to hell...

Truth is, it never was a mortal sin. The early church just made it a mortal sin because the local fishermen needed more business.

Scratch the surface and pretty much everything labeled as "sinful" - that doesn't hurt anyone else - started with a secular opinion and some more or less practical motivation behind it.

So I'm thinking about a hundred years from now - if global warming hasn't washed us off the planet by then - there will be another "Sorry folks we just made it up" about homosexuality being a sin.

In fact, wouldn't it be ironic - when our population is through the roof and starvation is imminent - if homosexuals become highly respected for not contributing to the problem?

But I digress.

In The Flight of the Creative Class, Richard Florida makes a compelling case about how intolerant thinking has created an educational crisis in this country and is following that up with a brain and creativity drain.

Astoundingly, although America became great as a result of tolerance, education and creativity, about 200 people currently in power are working overtime to gut our freedoms, convince us tolerance is a dirty word and turn us against education with the result that only the wealthy will be able to afford it.

Of course, with this agenda, PBS and NPR must go.

One problem - their stance sounds Anti-American to me.

And I wonder - really - why do they hate this country - and our institutions - so much?

Why do they hate the land and her laws that gave them such opportunity? They got so rich off her and now they are among the most powerful people in the world. Why hate the idea of "a chicken in every pot?" And why bite the hand that feeds you?

Why steal our retirements, kill Medicaid, ship jobs overseas and gut unions so we can't earn enough to eat?

Why deform tort law so corporations are unaccountable for injury from their products, pollution or deceptions (like Enron)?

Why use the Every Child Left Behind bill to completely defund our public schools?

Why change 90% of all regulations increasing the amount of lead, mercury and other pollutants dumped in our soil, water and air and then pass the No Tree Left Behind bill allowing corporations to clear cut old growth in our national forests?

Why lie about WMD's to get us in a war where over 1700 of our brothers and sisters have been killed and over 41,000 - that's forty-one thousand - of them have come home from Iraq with missing limbs, horrible scarring and psychological damage from the trauma they experienced?

Why turn the opportunity to pay down our national debt into the biggest deficit America has ever had so that the value of our currency is in jeopardy and our way of life increasingly threatened by financial instability?

Why push to destroy our wilderness refuges and pristine beaches for a few months worth of oil instead of urging conservation and developing a long term renewable energy program?

Why pit groups of people against each other instead of uniting us after 9/11?

Why?

And for heavens sake, why do they hate Big Bird and want to take him away from us?

Maybe because he's taller.

Must be a power thing.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Give 'Em The Bird


This bumpersticker can be bought on-line by clicking on the link to the right that says "Save PBS." Posted by Hello

Clever girl.

Killing two birds in one - oh, sorry Big Bird, bad choice of words.

What I mean to say, isn't language amazing? Four little words say: Give your kids Big Bird and Kermie and all the characters you love. But they also say, raise your middle finger to the heathens who have no concern about the character or spirit of our children - and force them to back off on gutting PBS and NPR.

For those of you who think NPR is a football franchise, it's not.

Those letters stand for National Public Radio which is always entertaining, informative and insightful especially to curiosity geeks who are so fascinated by the details of the world that they not only keep blogs, but read the blogs of other people.

I haven't sruck a big ol' honking nerve there, have I?

Don't worry. I'm guilty as charged. Up at 3 a.m. gaping at the wonder, the marvel of being able to read about life in Singapore or Australia and see pictures. I'll tell you, it's an argument to learn more languages just to be able to stop seeing other languages as "gobbledegook" but as the powerful and eloquent tools for communication that they are.

But, hey, we've got command of English - more of less - (see what I mean) and that's what those boys listed below understand, next to that universal language called "money."

So call 'em and - with perfect elocution - say: Hands off PBS.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

The Wrong Jerry Lewis

Somehow - don't ask me how - I didn't notice that one of the two guys working as henchmen to kill PBS is named Jerry Lewis.

Yes, Jerry Lewis (R-CA) wants to kill Big Bird - along with Bill Moyer, Charlie Rose, all those British comedies, American Experience and countless other high quality shows - in order to end PBS's accurate news reporting and programs on government malfeasance.

He's from California - can you believe it? - and he's the Chairperson (ooh I bet he hates being called that) of The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. He's the leading cookie in the cutter committee created to wipe out all funds for NPR and PBS.

But he's the wrong Jerry Lewis, because obviously he has no sense of humor.

Or else he's been so busy helping to plan the takeover by the Evil Empire that he never had a chance to watch Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch or Kermie. Let see, how long have they been planning this coup anyway? Forty years as I recall which is just about when the Muppetts went on air.

So you think this is, like, a personal grudge against Kermit?

Because I love Kermie.

In fact, is there a man out there who looks like Kermie? I'd just love to plant a big kiss on your slimy froggy lips.

Oops I shouldn't say that. The Far Wrong might start up again on how granting gay rights will lead to interspecies marriages.

It was just a kiss I wanted from Kermie, nothing more.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

It probably has more to do with his green color, anyway - you know, it appeals to my Irish heritage.

What do you mean I can't be involved with someone green?

But seriously -

tA dUM

You want to create a little heat for a couple of people who have no sense of humor and could not care less about anyone who makes less than 200 grand a year?

Give these boys a call tomorrow:

Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) (202) 225-5861
Vice (with an emphasis) - Chairman Ralph Regula (R-OH) (202) 225-3876

Tell them hands off PBS or if we have to move to California or Ohio or both to vote against them, we will.

(They don't have to know we're moving to Great Britain so we can watch the BBC and finally find out what's really going on in this country.)

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Or You Can Watch People Eat Worms

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education has recommended that all funds for NPR and PBS be cut.

But this is no surprise. After the 2004 election Grover Norquist said they (the "destructives" as opposed to true conservatives) intend to "destroy government, to stick a knife in its belly and gut it."

Yet government is what protects the powerless from being eaten by the powerful.

Or at least it was before the very rich and powerful who want to eat us took it over.

So while billions are being spent on a culture of death in support of the war in Iraq, now it is proposed that the $23.4 million in federal money that funds children's educational shows such as "Sesame Street," - which are relied on by millions of American families - be cut.

Along with all the other funding.

Why? They don't want an informed, educated populace.

The Subcommittee's desire to cut off support for public broadcasting is reprehensible and is not in the public interest.

Is there anyone out there - without an agenda to suppress information - who has not found PBS stations to be more reliable than any other in delivering accurate and well-balanced news?

Not to mention that most of what is on other stations is absolute trash.

I mean, please. Watching people eat worms is now the gold standard for entertainment.

Or we can watch endless re-enactments of crimes - and what exactly does that do for our feelings of well-being?

Of course we can always tune into a shopping channel like any of us need more rings on our pudgey fingers or to cram more stuff in our already cluttered homes.

Then there are the commercials. The barage borders on the obscene.

A third of them encourage us - and we are already an obese population - to eat more food. This is in spite of the fact that, according to the National Center for Health, 34% of all Americans are moderately overweight, another 30% - 60 million Americans - are considered obese and every woman you know is on a diet.

Getting rid of the National Center for Health - who gives us these unpleasant but true statistics - must be one of the reasons Norquist wants to kill government.

God forbid we should turn off the television, stop eating and go for a walk around the block. All those fast food places pushing themselves down our throats would go broke and then where would this country be?

Try thinner, healthier and happier.

The majority of the remainder of the commercials we see encourage us to buy items most of us really don't need and 40% of us can't afford.

It 's estimated that over 40% of US families spend more than they earn and that, on average, Americans carry $5,800 in credit card debt from month to month. This despite the fact that, on the average, we pay $112 for that $100 item when we buy it on credit because of interest.

Buying has become a disease in this country where parents work two jobs to pay bills and spend less and less time spending quality time raising their children.

Yet commercial television encourages people to do this - to give up time with their kids in pursuit of stuff that breaks and gets worn out and will definitely not come and visit us when we're in nursing homes - if we can afford nursing homes and I wouldn't count on it the way we're going.

So I wonder where those kids we haven't spent enough time with are going to stuff us.

So what do the members of the Subcommittee think will be the result of all this negative and destructive programming? It will not be a stronger or better America, you can be certain of that.

But they don't care. They figure their kids will be in charge of it and still have vacations homes on pristine Caribbean islands where they - unlike us - can get away from all the squalor and, of course, pay all their bills because when they're not accepting gifts from lobbyists, they can vote themselves a pay raise.

Hey, but I like my representatives. One of them sends me a response on government stationery thanking me for my opinions every time I send a letter protesting another of his giveaways to big business.

But back to television - the real center of our lives.

Frankly, we need less "commercial" television, less commercials and more funding - not less - for PBS.

Commercial television, through delivering our current diet of crime-oriented and gross-out "reality" shows, is polluting our national character. For it is a truism that a man is what he thinks about all day long.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. In 2003, a national poll by RoperASW found that Americans ranked PBS as the "most trusted" national institution, ahead of the courts, the federal government, the commercial broadcast networks, newspapers, cable television and Congress.

For Americans to express trust in a part of government means that entity must actually be trustworthy, for skepticism is growing in this country.

You know, Ottawa would never think of defunding Canada's CBC. They all know commerical American television, for the most part, is crap. When they want to know what's going on they watch CBC, not U.S. stations - and they all watch it.

Public media are an essential part of our democracy. But PBS and NPR are on the chopping block - brought there by people who are very afraid of losing power once the majority of Americans realize how damaging they are being to this country. They most certainly would prefer that we just watch people desperate for fame eat worms.

If you care, you can sign a petition to save PBS and NPR. You can also contact your Representatives and Senators in Congress.

Or you can just watch people eat worms.


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