Earl Bockenfeld: Soul

John Denver - Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 04:10:30 GMT

John Denver - Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream

John recites the Peace Poem before launching into song.

We need him now more than ever. He was a Peace Angel while he was here. It's too bad that the powers that be didn't pay more attention to him.

Starry, Starry Nights

Sat, 08 Jul 2006 05:02:17 GMT

Starry, Starry Night

The paintings of Vincent Van Gogh set to Don McLean's "Starry Starry Night".

On Posting For Peace

Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:34:27 GMT

On Posting For Peace

Glenda in the Land of Oz from has come up with a wonderful idea for this year's Independance Day celebration.

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!

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

This seems like a great opportunity for bloggers from all possible backgrounds to show our support for the soldiers and for ending our nation's bloody and disasterous war in Iraq. Tell our government that we've tried "Bring It On" now it's time for "Bring em' Home". If you're interested and/or have any questions about the details, please check with Glenda.

Glenda really is a good witch.

As the Dude said on The Blue Republic

Getting back to Glenda's original proposal for observing the 4th of July: The original intention of the commemoration was to memorialize the Declaration of Independence. It's the meaning of the words penned by Jefferson that are at the basis for our remembrance not the bloodshed of the Revolutionary War (or any other war). It's not a birthday party. Independence Day is a celebration of the themes Jefferson wrote about (and the Virginia Declaration of Rights before him):

All men have inherent rights to life, liberty, and property
All power is vested in the people
Government is established to benefit, not rule the people
Leadership roles should not be hereditary
Legislative and Executive Powers should be separate and distinct
The principles of free elections
Government can not suspend laws without the consent of the people
The right to trial by jury and to confront witnesses
There should be no cruel and unusual punishment
Provisions to eliminate unlawful searches of persons or personal property
Trial by jury is preferable and should be held sacred
"Freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty"
A well regulated militia is required to defend a free state
People have a right to a uniform government
Free government is preserved only by adherence to fundamental principles
The freedom to practice religion according to personal reason and conviction

There is no better day to call your government to task for their failure to live up to these principles than on Independence Day. This administration has taken a continued and aggressive attack on many of these freedoms. The Declaration of Independence asserts that your ultimate allegiance should be to Inherent Autonomy, especially when the Central Government ignores and denies the very instruments this nation was founded upon.

Glenda there can be no better, no more appropriate occasion to call for peace than on Independence Day, and if anyone doesn't understand that, then they should seek a better understanding of their national heritage.

Simple Organic Living

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:41:04 GMT

Simple Organic Living

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ...Leo Tolstoy

I want to 'Tip my Hat' to B. Shilliday Left Of Center for posting this "must see" video by Woody Harrelson. I'm reposting it to include the text of the poem being narrated.

Woody's Commentary from Voice Yourself tranforming the world together

Since I was a kid I felt this need to play a role in helping Mother Earth. At the age of 12, I wrote a 50-page report (that wasn’t supposed to be more than 5 pages) on threatened wildlife and realized clearly that my Mother was being continually and forcibly raped by giant corporations intent on profit.

It’s ironic that the never-ending quest for wealth has brought such destruction to Mother Nature because the desire for money is basically a desire for happiness. But true happiness lies in nature we relax and unwind and finally realize we are just on a hamster wheel. Just walking down a tree lined street in a busy city immediately calms me. Let’s face it peace is the key to happiness. I can’t be peaceful unless I’m relaxed and I can’t do any of it unless I’m doing yoga, but I digress (I used to want to change my middle name from Tracy to Tangential because I can never follow a straight line. I prefer to get lost in getting lost I tend to have the best experiences. But back to the thread)

I see the ongoing destruction of all that is natural and want to make a difference. Our mission at Voice Yourself is to connect you with others, to share information about alternatives biodiesel, sustainable clothing companies (i.e. hemp, organic cotton and bamboo) and to get clean and natural cleansers into your hands and homes this is only the beginning. Our small, extended family will spread out across the world like good music. Thank you for contributing to the dream that we know exists. Our time is now.

See Thoughts From Within Video

THOUGHTS FROM WITHIN (Woody speaks out)

I sometimes feel like an alien creature

for which there is no earthly explanation

Sure I have human form

walking erect and opposing digits,

but my mind is upside down.

I feel like a run-on sentence

in a punctuation crazy world.

and I see the world around me

like a mad collective dream.

An endless stream of people

move like ants from the freeway

cell phones, pc's, and digital displays

"In Money We Trust,"

we'll find happiness

the prevailing attitude;

like a genetically modified irradiated Big Mac

is somehow symbolic of food.

Morality is legislated

prisons over-populated

religion is incorporated

the profit-motive has permeated all activity

we pay our government to let us park on the street

And war is the biggest money-maker of all

we all know missile envy only comes from being small.

Politicians and prostitutes

are comfortable together

I wonder if they talk about the strange change in the weather.

This government was founded by, of, and for the people

but everybody feels it

like a giant open sore

they don't represent us anymore

And blaming the President for the country's woes

is like yelling at a puppet

for the way it sings

Who's the man behind the curtain pulling the strings?

A billion people sitting watching their TV

in the room that they call living

but as for me

I see living as loving

and since there is no loving room

I sit on the grass under a tree

dreaming of the way things used to be

Pre-Industrial Revolution

which of course is before the rivers and oceans, and skies were polluted

before Parkinson's, and mad cows

and all the convoluted cacophony of bad ideas

like skyscrapers, and tree paper, and earth rapers

like Monsanto and Dupont had their way

as they continue to today.

This was Pre-us

back when the buffalo roamed

and the Indian's home

was the forest, and God was nature

and heaven was here and now

Can you imagine clean water, food, and air

living in community with animals and people who care?

Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollar you lay down

are you going to make the rich man richer

or are you going to stand your ground

You say you want a revolution

a communal evolution

to be a part of the solution

maybe I'll be seeing you around.

Words Are Power

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 05:44:17 GMT

Words Are Power

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://www.glenda0909.blogspot.com/
http://losenoose.blogspot.com/
http://pinkfem.blogspot.com/
http://swiftspeech.blogspot.com/

Honolulu, Hawaii

Irving, Texas

Chicago, Illinois

Athens, Greece

Colbert Does the WH Correspondence Dinner

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 07:31:56 GMT

Colbert Does the WH Correspondence Dinner

I can't recall when I've seen so many unhappy reps. And he bashed the press too. He salted the earth after scorching it. Colbert rocks and has Giant Brass Balls.

WASHINGTON A blistering comedy "tribute" to President Bush by Comedy Central's faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close.

Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the 2700 attendees, including many celebrities and top officials, with the help of a Bush impersonator.

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, "and reality has a well-known liberal bias."

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. "This administration is soaring, not sinking," he said. "They are re-arranging the deck chairs--on the Hindenburg."

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the "Rocky" movies, always getting punched in the face -- "and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world."

Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, as well as " Valerie Plame." Then, pretending to be worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean... Joseph Wilson's wife." He asserted that it might be okay, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was probably not there.

Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, "photo ops" on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face.
Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was "surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides - "the president's side and the vice president's side." He also reflected on the good old days, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.

Addressing the reporters, he said, "You should spend more time with your families, write that novel you've always wanted to write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to the administration. You know - fiction."

He claimed that the Secret Service name for Bush's new press secretary is "Snow Job." Colbert closed his routine with a video fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with a special "Gannon" button on his podium. By the end, he had to run from Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq and killed all those people.

As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and left immediately.

E&P's Joe Strupp, in the crowd, observed that quite a few sitting near him looked a little uncomfortable at times, perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting--or too much speaking "truthiness" to power.

Asked by E&P after it was over if he thought he'd been too harsh, Colbert said, "Not at all." Was he trying to make a point politically or just get laughs? "Just for laughs," he said. He said he did not pull any material for being too strong, just for time reasons.

Helen Thomas told Strupp her segment with Colbert was "just for fun."

Perhaps the best part was when they panned the audience and you could see the stone-faced repubs. Bunnypants has never had someone punk him like that in public. This one goes in the vault.

The Smothers Brothers must be giggling - at last justice for the bravery of comic geniuses. You might recall that the Brothers were cancelled after Pete Seeger sang "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy". I remember being very angry at the injustice of it all, but tonight - justice has been served.

The silence was priceless. And Stephen just marched on, driving the nails in further. A must-see! My favorite: "The President stands for things. He stands on aircraft carriers. He stands on rubble. He stands in abandoned, flooded city squares. There's no place he won't stand for a photo op."

eil Young's "Living With War" Here Today!

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 06:09:55 GMT

Neil Young's "Living With War" Here Today!

Click album cover to hear the full record of Neil Young's "Living With War"

Pink performs Dear Mr President Live in NYC. It's a controversial song from her new album that all people should hear.

Here it is for you - a very powerful video.

(Or, if you prefer, or you're not seeing the above video...this WMV version via Wes Clark's website...)

A Knock On The Duir

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 05:54:20 GMT

A Knock On The Duir

Watch the Video. When was the last time YOU ....

Jill Carroll Released in Iraq, Unharmed

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:04:15 GMT

Jill Carroll Released in Iraq, Unharmed

BAGHDAD Kidnapped U.S. reporter Jill Carroll has been released after nearly three months in captivity, Iraq police and the leader of the Islamic Party said Thursday. She was reported in good condition.

She told a Washington Post reporter: "I was never hurt, ever hit...I was kept in a safe place and treated very well."

Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped on Jan. 7, in Baghdad's western Adil neighborhood while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office.

"She was released this morning, she's talked to her father and she's fine," said David Cook, Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor.

[The news came shortly before 7 a.m., Eastern Time. The Monitor at 7:03 a.m. posted this on its Web site: "After being held hostage for nearly three months, Jill Carroll is free. More details shortly."]

Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said was handed over to the Iraqi Islamic Party office in Amiriya, western Baghdad, by an unknown group. She was later turned over to the Americans and was believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone, he said.

Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn't happen. The date came and went with no word about her welfare.

The United States Embassy in Baghdad said it could not confirm Carroll's release.

On Feb. 28, Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Carroll was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the insurgent group that freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months in captivity.

Jabr said then that he believed the 28-year-old was still alive, although the deadline set by her captors for the U.S. to meet their demands had expired.

She was last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by the private Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai. Her twin sister Katie issued a plea for her release on Al-Arabiya television late Wednesday night.

Carroll went to the Middle East in 2002 after being laid off from a newspaper job. She had long dreamed of covering a war.

UPDATE: Podhoretz, according to Judd Legum, wrote:

It's wonderful that she's free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn't beaten or killed "while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is" I expect there will be some Stockholm Syndrome talk in the coming days.

I guess he would have been happier if she had allowed herself to be martyred for the cause. What a moron! Mr. Podhoretz, she was on Iraqi TV after having been released near an office of the Islamic Party. Could it be that she was respecting someone's culture and not necessarily pulling a Patty Hearst? Or is this just the muddled thinking of a numbskull who can't separate the entire religion of Islam from terrorism from resistance...

Regardless of John Podhoretz's insensitivity, naivete and ignorance, there is photographic proof that she has been treated better than civilians (or civilians) who were taken captive by the United States.

Porn Star's Rated X-cellent - So Is Her Wine

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 04:12:39 GMT

Porn Star's Rated X-cellent - So Is Her Wine

At 40 bucks a bottle, I'm sure I'll be stocking up by the case.

It seemed like the perfect gimmick: a celebrity porn star would launch her own wine, with her alluring picture on the label.

Savanna Samson did just that. But when the wine received a score of 90 to 91 out of 100 from guru Robert Parker, the project became serious. It turns out Samson, the star of "The New Devil in Miss Jones," has produced an exceptional wine, becoming the toast of two industries: wine-making and pornography.

The seriousness of the idea was lining up a respected wine maker. So she convinced Italy's Robert Cipresso -- also a vintner to the Vatican -- to join the project.

Samson went to Tuscany and tasted dozens of Cipresso's Italian-grown varieties, then she selected a mix of 70 percent Cesanese, 20 percent Sangiovese and 10 percent Montepulciano. She ordered over 400 cases.

"I knew I wanted Roberto to make my wine -- I just love his passion for wine," said Samson.

The result is Sogno Uno, a 2004 vintage of an Italian red wine packaged under the Savanna name with a label of Samson in a see-through gown. It was launched last month.

Parker has been called the most influential wine critic in the world, and a score of 90 to 95 denotes "an outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character."

"Trust me, I didn't add any points for Ms. Samson's personal presentation," Parker wrote in his review.

Samson is one of the biggest names in pornography, having won best actress in the Adult Video News Awards, the pornographic equivalent of the Oscars, and another AVN Award for a scene she shared with Jenna Jameson in last year's "The Masseuse." She has made two dozen porn flicks.

The wine "really represents who I am," said Samson.

"There's spiciness -- the Cesanese has the naughty side of me. And yet it's an elegant wine. I love the opera, and I'm a classically trained ballet dancer. And there is some chocolate undertone, which I just love. There's a little bit of sweetness. Like, 10 percent of the time I'm sweet," she said.

She is working on a white wine -- Sogno Due -- that could be out later this year, and also has ideas of expanding into champagne, ice wine and grappa.

Samson, who was raised Catholic in upstate New York, said it was pure coincidence that Cipresso also sells wines to the Vatican. She met him through her husband, a wine merchant.

"My priest said in Mass once, 'Violence or pleasures of the flesh. What is the greater of two evils?' I think we all know the answer. I felt like he was saying that toward me," she said.

Still, she never had her parent's blessing for her career choice as an adult movie star. "They were so devastated. They were terribly, terribly upset."

But while she will continue her film career, wine-making may offer some redemption. "I wanted to do something that my parents could be proud of," she said.

Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife; Rest In Peace

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 05:35:45 GMT

Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife; Rest In Peace

Don Knotts, who kept generations of TV audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on ''The Andy Griffith Show'' and would-be swinger landlord Ralph Furley on ''Three's Company,'' has died. He was 81.

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, said Sherwin Bash, his friend and manager.

Griffith, who had visited Knotts in the hospital before his death, said his longtime friend had a brilliant comedic mind and wrote some of the show's best scenes.

''Don was a small man ... but everything else about him was large: his mind, his expressions,'' Griffith told The Associated Press on Saturday. ''Don was special. There's nobody like him.

''I loved him very much,'' Griffith added. ''We had a long and wonderful life together.''

Unspecified health problems had forced Knotts to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown, W.Va., in August.

The actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmys.

The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are ''I Love Lucy'' and ''Seinfeld.'' The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

His favorite episodes, he said, were ''The Pickle Story,'' where Aunt Bee makes pickles no one can eat, and ''Barney and the Choir,'' where no one can stop him from singing.

''I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way,'' he lamented. ''It's one of my weaknesses.''

In recent years, he said he had no plans to retire, traveling with theater productions and appearing in print and TV ads for Kodiak pressure treated wood.

The world laughed at Knotts, but it also laughed with him. He treasured his comedic roles and could point to only one role that wasn't funny, a brief stint on the daytime drama ''Search for Tomorrow.''

''That's the only serious thing I've done. I don't miss that,'' Knotts said.

Here's a special Don Knotts treat! Don Knotts as Dubya

Corporate Angel Network: A Real Angel In The Skies

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 03:07:18 GMT

CorruptoCo Blogfest: Corporate Angel Network: A Real Angel In The Skies

Next week many bloggers will devote space to "Corporation Appreciation Week". A week where we temporarily turn the lights on in the roach-infested world of Corruptco. Before the week begins I wanted spotlight one of the best Corporate activities I know about, so this is a salute to one of the good guys that deserves a White Hat and much respect.

Corporate Angel Network is the only charitable organization in the USA whose sole mission is to ease the emotional stress, physical discomfort and financial burden of travel for cancer patients by arranging free flights to treatment centers, using the empty seats on corporate aircraft flying on routine business.

Based in White Plains, NY, Corporate Angel Network occupies an office donated by the Westchester County Airport. 50 part-time volunteers and five paid staff work with patients, physicians, corporations, flight departments and leading treatment facilities to arrange 1,200 flights a year.

Eligibility to participate in our program is open to all cancer patients, bone marrow donors, and bone marrow recipients who are ambulatory and not in need of medical support while traveling. Eligibility is not based on financial need, and patients may travel as often as necessary.

Thanks to the generous cooperation of 500 of America’s top corporations, including 56 of the top 100 in the Fortune 500, Corporate Angel Network has coordinated more than 17,000 flights since it’s founding in 1981. The program offers an obvious and meaningful benefit to cancer patients along with the opportunity for companies with corporate aircraft to provide a wonderful community service by merging business activities with social responsibility.

In 1981, three people shared the dream of using empty seats on corporate aircraft to transport cancer patients to treatment centers nationwide. Leonard M. Greene, founder and president of Safe Flight Instrument Corporation, Priscilla H. Blum, a licensed commercial pilot, and Jay N. Weinberg, then owner of a Mt. Vernon, NY Avis Car Rental franchise together developed the idea of asking corporations to accept these patients as guest passengers.

As cancer survivors, Blum and Weinberg knew how expensive and grueling transportation is for cancer patients who must fly long distances for specialized treatment. Greene too had firsthand experience, having lost his wife to cancer. He contributed his foundation, funds, business expertise, and aviation contacts to the effort.

On December 22, 1981, Greene, a pilot, personally flew the first Corporate Angel Network flight, bringing a patient home to Detroit for Christmas from treatment in New York City. From that day forward, Corporate Angel Network literally soared. One by one, corporations across America were asked to participate and one by one, they joined.

Since its inception, Corporate Angel Network has received numerous awards in recognition of its service to cancer patients, including the highest volunteer award from the President of the United States, The Volunteer Action Award. The organization has coordinated more than 17,000 regularly scheduled corporate flights with cancer patients aboard and attracted into its network 500 corporate participants, 56 of them in the top 100 of the Fortune 500.

Corporate Angel Network welcomes support in the form of cash, bequests, and donation of airline tickets. Contributions come from grateful patients for whom we have arranged free flights, from their relatives and friends, from enthusiastic individuals who want to ensure that our program is available to all who need it, from Corporations, and from foundations.

We also need volunteers. Individuals in the vicinity of Corporate Angel Network's White Plains, NY offices can volunteer to enter corporate flight schedules into the secure database, schedule flights for patients, write thank you letters to corporations and contributors, help arrange ground transportation, research and contact new corporations, solicit pro bono advertising, and help with reception and telephones. Volunteers work with patients and their families, corporate flight schedulers, pilots, secretaries, dispatchers, mechanics, fixed-based operations (FBOs), doctors and nurses, social workers, and private car operators.

Regardless of where they live, volunteers are needed to locate companies with aircraft that could become Corporate Angels, and to find ground transportation, lodging and other support services in key cities, such as Boston, Houston, Seattle, and Raleigh-Durham, where the majority of our patients are treated.

Mardi Gras 2006 - New Orleans Is Down But Not Out

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:19:21 GMT

Mardi Gras 2006 - New Orleans Is Down But Not Out

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- As in past years, labor attorney Eve Marie Stocker plans to fly from Virginia to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, ride costumed on a float with her mother in the all-female Krewe of Iris parade and catch up with family and friends.

This year, however, she says the mission takes on a serious note: New Orleans, venturing into an uncertain Mardi Gras season after Hurricane Katrina, needs a successful celebration to get its sputtering economy started -- and give its storm-shocked residents a break.

"Mardi Gras is a compass," said Stocker, a former New Orleans resident. "This is what's normal for the city, and everyone needs a little bit of normalcy."

Mardi Gras, which always holds a bit of mystery for outsiders with its fun, frolic and debauchery, is a mystery itself this year for New Orleans, where an estimated two-thirds of its half-million, pre-Katrina populace remains elsewhere.

Any infusion of cash will be welcome in a city that saw most of its tax base washed away by Katrina on August 29 and the ensuing flooding after levees broke. Basic services, such as police protection and firefighting, are being held together with a $120 million federal loan that will provide funding only until spring.

The city is not only ready, says Mary Herczog, author of Frommer's New Orleans and a part-time resident, this will be an amazing year to be there.

"This is a city that has gone through cataclysm, and its citizens are desperately ready to let off some steam," says Herczog, who expects a cathartic, once-in-a-lifetime experience for locals and visitors alike on this 150th anniversary of the event. "This is going to be a Mardi Gras for the ages."

The celebration, Feb. 18-28, just six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated a wide area of the city, will include just eight days of parades instead of the usual two weeks to keep costs down for the cash-strapped city. And parade routes have been shortened. But most of the parading krewes that have rolled in past years are returning. And tourism leaders, who see the event as a sort of coming-out party for the city, say the tourist districts are ready.

"When you get downtown, it's almost like Katrina didn't touch it," says Marriott's Mark Sanders, who oversees the company's 14 hotels in the city. "There's still a lot of misunderstanding, and (Mardi Gras) is a chance to really let people know that we're open."

Though the storm dealt areas such as the Lower Ninth Ward an apocalyptic blow, it largely spared the French Quarter and the Garden District, the city's key tourism areas. And major attractions, such as the National D-Day Museum and Café du Monde, long ago reopened. Harrah's casino just announced it'll reopen Feb. 17, in time for Mardi Gras.

Foodies will find almost all the big-name eateries, such as K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, Galatoire's and Emeril's, back in action (exceptions include Commander's Palace). And most tourist-area hotels are open. (Of Marriott's 14, only the Ritz-Carlton remains closed.)

The problem for revelers will be getting a room on peak days of the festival. Though the first wave of relief workers has begun leaving the city, it's being replaced by a crowd from local companies such as Harrah's that are restarting operations, Sanders says.

As of Wednesday, three Marriotts in the city still had openings for Feb. 24, starting at $229 a room. The chain was sold out on Feb. 25 and had only one hotel opening on Feb. 26 (the New Orleans Marriott, for $249).

Getting to the city is less of a problem, even a bargain, as airlines ramp up flights. Last week, Southwest said it would add 36 round-trip flights over Mardi Gras. This week, American Airlines sold non-stops to New Orleans from New York and other East Coast cities over Mardi Gras for $163 round trip.

More significant are the thousands of men and women who have decided that no place in the world is quite like New Orleans. They are rebuilding, a brick, a board, a shingle at a time, remaking their own small piece of the city that knows better than any other what life truly is.

Throughout its history, New Orleans has battled poverty, sweltering heat, epidemics and disease, fits of racism, rule by invading armies, slavery, floods from the river, and hurricanes from the sea. In every case, New Orleans has chosen its own unique way to put joy above melancholy and has birthed much of what is now most prized in American culture.

We love New Orleans. When we read the scolding of pinched-faced editorialists chiding us for planning to celebrate Mardi Gras six months after Katrina, we shake our heads: they don’t get it. Mardi Gras is our affirmation, the entire city saying, “We’re alive, we’re back, and we ain’t leaving.” To all those people, who have sacrificed a piece of their own lives to help us in our time of need: thank you. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

Bravery

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 05:20:35 GMT

Bravery

Peace Takes Courage

Ava does it again -- Bravery.

Looking For Her Bush Boom Again

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 07:20:00 GMT

Looking For Her Bush Boom Again

One of our bloggrrrls is getting an unwelcome visit from the beast known as the Bush economy. Melissa of the Koufax-nominated Shakespeare's Sister was laid off from her job today. The inimitable Shakespeare's Sister a "friend to this Blog and a gen-u-wine BLOGGER For Good " needs your help. She's looking for cash, and looking for a gig in the Chicago area.

Last night, Mr. Shakes and I got a notice that our property tax had been increased 100% on our matchbox of a house, and effectively immediately, our monthly payments would be increased by 20%. Then this morning, I got laid off. Wish we didn't have to, feel terrible, no money and all that.

So, I'm pretty desperate at the moment, and although I hate to do this, I'm asking for donations. If you like Shakespeare's Sister and if you can afford to, I'd appreciate it if you could help out, because now this is the only job I've got.

She has links to Amazon Pay and Paypal on her site in the left sidebar if you're a fan and want to show some love for the incredible blogging that she has done and will continue to do.

Go visit her here. Say nice things to her because she deserves them. Give if you can. Send her job leads if you can.

Just be a pal, y'know?

Friday Cat Blogging

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 07:00:08 GMT

Friday Cat Blogging

Katrina survivor William Harris was reunited with "Miss Kitty" at Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, MI. Harris spent three days trapped in his home by floodwaters standing on a chair holding "Miss Kitty."

Harris was rescued but needed to leave the cat behind.

A Noah's Wish volunteer and Slidell Animal Control offier found the cat and brought her to the hospital for a tearful reunion with Harris.

1900

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:18:42 GMT

1900

'We'll meet Again'

Peace takes Courage.

Crossposted from GreatScat

A Brief Summary of Recent Divine Smitings

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:00:32 GMT

A Brief Summary of Recent Divine Smitings

Divine retribution is happening quickly these days, so I thought it would be helpful to put together a sequence of God's most recent smitings and their causes.

Monday, August 29th, 2005

Divine Smite: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall.

Cause: Interpretations vary. On the one hand, it's because God was listening to the prayers of Iraqi and/or Afghani parents who've had children killed by US bombs. On the other hand, it's because God, in His mercy, wanted to purge New Orleans of all of its "sodomites, abortion clinics, Mardi Gras celebrations and witchcraft workers."

Then there's Pat Robertson who believes Hurricane Katrina was an omen sent from God to warn us about the shedding of innocent blood, by which he means abortions. And don't forget the alarmists like Hal Lindsey for whom it's clear that Hurricane Katrina signals that "the judgment of America has begun."

But let's not get bogged down in details, the bottom line is that God wanted Hurricane Katrina to happen.

September 14, 2005

Divine Smite: Hurricane Ophelia To Make Landfall Tonight

Cause: Judge rules that the pledge of allegiance is unconstitutional and not appropriate for public schools. Even the most secular humanists will recognize that this is more than a coincidence!

Updated Cause: Britney Spears, Kevin Federline Reproduce

Still developing...

The Good News

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 05:33:49 GMT

The Good News
In recent weeks, a satirical attack on the teaching of Creationism in American schools has become the world's fastest growing 'religion'.

In the past few weeks, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has become perhaps the world's fastest-growing "religion" and maybe its most improbable. While no one can be sure of the exact numbers of "Pastafarians", as acolytes are called, they may number in the millions.

All of which has come as something of a shock to Bobby Henderson, an unemployed physics graduate from Oregon. According to Mr Henderson, the FSM - as His Noodliness is sometimes known - "revealed himself to me in a dream". Like most mysterious prophets, Mr Henderson communicates with the outside world only occasionally, although this may be more to do with having only one telephone line to his home in the small town of Corvallis and a Google e-mail account swamped by hundreds of messages every day.

But while the "theory" relies on the existence of a god, it does not specify which god. It was only when the state of Kansas announced earlier this year that its schools could teach ID in science classes that the Flying Spaghetti Monster made Himself widely known.

In an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education in July, Mr Henderson wrote: "I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design."

Barely three months later, Mr Henderson has discovered that he really has created a monster. His website - www.venganza.org - receives as many as two million hits a day. It has been featured on several widely read blogs, one of which is offering a $1 million (£545,000) prize for "proof" that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist.

Some of the faithful have created images of their Divine Saucy Leader, including one that reproduces Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, but with the image of the creator replaced by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Some "Pastafarians" speak of the rapture that they felt when first touched by "His Noodly Appendage" or offer prayers that end with the word "ramen" - as in the Japanese noodle - rather than "amen". Others may have been drawn by a vision of Heaven that includes a stripper factory and a beer volcano and what its founder calls the church's "flimsy moral standards".

Of the thousands of e-mails Mr Henderson has received, he says that about 95 per cent have been supportive, while the other five per cent "have said I am going to hell".

Meanwhile, true believers can now order souvenirs from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster website, including T-shirts from $13.99 (£7.50), a coffee mug and a car bumper sticker. Mr Henderson says the proceeds may be used to fund the campaign or, in the best tradition of dubious cult leaders, to buy a yacht that he has long fancied. If the sales really take off, it may also help him avoid having to take up his only job offer so far since leaving Oregon State University - programming slot machines in Las Vegas.

As for whether there will still be Pastafarians in 2,000 years from now, there are already signs of trouble ahead. Some of the faithful question whether their Noodly Saviour might be made of linguini rather than spaghetti. Such people, Mr Henderson says, "give me a headache".

Lest We Forget

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 20:58:06 GMT

Lest We Forget

I'm having a hard time not feeling cynical right now. The situation in NOLA has illuminated some of the greatest problems in the United States, and those are poverty and classism. I can't help but fear that, much like the All-American patriotic comraderie that swelled after 9/11, once the proverbial dust settles, we will all return to the comfortable oblivion of watching The O.C. and Fear Factor re-runs, maybe placating a charity or two, getting fired up around presidential elections, but not really doing much of anything that extends outside of our self-centered comfort zones. I'm guilty of doing it too. I'm guilty of being too busy, of not feeling like it makes enough of a difference to even bother, of forgetting how many people I needed and how many people still need me.

For anyone asking the blame-the-victim question about Katrina's victims' "They had warning, why didn't they leave?" I recommend John Scalzi's wrenching blog post, Being Poor. ...John Scalzi offers a great post to remind us that, in addition to the catastophic consequence of poverty that we are seeing in NOLA, there are daily tragedies, little hurricanes (to rephrase Tori Amos), that are "normal" for people who are poor. There are things you endure that you never forget and still, there are things that others have endured that I can hardly imagine.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.

Help For Katrina's Victims

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:58:03 GMT

Help For Katrina's Victims

From the new site, Katrina Refugees United:

"If you are a victim of Hurricane Katrina, register with this site to let the world know how to contact you. You can give as much detail as you'd like. Then anyone visiting refugeesunited.org can quickly find out how you are doing.

If you are looking for a victim in the Gulf Coast region, you can search for your loved one's name and location. In the very near future, you will be able to post your questions to this site so that your query will be visible to anyone visiting refugeesunited.org.

This site is designed to be a central collection point for information on anyone impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Tell everyone about refugeesunited.org. We're here to help."

If you have a blog, please post this info and the link to the site. Help get the word out so these folks can find their friends and families. No central record-keeping of names has yet been created, and currently many people are scattered all over the country, some unable to remember their own names, who have been separated from the people who care for them. Spread the word.

To Everything There Is A Season

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 07:46:51 GMT

To Everything There Is A Season
And A Time For Every Purpose

(Reprinted from Making Light)

The emotional symptoms of stress include, but are by no means limited to, moodiness, irritability, and anger. Physical symptoms can include headaches, nausea, insomnia, and all manner of physical pain. (Here's a link to a detailed list of symptoms, just in case.)

If any of this sounds familiar, congratulations, you have been keeping well informed on current events. There is enough grief in the atmosphere to suffocate anybody. There are a lot of other, equally intolerable emotions, but if you're still reading this I don't need to catalogue them for you.

May I suggest that everybody here who is not physically in the front lines stop for a moment and take inventory: are stress effects starting to have a constant, or even just a distracting, effect on you, or somebody near you?

I don't mean "are you depressed," or frustrated, or angry. It would be a much bigger warning sign if we weren't. I mean, is the depression coloring everything you see, whether it's related to these events or not? Is the frustration keeping you from things that would normally define you work, pleasure, ordinary conversation? Are you constantly angry, and is the anger spilling out onto people who did nothing but be in range?

If this is happening, then I would quietly ask you to take a step back. Turn off the television, shut down the computer. They, and the crises, will still be there. Go do something else, now.

--Find a distraction and allow it to distract you. Pick up some unfinished work. Go for a walk and pay attention to every detail, even the ones that remind you of Topic A; this is about coping, not pretending it's not there.

--Read, watch a movie, put on some music. It doesn't have to be 'happy.' This is what catharsis is all about, and why there's been a word for it for so long.

--Talk to someone about something else that matters to both of you. Or, perhaps better, talk to someone you care about who's also stressed " I doubt you'll have much trouble finding someone " about how you both feel. Talk each other down. If you need to hug or cry, let it roll. In this hour, the trolls of damned-lie stoicism have no claim on your soul.

I am not asking anyone to stop assisting with relief efforts of any kind. Was that understood? Good.

All this assumes that you or yours are dealing with the effects of "ordinary" stress. If something more serious is going on " deep, unrelievable grief or depression " find counseling, sooner, not later.

Unfortunately, stress doesn't end with the event. The present crises have already created a great number of people with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and there will be more, not all of them direct victims. (One powerful reason for taking time out now is to avoid being in this group.) Most of you will be aware of PTSD; dealing with it is beyond my scope here. Here is one source, with specific observations on the Here and the Now. (Yes, it's from a Federal agency. If that bothers you, there are many other sources.)

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
To live in one of those times need not mean turning one's back on the other.

More On The Flying Spaghetti Monster

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 03:42:39 GMT

More On The Flying Spaghetti Monster

This picture shows the nebula IC 8675, which as you can see is filled with Noodly structures! Not only does this image scientifically PROVE the existence of the FSM, I believe it shows His home in space."

See the earlier post: Open Letter to Kansas State School Board

The board for Beebe School District in Arkansas voted on 12 July to remove from textbooks stickers promoting an "intelligent designer" over evolution. Feedback wonders if they were influenced by an open letter to the State Board of Education in neighbouring Kansas circulated by Bobby Henderson, a "concerned citizen".

"Let us remember that there are multiple theories of intelligent design," is its crux. "I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster," Henderson affirms. "It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him."

He writes "to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories [creationism and evolution]." The full text is at www.venganza.org and includes the argument that global warming correlates with the diminishing number of pirates. There is also a discussion forum and letters of endorsements from academics and leading scientists. Below is a small sample.

"Letting the religious right teach ID in schools is like letting the Marines teach poetry in advanced combat training. As a scientist, I see these the relevancy between the two sets to be equal. If Kansas is going to mess up like this, the least it can do is not be hypocritical and allow equal time for other alternative "theories" like FSMism, which is by far the tastier choice."
-- J. Simon, PhD

"As a neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, I have often been struck by how the brain resembles pasta. Clearly, the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory is worthy of deep thought. Or at least a side order of garlic toast. Which is more than I can say about ID, which, as St. Sigmund taught, should be subservient to EGO (Equally Goofy Observations)."

--James Blackburn, Ph.D.

"Few people realize that the very 2nd word in the bible is mistranslated. The original Hebrew says " in A beginning..." whereas most translations say "in THE beginning..." And therein lies the Truth: there was more than one beginning. In fact, there were three: The 1st followed Evolution as discovered by Darwin; the 2nd followed Intelligent Design; but the 3rd and most successful is the present FSMism discovered by you. So, you see, teaching all three is imperative!"

-- Dr. Uriel Goldberg

"Having now perused the many facets of Pastafarianism (and being both a scientist and a specialist in the anthroplogy of religion), I believe that there is great scope for women in this religion. Clearly the FSM has aspects of both male and female, with both "noodly appendages" and two round meatballs which clearly represent the Breasts of the Great Mother Goddess. Given this inclusion of diversity, I feel that Pastafarianism has MORE to offer budding students than ID, which is notably narrow in its outlook."

--Susan Johnston, PhD

"As a medical practitioner and scientist, I wholeheartedly believe that every theory and hypothesis needs full consideration and explanation with formal ratification by peer review. We have a duty to inform our schools and presumably pasta should form a staple part of our educational diet."
-- Dr. A. Macintyre (UK)

"As a professional paleontologist, I need to emphasize that evolutionary theory has nothing to do with explaining the origin of life. Evolution is the scientific explanation that explains the
diversity of life that we see all around us. It is usually defined very simply as a change in gene frequencies through time. It's not about origins.

Pastafarianism attempts to explain the origins of the universe, and does so with as much or more validity (and more gusto!) than ID creationism. And maybe many people find a sense of ultimate purpose in the universe by believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But such beliefs are based upon faith, not science. In fact, considering His active distortions of observable data, science cannot comment upon these beliefs at all, and must proceed in it's usual manner -- testing hypotheses based upon observable data. Whether these data have been altered by His Noodliness is moot; a difference which makes no difference is not difference.

Pastafarianism does not constitute a scientific theory, despite it's apparent adherence to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle regarding the interactions of observer and observed. It should not be taught as science ... unless, of course, ID creationism is also taught as science, in which case all bets are off.

Best of luck with your web page. I'm off to The Old Spaghetti Factory for worship."

--E. Scott

MMMMMmmmmm, spaghetti"
--H. Neville, Ph.D.

Bobby Henderson said when contacted by lawyers asking how serious I am about pursuing legal action against the Kansas School Board if they refuse to give equal time for FSMism. His answer: very. If it happens, he will need an army of like-minded Flying Spaghetti Monsterists on his side. He recommend you start hunting around for Pirate regalia.

Email him: bobby.henderson@gmail.com

Pump Aid, Water For Life

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 05:17:59 GMT

Pump Aid, Water For Life

Outbreaks of water borne disease are becoming increasingly common in schools as existing systems for water supply break down and children resort to unprotected sources such as open wells and dams. This crisis threatens the lives and education of many thousands of children, regardless of whether food relief reaches the schools in time.

Due to a shortage of firewood, villagers in a rural area in Zimbabwe weren’t boiling the drinking water they collected from an unprotected supply. After two small children and an elderly teacher died from dysentery when a snake fell into their water source and decomposed, an Englishman, Ian Thorpe, working as a teacher at the time, along with other villagers, decided it was time for a change and founded the organization Pump Aid to provide safe drinking water for poor rural communities in Africa.

When Ian and his group realized the potential of rope pumps they developed their own based on a 2000 year old Chinese design and called it the Elephant Pump. The Elephant Pump is cheap, durable, simple to construct and maintain and, most importantly, sustainable. Just recently, Pump aid has won the St. Andrews Prize for the Environment.

Pump Aid builds appropriate technology water pumps that can be maintained by poor rural communities without any outside assistance. These pumps provide clean drinking water and can also be used to sustain crops during the dry season or through periods when rains fail, as they have done this year.

Pump Aid was founded by people who belong to and understand the community in which they are working. A deep understanding of traditional Shona culture has allowed the team to work closely with others in the community to develop a programme that is sensitive to the cultural context in which it operates. Many other projects have failed due to ignorance about the cultural considerations of development. Pump Aid on the other hand, has set new standards for working with poor rural communities in a way that is sensitive to traditional values.

Pump Aid is currently prioritising poor schools for assistance. There is a desperate need for a reliable supply of clean water. Out of 1078 schools in Manicaland (the eastern province of Zimbabwe) over 700 have sent applications for Pump Aid for assistance.

In some cases, schools now face closure due to cholera outbreaks caused by a lack of clean water. Without clean water, children cannot attend school since their lives are at risk. An average school has about 500 children and 12 teachers. One school pump costing just 200 pounds will supply clean water for all these children, the teachers and some local families.

In many cases, water from the Elephant Pump is also used to irrigate a school vegetable garden. Produce can be used to raise money for the school or can be taken home by the children when food at home is short, such as in this year of famine.

For general information, send enquiries to info@pumpaid.org

E-mail the Director: IanThorpe@pumpaid.org

Pump Aid is a registered charity, number 1077889

So we have an Englishman installing pumps based on Chinese design into Africa. Globalization doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

We Are Not Afraid

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 07:10:53 GMT

We're Not Afraid

Show the world that we're not afraid of what happened in London, and that the world is a better place without fear.

Great collaborative photo blog with contributions from all over the world.

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration, I will face my fear; I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and when it has gone past me, I will turn to see Fears' path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain. And live my life. Not afraid. Frank Herbert's "Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear"

The Designer Was A Dipshit

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 06:04:31 GMT

The Designer Was A Dipshit

The joke goes like this:

Three engineers are arguing about what background a Creator must have to have built a human body. "He must have been a mechanical engineer," said one, "because, look at the joints, the hydraulics of circulation!" A second nerd disagreed vehemently: "Nonsense! He was a chemist! Look at the subtlety of nerve transmission and of oxygenation of the blood!" The third, I think, was closer to the truth, though: "He was a civil engineer. Who else would put a sewer line through a recreational area?"

David Barash wipes the floor with "intelligent design" in the LA Times:

Current believers in creationism, masquerading in its barely disguised incarnation, "intelligent design," argue similarly, claiming that only a designer could generate such complex, perfect wonders.

But, in fact, the living world is shot through with imperfection. Unless one wants to attribute either incompetence or sheer malevolence to such a designer, this imperfection — the manifold design flaws of life — points incontrovertibly to a natural, rather than a divine, process, one in which living things were not created de novo, but evolved. Consider the human body. Ask yourself, if you were designing the optimum exit for a fetus, would you engineer a route that passes through the narrow confines of the pelvic bones? Add to this the tragic reality that childbirth is not only painful in our species but downright dangerous and sometimes lethal, owing to a baby's head being too large for the mother's birth canal.
This design flaw is all the more dramatic because anyone glancing at a skeleton can see immediately that there is plenty of room for even the most stubbornly large-brained, misoriented fetus to be easily delivered anywhere in that vast, non-bony region below the ribs. (In fact, this is precisely the route obstetricians follow when performing a caesarean section.)

Why would evolution neglect the simple, straightforward solution? Because human beings are four-legged mammals by history. Our ancestors carried their spines parallel to the ground; it was only with our evolved upright posture that the pelvic girdle had to be rotated (and thereby narrowed), making a tight fit out of what for other mammals is nearly always an easy passage.
An engineer who designed such a system from scratch would be summarily fired, but evolution didn't have the luxury of intelligent design.

Admittedly, it could be argued that the dangers and discomforts of childbirth were intelligently, albeit vengefully, planned, given Genesis' account of God's judgment upon Eve: As punishment for Eve's disobedience in Eden, "in pain you shall bring forth children." (Might this imply that if she'd only behaved, women's vaginas would have been where their bellybuttons currently reside?)
On to men. It is simply deplorable that the prostate gland is so close to the urinary system that (the common) enlargement of the former impinges awkwardly on the latter.

In addition, as human testicles descended — both in evolution and in embryology — the vas deferens (which carries sperm) became looped around the ureter (which carries urine from kidneys to bladder), resulting in an altogether illogical arrangement that would never have occurred if, like a minimally competent designer, natural selection could have anticipated the situation.
There's much more that the supposed designer botched: ill-constructed knee joints that wear out, a lower back that's prone to pain, an inverted exit of the optic nerve via the retina, resulting in a blind spot.

And what about the theological implications of all this? If God is the designer, and we are created in his image, does that mean he has back problems too?

In a letter to the editor, Ben Akerley asks (what should be) the obvious:

David P. Barash's scathing indictment of oxymoronic ID (Intelligent Design) immediately brought to mind one of the favorite stories that America's great agnostic orator, Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) used to tell his audiences: A devout clergyman one day pointed out a crane to his young son explaining that God, in his infinite wisdom, had designed his short legs and long, slender bill to enable him to catch fish easily. Then the little boy protested quizzically, "I understand God's goodness as far as the crane is concerned, but father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?"

Of course ID also begs the unanswerable question that if creationism explains all origins, who designed the designer?

It concerns me a great deal that the issue of "first cause" is never given a second thought. Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?"

Memorial Day

Mon, 30 May 2005 01:12:46 GMT

Memorial Day

"Adventus" is the exact Christian Latin equivalent of the Greek "parousia."--H.A. Reinhold

The stories about its origin are indeed varied. Perhaps it began as "Decoration Day." The stories I heard was that families would go out to the cemeteries to honor the dead from the Civil War. Graves would be decorated, picnics would be held. The dead and the living would both be honored. Where it originated, and how, is still subject to debate and conjecture. But this much seems clear: we used to be more mature about such things.

We used to recall that war had a high price, and yet we too easily forget how easily is it paid when all the bodies are out of sight. It wasn't long after the Civil War, after all, that we were engaged in the glorious adventure of liberating the Philippines. Apparently inspired by that venture, Mark Twain wrote his famous "War Prayer." But even so, we used to honor our dead soldiers.

Perhaps the Gettysburg Address is linked to Memorial Day, too. The eloquence of Lincoln is unimaginable in any living politician. But just try to imagine any of them even addressing the subject of death in this way:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal"

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground -- The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln praised those who died in a valiant struggle to preserve the union, to keep the nation from ending. "I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,/And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps./ What do you think has become of the young and old men?/What do you think has become of the women and children?" I think: "A wise man who speaks his mind calmly is more to be heeded than a commander shouting orders among fools." I think: "Wisdom is better than weapons of war, and one mistake can undo many things done well." (Ecclesiastes 9:17-18, NEB)

And I Say YOU Will Be Saved, Or Else Will Be Saved, Or Else

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 03:55:06 GMT

And I Say YOU Will Be Saved, Or Else

from TJ, at WelcometoGilead:

Only Christians Need Apply

Frist's speech was fairly bland--he wants to have his cake (the evangelical vote) and eat it too (get a pass from the media on aligning himself with those who have been calling for violence and other retaliation against the judiciary). However, under the standards applied by the Republicans and the corporate media to Democratic and progressive events, Frist should be held accountable for the entirety of the speeches and remarks at Sunday's Bund Rally™

Putting more evangelicals on the court will mean rulings more in tune with the religious convictions of churchgoers, said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.

"We are not asking for persons merely to be moral," Mohler said. "We want them to be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ."

Ok, let's get real here - these fanatics would like nothing better than to make christianity a requirement in this country for citizenship. They intend to cram Jesus down our throats just like Bush is trying to cram his style of government down the Iraqis' throats. It's going to work about as well, too. Forced conversions have been tried before. It was called The Inquisition. Sure, you can torture people into saying they believe, but you can't make them believe, especially through pain.

And anyone who doesn't think that cramming Jesus down reluctant throats isn't painful, - the 12th century is calling you, bubba. This bunch of christians are as good an advertisement for atheism as I've ever seen. Keep it up, you dangerously vicious morons - you are going to succeed in turning more people off to Christ than any bunch of godless commies could have dreamed of doing.

You'd think that people so desirous of exercising the "constitutional option" might have read the Constitution.

They can argue there being nothing explicit in the document about separation of church and state, but Article VI is rather clear:

"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

We fight a war to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and embrace the Talibaptists. WTF?

Who Is The Real Jesus Christ

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 06:05:35 GMT

Who Is The Real Jesus Christ

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside quiet waters
He restores my soul

Blondesense posted: The Picture is the Same but the religion looks different. People fight wars in the name of religion. People kill one another in the name of religion. People judge one another's value in the name of religion. There are some evil deeds committed in the name of religion. When I was little and attended Sunday school, my Sunday school teacher gave me a little picture. The picture depicted a kind and gentle looking Jesus holding a little baby lamb. I loved that picture because it was so sweet and it made me feel safe and good. That's how I used to view religion too, I saw it as being as kind and gentle as the way Jesus was holding that little baby lamb. Today the little picture looks the same but religion sure does look different to me.

I attended Catholic school all through my educational life. I had the picture of Jesus holding the lamb too, and remember the words of the nuns and priests telling us that WE are the lamb. We represent all that is good and humble and innocent and that Jesus loves and protects us.

For me, believing in Jesus means believing in what he SAID, in how he lived. Here was a man of peace who preached about love, acceptance, forgiveness and mercy. He is the Jesus who held no malice toward his detractors or persecutors. He remained faithful to his own beliefs till the day he died. Yet, he was also human. He lost his temper that day in the temple. He almost lost his faith, and certainly showed his fear that day in the Garden of Gethsemane. Yet he did what he had to do, and not ONCE raised his voice against his "enemies", not once did he ever DAMN them as evil or misguided or wrong, as so many who supposedly preach that they are "doing God's work" do today.

The beauty of Jesus is that you don't have to BE a Catholic, or even accept him as the Son of God to see the truth and beauty in his message. His message is a message to live by, and his message is so similar to the message of other religions which have also been perverted and co-opted by extremists...such as Islam. That message is so universal that it should be binding us together. Instead, it is totally overlooked and we spend all our time focused on the things that divide us. The Jesus I know isn't waving his fist at the world. The Jesus I know is watching and shedding a tear for all of us, not because we're destroying ourselves, but because he must feel that he failed.

When you speak about Jesus shedding a tear, you need to realize that for the evangelical fundamentalists Christian Right there is no crying Jesus in their religion. Rambo Jesus doesn't weep, Jesus kicks ass. Their spiritual entrepreneurs are never more dogmatic than when they are ignoring, if not contradicting, the essence of Jesus Christ's teachings. The basic con is to insist upon the historical and scientific accuracy of every syllable in the Bible - then to analyze its symbolism, unveil hidden meanings and decode secret messages known only to initiates. The Book of Genesis is reduced to a biology text, and Daniel becomes a crystal ball. Thus are delivered the comforts of certitude and the enhancements of sorcery in a single beguiling package.

There was a time in the not too distant past when most reasonable people would have pooh-poo'd Eric Rudolph the American Christian terrorist. Eric Robert Rudolph set off bombs in public to hurt and kill innocent people in order to make a political point: to "confound, anger and embarrass" the United States government for its legal sanction of abortion. He killed two people, injured at least 120 more and effectively terrorized everyone in three states. This "dangerous tactic," also known as murder, is expressly forbidden by the commandment handed down to Moses on Sinai, a document and a tradition Mr. Rudolph professes to revere.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay casts himself as maximum theocrat and chief scold, a cross between Cotton Mather and the Church Lady from "Saturday Night Live." I can't decide whether his bombast against Federal Judges in the Terri Schiavo affair was to deflect attention from his own ethical troubles or take decidely un-Christian advantage of what a GOP aide called "a great political issue" for Republicans. In the Schiavo case, the public overwhelmingly disapproved of DeLay's sanctimonious intrusion into a family's private dilemma.

All the usual suspects, including Senator Bill Frist, Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary are taking part in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees. The telecast, organized by the Family Research Council is scheduled the evening of April 24, calls the day "Justice Sunday" and depicts a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The Rude Pundit calls it Christ Weary About Filibusters: and a bad use of photoshop.

This religion is an embattled faith, which requires an ever evolving list of enemies to keep it's focus. It includes Satan worshippers one year, "secular humanists" the next. Panic over backward masking on phonograph records yields to fears that supermarket bar codes harbor the Mark of the Beast. Some years back, Procter & Gamble was forced to deny widespread rumors that a moon-and-stars logo on boxes of soapsuds symbolized corporate diabolism. More recently, purging school libraries of Harry Patter's witchcraft has emerged as a cause. Also today, George W. Bush is seen as God,, and liberals and democrats are doing the bidding of the Devil. As if the real world weren't scary enough, foolish mystery conspiracy theories must be invented. When will mainstream Christians, like the Church of Christ, speak out against these political hacks and "Elmer Gentry-style" televangelists willing to misuse Christian tradition for their own political agenda....

Anybody familiar with the Bible would have directed the faithful to Matthew 24:36, in which Christ warned his disciples on the Mount of Olives not to distract themselves searching for signs of the Second Coming because "no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." If you don't know much about "Rapture and the Left Behind series" don't feel alone. No Christian believed in this term for the first 1800 years of Christianity, and no orthodox faith, Roman Catholic and mainstream Protestant Churches believes in this popular myth now.

The hugh commercial success of the Left Behind series of eschatological thrillers by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, a twelve-novel extravaganza combining a blandly paranoid worldview with crackpot theology to produce a form of biblical infotainment seemingly irresistible to a reported 42 million readers.

Forget all that sentimental gibberish about blessed peacemakers, turning the other cheek, and loving your enemies. If there are references to the Sermon on the Mount among Left Behind’s roughly 1 million words, I failed to find them. Depicting the "End Times" as an action/adventure melodrama similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator films, the books portray midwestern suburbanites and born-again Israeli converts as Warrior Jesus' allies in an apocalyptic struggle against a U.N.-anointed "World Potentate," who looks "not unlike a younger Robert Redford" and speaks the language of science and liberal internationalism.

Yet the media’s response to all of this nonsense has been remarkably polite. In America, of course, with commercial success comes a degree of cultural respectability. If millions of consumers succumb to a childish revenge fantasy that takes the Christ out of Christianity and treats the Bible as a cosmic Daily Racing Form, we dare not scoff at the merchandise.

How seriously the rest of us need to take a primitive revenge fantasy like the Left Behind novels is hard to say. While daydreaming about Armageddon, most readers, I'm guessing, are also signing off on thirty-year mortgage notes and keeping their life insurance up to date. But maybe the nutball evangelical born-agains have it right: Maybe it's best to just stop fighting it and wait for the end so we can watch as Armageddon rains down and only those who've given tens of thousands of dollars to secretly gay televangelists will rise up and be saved and the rest of us will merely fall into the fiery pits of gay-marriage-friendly hell.

Ah, but according to the cute Rapture Index, that adorable little Web site o' righteousness that charts the various global "signs" leading up to the impending Second Coming, the Rapture should be happening, like, right now. Or maybe last week.

Woody Allen said, If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he wouldn't be able to stop throwing up. In fact, the index now stands at 152, well above the "Oh sweet Jesus take me now" threshold. Which means, of course, that the Second Coming might have already come and gone, and Jesus may have swooped down and taken one look at what we've done to the place and said, you've got to be freakin' kidding me, and said, sorry but no one here deserves much of anything illuminative or enlightened right now. Can't you just hear all those gay-hatin' born-again Christians saying, what the hell?

Africa Spurns Female Circumcision

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 20:27:27 GMT

Africa Spurns Female Circumcision

A program in Senegal, which has led 1,527 villages to stop circumcising girls, is becoming a regional model.

KER SIMBARA, SENEGAL – This tiny, sleepy village in Senegal's arid interior is part of a swelling movement against the long-held but controversial practice of female circumcision.

Back in 1997, 13 Senegalese villages publicly declared that they would no longer permit female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM) as it's called by critics. In the eight years since, the number has grown to 1,527, representing 30 percent of Senegalese communities where FGM has been practiced. Dozens more villages are preparing to make similar declarations in the coming months.

Campaigners have tried for decades to bring an end to FGM. But their tactics of providing alternative employment to the circumcisers, introducing alternative rites of passage for girls, or demanding legislation to outlaw the practice have all failed to make a dent: an estimated 2 million girls in about 26 African countries are circumcised every year.

The sea-change in Senegal is being credited to a slow but steady program of human rights education that allows villagers to make up their own minds about whether to abandon female circumcision. Spearheaded by a local rights agency called Tostan, the program's success is proving so eye-catching that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is endorsing it as a model.

"The Tostan approach is working because it's a holistic approach, and it works with communities," says Lalla Toure, UNICEF's regional adviser for women's health. "The starting point is not female genital mutilation; it's about rights, it's about health, it's about development. We think that's the best approach."

According to Gerry Mackie, a professor at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., the groundswell of opposition to FGM in Senegal is approaching a "tipping point." No one is willing to predict a date by which the practice will cease, but Mr. Mackie suggests that there are parallels with the practice of foot-binding in China, which went from widespread at the turn of the 20th century to nil within a generation.

Once Tostan commences its program of health, human rights education, and economic development in a village, it typically takes two to three years before citizens decide that they want to abandon FGM, says Ms. Melching. The public declarations the villages make, amid vibrant celebrations with music, dancing, and speeches from elders and prominent citizens, generally contain other statements about respect for women's rights and children's education.

Ker Simbara eventually declared in 1999 that its citizens would no longer practice female circumcision. Ms. Sow's family illustrates the transformation. She circumcised her eldest daughter, but her two youngest, Sadio, 13, and Nabou, 7, and her granddaughter Duma, 2, are not circumcised.

"I will never do it again," she declares. "Things have changed."

Journalist Sgrena Thanks Pope For His Prayers

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 20:49:03 GMT

Journalist Sgrena Thanks Pope For His Prayers

[Link]

Rome - The Italian journalist and former hostage who was wounded by United States gunfire in Baghdad sent a letter to Pope John Paul II thanking him for his appeals on behalf of people kidnapped in Iraq, her newspaper said on Saturday.

Giuliana Sgrena - released from captivity in Iraq on March 4 and then shot on her way to the airport - wrote to the pontiff from the Rome hospital where she is recovering from a shrapnel wound to the shoulder, said Il Manifesto newspaper, adding that it had no specifics on the letter.

Her letter was brought to the pope's attention at a Rome hospital across town, where he is recovering from throat surgery.
The pontiff's Sunday message on February 13 included an appeal for hostages in Iraq, including Sgrena.

Also on Saturday, Sgrena went on television to appeal for the release of a French colleague captured in Iraq, calling on those holding her to "respect Islam" and let her go.

Veteran French reporter Florence Aubenas disappeared along with her Iraqi assistant, Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, on January 5. They were last seen leaving her Baghdad hotel. It is not known who might be holding her.

"I beg you, use the same clemency that was used with me: set her free," said Sgrena, in a message to the kidnappers broadcast on Saturday on French TF1 television. "My kidnappers always referred to the Qur'an, which calls for the respect of women."

"I ask you to respect Islam, and free Florence Aubenas," she added speaking from the hospital.

Sgrena was freed on March 4 after a month in captivity, but was wounded when US soldiers opened fire on the car taking her to the airport. An Italian intelligence agent accompanying her was killed.

The reporter was quickly brought to a US military hospital in Baghdad, where she underwent surgery to remove the shrapnel.

She is set to have a new operation on the wound on Monday, her newspaper said. - Sapa-AP

Giuliana Sgrena seems grateful towards the Pope's assistance and concerned about a fellow hostage Veteran French reporter Florence Aubenas, both statements seem noble sentiments for a person who had been kidnapped and then nearly killed by shots fired at her car.

Then what about this trashing of Giuliana?

In Italy, media outlets of all stripes supported Giuliana. There was solidarity, a concept few American media types seem to understand. Here in the Fox and blog-infested waters of the U.S.A., consensus seems impossible and polarization is the template. In some quarters, torture by Americans is deemed acceptable and any concerns about the less than stellar job done by 'our troops' is considered heresy, if not treason. Already the victim is being blamed for the crime. A letter to another blog hints at a plot because Al Jazeera had a picture of the Italian agent.

The right-leaning site, Little Green Footballs, predictably tries to discredit Giuliana and anyone who believes her:

"The details of this situation have been described in so many different ways that it’s very difficult to get a clear picture of what happened – and mainstream media has predictably ignored Sgrena's radical anti-war background… The inmates of Democratic Underground are beside themselves with glee, of course, accusing our soldiers of murder with no evidence. (But don’t forget, they support the troops!)"

littlegreenfootballs.com

Michelle Malkin takes the "word of U.S. troops [rather] than an Italian anti-war journalist['s]."

Even worse, a web site called My Pet Jawa is, without evidence, blaming Giuliana for being a terrorist collaborator: "Suspicion continues to mount (Where? DS) that Giuliana Sgrena, the journalist for the Italian Communist (Wrong) paper Il Manifesto, either faked her own abduction or became an accomplice after the fact with her jihadi captors."

"To all war correspondents out there, to all those who cover the horror of mankinds cruelty to mankind, maybe one day the horror which you captured may persuade us that war is a barbaric way to solve our differences. An independent journalist who covers war is a peacemaker. The pursuit of truth can bring grim consequences to those who pursue it. Thanks to those who have been killed in their duty of reporting on the truth and to those imprisoned and tortured.

Ten Reasons Not To Display the Ten Commandments

Sun, 06 Mar 2005 03:00:53 GMT

Ten Reasons Not To Display the Ten Commandments

After avoiding the issue for about as long as possible, the Supreme Court will finally take on public displays of the Ten Commandments. The high court will review two cases this term, one involving a monument on the Texas Capitol grounds and the other a posting of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courthouses. A decision should be rendered by the end of the term in late June.

While they deliberate, let’s review the Top Ten Reasons why the court should rule against public displays of Scripture.

Number Ten. Posting the Ten Commandments endorses Protestant Christianity. Almost all of the displays use the King James Version of the commandments—a Protestant distinctive. Roman Catholics and followers of Judaism use a different translation.

Number Nine. Public displays of the Ten Commandments reduce all other religions to second-class status. Not all religions in our country are part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And since it is still possible to be a citizen of this country without being a Christian, all religions must be treated equally.

Number Eight. Displaying the Ten Commandments as a way of trying to improve the social order reinforces a magical view of religion. Proponents say that if we display the Ten Commandments children will behave better in school and our nation will be blessed for acknowledging God. Thinking this way reduces the Ten Commandments down to the level of a lucky rabbit’s foot. The impact of the Ten Commandments comes when they are taught by faithful teachers, not when they are dangling from a keychain.

Number Seven. Public displays of Scripture corrupt the true purpose of religious practice. God did not send the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount in order to “create a more perfect union.” These Scriptures represent an ideal community far more difficult to attain than the mere democracy we struggle with.

Number Six. Public displays of Scripture corrupt the true purpose of government. Every time in history the state has acted on behalf of God, blood has flowed in the streets. God may work through the state as God chooses, but that does not mean everything the state does is God’s will. Keeping church and state separate makes it possible for the faith community to remind the state of its temporal limitations as needed.

Number Five. Public displays of the Ten Commandments are a form of idolatry. Anytime we treat as ultimate something we have made with our own hands, we are worshipping idols. Even if the words on the monument are God’s, the monument is ours. That’s why one of those commandments warns against graven images.

Number Four. Grouping the Ten Commandments with other historical documents distorts the history of all. The United States was established as a secular state not a theocracy. And Moses was not present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Number Three. Public displays of religion promote social disorder by setting groups of people against each other. The only way America works is if we guarantee equal freedom for everyone.

Number Two. A public display of Scripture trivializes what is supposed to be important and profound. Do we really want our sacred texts treated like soda pop ads?

And the number one reason the court should rule against public displays of the Ten Commandments—God wants them written on our hearts, and that’s not going to happen just because they are on display down at the courthouse.

There Are At Least Two Americas

Sat, 15 May 2004 16:01:58 GMT

There Are At Least Two Americas

By Dr. Zachary Smith

There are at least two Americas. There's my America and your America--I'm making an assumption here, I admit it--which is the America of the Deist founders, the America of Lincoln's second inaugural, the America of Thoreau and Whitman, of FDR and MLKjr, of the part of the Pledge that I'm proud to say: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Some posters on TT have derisively asked me what I'm for, and I find it easy to say: truth, justice, and the American way.

Then there's the other America (oh, I know I'm oversimplifying). It's the America of the United Fruit Company, the America of slavery and Indian genocide, the America of Custer and Curtis LeMay, the America of the Bush family and Father Coughlin and Rush Limbaugh, of Cheney and Haliburton.

Which America was attacked on 9/11? Which America was the target of bin Laden? Which America invaded Iraq, put hoods over men's heads, tortured and raped and murdered in the freshly-painted torture rooms that once belonged to Saddam?

The problem, of course, is that we cannot separate ourselves so easily, one America from the other, in reality as we can in rhetoric. Indeed, in many Americans both Americas exist at once: Jefferson owned slaves and used them sexually; Lincoln was willing to suspend habeas corpus; FDR may have manipulated events in regard to Pearl Harbor. And in the mind of the world's citizens, the confusion must be tremendous.

We are now engaged in a great civil war, though not one shot has been fired by either side, to see whether this nation, or any nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men--not just Americans--are created equal and are endowed with dignity and are worthy of justice, can survive its darker self.

I believe that this is the last time in my generation in which a choice can be made for the soul of America. As apocalyptic as it sounds, I believe that events in the next few years will set this country on a course: either to fulfill what I believe to be its destiny, to stand for and fight for truth, justice, and the American way, or to become the New Rome, the empire that will justify its wars, torture, oppression, and murder in the name of safety, security, and standard of living.

Daily I consider the possibility that it may already be too late, for us and the world. If I believed in a Divine who could hear us and answer our prayers, I would be on my knees imploring it every day that the choice was still before us, not behind us.

[Via Tabletalk]

Be Thankful You're Not Dubya

Wed, 26 Nov 2003 23:12:43 GMT

Be Thankful You're Not Dubya
Craving more juicy reasons to offer up profound gratitude this turkey day? Try a few of these
(By Mark Morford)

This Thanksgiving, as you sip the wine and hug the family and toast the friends and hoard the stuffing and curse the airport security, remember to give thanks you are not G.W. Bush. Hey, it's important.

1) Be thankful that you do not have to suffer Dubya's massive crushing karmic burden, as wrought by inflicting heaps of environmental disaster and vicious unnecessary war and a stunning string of lies lies lies like a firehose of giblet gravy splattered all over the planet.

For it really is all too plain: G.W. Bush is one of the most reviled and openly disrespected major world leaders in modern history. America has never been so embarrassed and reluctant to send a president abroad. We cringe when the man takes the stage. We offer humiliated apologies to our former allies, and to the 200,000 Bush/war protesters in London, just last week.

In Bush's defense, it cannot be easy to be so undeservedly powerful, yet so bumbling and inarticulate and globally loathed for your abhorrent policies and hollow corporate agenda and baffled doofus manner. This Thanksgiving, be grateful you are not him.

2) Thanks, you might want to give, that you are not Iraqi. Be grateful you did not go from brutal scowling despot who at least kept the damn lights on to brutish occupying army no one asked for that is right now laying waste to whatever remains of your once semi-proud oil-rich nation.

Give thanks, furthermore, that you are not one of the estimated 10,000 Iraqi civilians killed to date by U.S. forces, not to mention one of the untold tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers who were hammered by our million pounds of billion-dollar ordnance in the first few days of the massacre. Be grateful you are not dead in the name of American political and petrochemical profiteering.

3) Give thanks you are not a member of the much-abused U.S. military. Sad but true. Be grateful you are not right now suffering that sickening sinking feeling that you are not, in fact, protecting America from any sort of marauding terrorists, or defending our honor, or our way of life, or guarding innocents from swarthy evildoers and nonexistent WMDs.

But that you are, instead, a wholly disposable henchman for the BushCo corporate regime, with the odds increasing every minute that you will soon join the more than 9,000 U.S. wounded or more than 400 "necessary" dead U.S. soldiers Rumsfeld mentions when he shrugs off the latest round of guerrilla bombings that killed another batch of your friends. Support our troops. Bring them home right now.

4) Be grateful BushCo's ratings are slipping lower than an SUV's mpg rating, and there is only one year left until he joins his father as one of those embarrassing historical footnotes, a jagged scar on the heart of a wary America that other countries point to in years to come and say wow that's a nasty scar where'd you get that, and we reply, George W. Bush, and they go, oh my God, that's right. So sorry.

5) Be grateful you are not right now in any way related to, or serve as a spokesperson for, or are employed as one of the apparently very deranged or heavily drugged plastic surgeons who worked on Michael Jackson. This is a gimme.

6) While you're at it, give thanks you're not Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, Bennifer, Britney, Liza Minnelli, Joan Rivers, Howard Stern, Ann Coulter, Ashton Kutcher, Bill O'Reilly, Anna Kournikova, Madonna or Mary Hart. These are lives you probably do not want to lead. Give thanks your soul is not all withery and Botoxed and that it still manages to radiate cool colors like one of those funky cheesy fiber- optic lamps from the '70s.

7) Be thankful they have yet to figure out a way to blot out the sun. Or, for that matter, the moon.

8) Offer immense gratitude that despite a massive ongoing Herculean effort on the part of numerous world governments to rape and pillage and pretty much slap down most all tender offerings of the planet, Earth still manages to produce for us an astonishing array of flora and fauna and oxygen and edible delicacies and awe-inspiring trees and relentless merciless beauty.

9) Be thankful the planet rather effortlessly continues to baffle scientists and confound astronomers and completely entrance biologists and philosophers and poets. We still, for example, have no idea why whales sing, or how long they live, or where blue whales, the largest and most magnificent creatures on the planet, go to mate. Be grateful for the Mystery.

10) Kneel down, right now, for free speech. Oh yes. We must. Because it is under severe duress. To exercise it now, to speak out against BushCo and war and global corporate profiteering, is a true sign that you are a traitor and an al Qaeda operative and a personal friend of Barbra Streisand. This is what they sneer at you.

Give it up, instead, for free unfettered alt-news sources like truthout.org. And commondreams.org. And alternet.org and counterpunch.com and buzzflash.com and smirkingchimp.com and even Slate and the BBC and The Onion. Cheney scowls, Rove oozes, Ashcroft would love nothing more than to shut down the entire impious godforsaken Internet. Be grateful they can only quiver and hiss and rattle their chains. So far.

11) Molly Ivins. Gore Vidal. Michiko Kakutani. David Foster Wallace. Don DeLillo. Maureen Dowd. Caroline Myss. W.G. Sebald. Tom Robbins. Starhawk. William Rivers Pitt. Rob Brezny. David Attenborough. Dave Eggers. Joseph Campbell. Lewis Lapham. Haruki Murakami. Katha Pollitt. Et al. Thank you.

12) For baskets of locally grown organic small-farm produce delivered to your door. For handmade whiskey-filled chocolate truffles smeared over a lover's tailbone. For Bernese mountain dogs. For the return of Opus. For Rufus Wainwright and Beth Orton and the Mini Cooper. L'Occitane honey incense and the Apple iPod and "Six Feet Under." For Cate Blanchett, The Sun magazine, The New Yorker, Peet's coffee and "Spirited Away."

13) Here is the big cliché. Here is the final praise. It cannot be overstated: Despite an impressive assault on civil liberties, despite savage BushCo attacks on everything from national forests to air quality to rivers and oceans and water quality and health care, despite attempts to numb the national consciousness overall, we must give enormous, unfettered thanks for this incredible and kaleidoscopic America.

Ours remains the most breathtakingly beautiful, diverse, epic, multifaceted, multiorgasmic landscape on the planet today. It's true.

We tend to forget. We take for granted. We presume it must be like this everywhere. But one quick trip abroad will only serve to remind you and reinforce your devout appreciation for what this country can offer, the free expression and the religious autonomy and the clean water and the good dentistry and the fresh produce and the space to explore.

We are deeply flawed. We are massively arrogant. We are bratty and insolent and abusive and sloppy and violent. But we balance it with astounding acts of love and beauty and art, nature preserves and activism and organic awareness and sex positivism and community awareness and quiet personal spiritual questing and lots and lots of great bookstores.

14) Here is where you make you own list. Here is where you set aside the cynicism and the sighing and the bitterness, just for a moment, and get quiet, look around, look inside, check the karmic inventory and offer up heaping pies of gratefulness for what you find.

Sure it seems clichéd. Of course you don't need some holiday to be deeply thankful for the radiance in your life. But, hey, an opportunity is an opportunity. Just remember, big meaty drumsticks of general gratitude are absolutely fine. But the divine, personal gravy is where the real flavor is.

[Via Mark Morford - morningfix@sfgate.com]

BushCo's

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 17:06:17 GMT

BushCo's "Marriage Protection Week": Shut Up And Say "I Do"
Rage against those scary gays and invoke an angry God -- it's BushCo's "Marriage Protection Week", By Mark Morford

Did you hug a priest today? Run from a scary homosexual person? Coo over a copy of Bride's magazine? Fall on your knees and thank God Almighty that your child isn't yet gay or pagan or libertarian and if she is that's OK because it's nothing that regular lithium and electroshock therapy can't "cure"?

You did? Great! Because this entire week, Oct. 13-18, has been decreed "Marriage Protection Week" by the delightfully sanctimonious and homophobic Bush administration. It's true.

And hence the time's never been better to shove any open- hearted, progressive, nontraditional notions of love or relationships or child rearing you might have deep, deep underground and be numbly happy that our fine government is stepping up to safeguard marriage from, well, you know, them. Or it. Or something.

Did you know? The glorious God-given sanctity of traditional, missionary-position marriage is under savage attack. The GOP is openly terrified that gays are galloping into the cultural consciousness on sequined horseback, lovers are shunning traditional weddings in favor of incense and anal sex and taiko drumming, children are weeping in the streets, neglected and confused and reading Harry Potter backward, wondering why Mommy scours the nerve.com personals while Daddy is off visiting his "sisters" in Bangkok.

<snip>

This is the BushCo way. This is the neoconservative creed. Invent a bogus threat, inject black smears of fear, hint that something church approved and "family friendly" is in danger and that wee innocent children and cute puppies are about to be tattooed and/or made to wear lots of leather chaps and eyeliner, and if we don't stand up to the Big Bad Evil, society as we know it will, very literally, crumble.

<snip>

Let's make this perfectly clear: Marriage does not need protection. Traditional marriage does not need any forcible recommitment by right-wing Christian zealots who try to force everyone into little shiny happy heterosexual SUV- sized boxes of sameness and sanctimony and bad rented tuxedos and engraved gravy boats.

<snip>

So. Let us redefine this week. Let us claim it right back from the hounds of fearful conservatism. Let us call it "Shut the Hell Up and Get Your Damn Conservative Agenda Out of My Love Life Week." In fact, let us make it a month. A year. An agenda of our own.

After all, marriage ain't just for uptight right-wing Christian zealots anymore. And it never will be.

[Via San Francisco Gate]

How I Want To Remember

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 19:28:54 GMT

How I Want To Remember "The Man In Black"

South Knox Bubba has my favorite picture of the late Johnny Cash up. Cash didn't think much of the Nashville establishment that spent its time promoting the "All Hat - No Talent" country singers.

In Mr. Cash's own words....

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black, Why you never see bright colors on my back, And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone. Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read, Or listened to the words that Jesus said, About the road to happiness through love and charity, Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes, But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old, For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold, I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been, Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died, Believen' that the Lord was on their side, I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died, Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know, And things need changin' everywhere you go, But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right, You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, And tell the world that everything's OK, But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back, 'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

I think everyone should save Johnny as their wallpaper today. (Just right- click......oh, hell, you know...)

[Via TBOGG]

(3) Generations Trip to (2) Chicago Treasures on the (4th)

Sun, 06 Jul 2003 22:32:33 GMT

(3) Generations Trip to (2) Chicago Treasures on the (4th)

I and family members rode the North Branch Bike Trail up to the Chicago Botanic Garden on the 4th of July for a bike workout, birthday celebrations and a family get-together.

The 'North Branch Bike Trail' is a paved trail that starts at Devon and Caldwell Avenues in northwest Chicago, just west of Central. It then runs about 20 miles north to Cook County Forest Preserve's Chicago Botanic Gardens. At the north end, a four mile loop runs around the Skokie Lagoons, and at the far upper end of the loop you can cross Dundee Road and enter Botanic Gardens through an open gate, after which you bike the service drive to the entrance area. Entrance for pedestrians and bikers is free, and the Gardens provides bike racks. TIP: Walking through their magnificent gardens is free and worth an hour or more exploration. I especially like the Japanese Island and the Rose Garden. A cafeteria is also available there for carbo-loading for the return trip. Major benefits for bikers are restrooms with running water and the cafeteria provides ice-cool water for refilling water bottles.

The most striking aspect of the Chicago Botanic Garden is its physical face: beautifully designed gardens brimming with two million plants. Twenty-three different gardens showcase the best plants for the Midwest in a variety of beautiful settings. Three native habitat areas, including a woodland, prairie and river habitat, feature native and endangered flora of Illinois.

The Chicago Horticultural Society has been promoting gardens and gardening since 1890. The Society's flower shows, victory gardens, horticultural lectures and more have touched generations of Chicagoans. With the ground- breaking for the Chicago Botanic Garden in 1965 and its opening in 1972, the Society created a permanent site on which to carry out its mission. That mission encompasses three important components: collections, education and research.

UPDATE: Here is a good a North Branch Bike Trail Map with mileage markers. Also some very uncommon photographs taken at the Botanic Gardens by Dawn Makulick at Chicago Uncommon

God, Satan, Evangelicals and American Secular Culture.

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 05:46:55 GMT

God, Satan, Evangelicals and American Secular Culture

Nicholas Kristof on God. Satan and the Media today takes time out to point out that educated Americans need to reach out to snake-handling, speaking-in-tongues, backwoods morons. Okay, maybe that's stretching the point a bit, but Kristof fails to convince me why I should respect the views of these people:

Evangelicals are increasingly important in every aspect of American culture. Among the best-selling books in America are Tim LaHaye's Christian "left behind" series about the apocalypse; about 50 million copies have been sold. One of America's most prominent television personalities is Benny Hinn, watched in 190 countries, but few of us have heard of him because he is an evangelist.

President Bush has said that he doesn't believe in evolution (he thinks the jury is still out). President Ronald Reagan felt the same way, and such views are typically American. A new Gallup poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe in creationism, and only 28 percent in evolution (most of the rest aren't sure or lean toward creationism). According to recent Gallup Tuesday briefings, Americans are more than twice as likely to believe in the devil (68 percent) as in evolution.

He then says this:

I tend to disagree with evangelicals on almost everything, and I see no problem with aggressively pointing out the dismal consequences of this increasing religious influence. For example, evangelicals' discomfort with condoms and sex education has led the administration to policies that are likely to lead to more people dying of AIDS at home and abroad, not to mention more pregnancies and abortions.

But liberal critiques sometimes seem not just filled with outrage at evangelical-backed policies, which is fair, but also to have a sneering tone about conservative Christianity itself. Such mockery of religious faith is inexcusable.

Why is it inexcusable to point out the ridiculousness of those who seem hellbent on sending us back to the dark ages, who would let people die because of a misguided belief that sex and pleasure are sinful, who find evolution unbelievable yet unquestionably accept the notion of a unknown, unseen, cosmic producer/director who works in "mysterious ways", and who read crappy endtime pulp fiction written by a hack evangelist, but fear children's books written about a boy wizard? I was brought up to respect other people's religions (although nobody ever explained why...) but that was in a time when religion was a private matter, before evangelicals decided it was their mission to share their devotion to their god whether you wanted to hear it or not. Quite frankly, I don't find the god-smacked to be that interesting.

So sure that's sneering, but how should I approach the willfully ignorant who would dictate social policy? People's lives are at stake while they're playing theological Calvinball.

Kristof then writes:

Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago argues that America is now experiencing a fourth Great Awakening, like the religious revivals that have periodically swept America in the last 300 years

History is full of "Religious Awakenings" and, if I may be so humble to note, millions have died because of someone else's notion of "god" and what "he" wants. Quite simply, that joke's not funny anymore.

More on Kristof

There's a great discussion of Kristof's column over at Atrios, which contains this quote:

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." -- H.L. Mencken

contributed by Tresy.

Then there is this email I received from Matt:

"I was brought up to respect other people's religions (although nobody ever explained why...)"

Here's why:
"We have enough religion to hate each other, but not enough to love each other." -- Jonathan Swift

Or, one could argue quite easily, if UBL and his crew had grown up respecting other people's religions, Al Qaeda would not exist.

The problem with Kristof's article is that he jumps from disdain for *evangelicals* to disdain for *Christianity*, in the same way that incautious warbloggers might jump from condemning Wahabbism to condemning Islam.

It's an uncommon lapse in Kristof's usually solid intellectual rigor; perhaps he still has mixed emotions about once dating a girl from a Pentecostal denomination, and isn't quite ready to say that, although she was bright, she was also a follower of a religion that makes no freaking sense.

At any rate, he's wrong, but not entirely so--and I respectfully submit that you are making the same error (failing to distinguish between radical and mainstream) in reverse, if not to quite the same degree.

Very good points.

One serious flaw, pointed out by many over at Atrios, is that Kristof fails to differentiate between "evangelicals" and "fundamentalists". This is a nuance I failed to account for. I'm sure someone's god will forgive me.

[Via TBogg]

Wanna know what conservatives really hate?

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 23:31:46 GMT

Mark Morford. I love that man.

Wanna know what conservatives really hate?

What makes everyone from harmless GOP dittoheads to ultra-right-wing nutjobs full of rage and hiss and homophobia and blind jingoism roll their eyes and throw up their hands and scamper for their Bibles for reassurance that life is still repressed and we're still going to war and Dubya is still smackin' 'round the envurment along with them wimmin and homosekshuls and furriners?

Why, hippie crap, of course. New-age babble about love and peace and godless pagan prayer, organic foods and sustainable trees and chakras, divinity and luscious goddesses and soul paths and upping your personal vibration to counter all the venomous hatred slinging about the culture like some sort of conservative, fearmongering weapon of mass depression. Man, they just hate that.

<snip>

Here is the great fallacy of the American ethos, the one that powers SUV purchases and spawns a billion McDonald's franchises and gun purchases and Adam Sandler movies: it is the notion that Americans exist in a freewheelin' vacuum, that our daily choices don't, in fact, affect the world, and our neighbors, and our children, and the environment and our own bodies.

It is the idea that those very choices -- foods you eat, cars you drive, shows you watch, personal relations you have, waste you create, choices you make -- can't, in a very real and immediate way, erode your divine links, spit on your spiritual spark, taint your mystical meat. Every single one, every single time.

In other words, in buying that gun, smacking that child, abusing that spouse, screaming at that neighbor, buying that thuggish SUV, supporting that war, wishing death upon all them damn furriners, you may think you're exercising your God-given all-'Murkin right to do/say/drive whatever the hell you want because you're an American goddammit and no one will tell you how to live so back off.

Not quite. Rather, you are also injecting a deliberate dose of bitter bile straight into the cultural bloodstream, actually -- and quite literally -- lowering the general vibration of the human collective cause, casting your vote for small-mindedness and solipsism and violence. Yep, you are. And yes indeed, your vote counts.

Here is the gist: The world consists of energy, billions of swirling masses of it contained in living vessels -- that's you -- and aimed out to the world, often radiating at random, intermingling, interacting, often uncontrolled and unaware, an enormous dizzying gorgeous complex kaleidoscopic organism of human interaction and interplay. We are abuzz. We are electric. We possess actual psychic and electromagnetic force. Duh. It's a fact.

It comes down to simple physics. Negative begets negative. Positive begets positive. War begets war, peace begets peace, Britney begets Christina begets N'Sync begets People magazine begets "Joe Millionaire" begets 10 million Prozac prescriptions begets a billion dumbed-down mind-sets, embittered souls. In a nutshell.

<snip>

So then. You want to really annoy the conservative warmongering powers that be? Work your ass off to pump up the vibration. It's deeply personal. It's hard work. It means re-evaluating what you do and how you do it and how you treat others, the planet, what you buy and what you eat. It means learning. And it also means loving harder, more raw and real, minimal BS, minimal waste, figuring out true messy ugly slippery gorgeous divinity for yourself, on your own terms, and then sharing it with the world.

Man, they really hate that.

Finest Instance Of Elegant Interface Design, EVER (Fly UI)

Thu, 06 Feb 2003 00:11:18 GMT

Finest Instance Of Elegant Interface Design, EVER (Fly UI)

I have seen one of the finest instances of user interface design ever, and I saw it in the men's room at Schipol airport in Amsterdam.

In each of the urinals, there is a little printed blue fly. It looks a lot like a real fly, but it's definitely iconic - you're not supposed to believe it's a real fly. It's printed near the drain, and slightly to the left.

I asked a user interface designer I knew at Nortel about this, who happened to be Dutch and who was familiar with this particular piece of toilet technology. And he told me that washrooms are much cleaner when these flies are there. Presumably because they encourage, in a very subtle way, good aim.

Now I love this kind of interface, because it's so psychologically clever. If they had put big circular targets, and arrows with a little printed message "pee here!" (like it would probably be if anybody ever tried such a thing in America), it would backfire. A certain percentage of men would deliberately try to disobey this instruction.

But this innocuous little fly just invites being peed upon, if such a thing makes any sense, but in a non-insistent, gentle, and entirely effective way. If you're the user interface specialist Donald Norman, I suppose you'd say the fly affords being peed on.

I would love to know if Dutch toilet user interface designers (there's a title for a business card!) tried focus groups with other icons - bees, smiley faces, eye icons, circles, letters? I would love to know what process they used to decide that it should be slightly to the left.

My hat is off to the inventor of this design.

Update
Several prominent blogs linked to this article, which caused dozens of other blogs to link to it, which caused...
So I've now had e-mails from some friendly Dutch industrial designers and other interface professionals, who are happier than one might normally predict to tell me the details of their nation's clever solutions for pee-pee time.

A Google search on vlieg urinoir turns up some interesting stuff. For those who don't read Dutch (which includes me - I can make out the gist if I squint real hard and pretend it's badly-spelled German), here are the interesting findings: (Thanks to correspondents Branko Collin and Inne ten Have)

A discussion about the question why the fly is on the left and not in the middle:

Men are mostly righthanded, so they hold their little fella slightly aimed to the left. (Really? Wouldn't the pull be more to the right?)
Pure physics: if the fly were in the middle, all the splatter would come back; now it splashes to the side

A new technology is being introduced: this is a plastic strip that will change color when peed upon. (This seems to me like a reasonable next step. User Interfaces typically benefit from immediate feedback, after all.)

An alternate design shows a urinal with the image of a burning candle, right in the center this time. Apparently, it is special that in this case the image is part of the ceramic, which saves on cleaning. The flame is apparently an invention by scientists of a German university so that men can quench their boyhood desire to become a fire fighter. (!)

Update 2
After the Dutch indistrial designers weighed in, I started getting e-mail from British folks knowledgeable in Victorian toilet technology. They have been able to provide the most likely origin of the idea (thanks to correspondents Rupert Goodwins and Jez):

British Victorian Urinals had various ‘targets’ to aim for, some literally being a target like on an archery range.

My favourite was that of a Bee to aim for, much like that of the fly used by the Dutch, but as an (British) English speaker it is worth noting that Latin for Bee is apis, so a rather erudite visual pun in a lavatorial setting is quite unexpected and amusing

[ed: I wonder if the Dutch had English-language punnery in mind when they made the animal in their pissoirs a fly - 'cause you have to undo one to pee on one. Hee hee!]

[Via Mad Dog]