bill moyers is first

juan cole is second and glenn greenwald is third- on my lists of ethical journos out there.

blogger friendship award- only good fridays

naj at neo resistance has very kindly bestowed upon me this award-

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

i am delighted that she finds me charming :) i have made many great friends since i started my blog a few years ago and i continue to meet people who are warm and caring and kind. my constraint is 8- so i will do my best to narrow it down, but my regular compadres, i heart all of you.

blog of revelation- brother tim

lisa allender writes- lisa

not much but all mine- fjb

round circle- spadoman

the pagan sphinx- pagan

thorne's world- thornie

weezielou- weezie

south by southwest, making good mondays, behind the links- gee carol

start your own otgf- stop by shelly's and see how and why

interesting links

this has been a big problem for decades. i have read elsewhere that very young kids are developing symptoms. i won't lecture- i'll save it for another post- but we need to get reconnected to our lives. we need a connection of more than a grocery aisle to our food. and our kids.

here are some good articles on fish. i don't buy fish anymore. the oceans are polluted and i won't eat tilapia. tilapia are the fish that eat the poo in the fish farms. no thanks.

interesting idea on low cost affordable housing for poor folks around the world. look for it in a neighborhood near you. or maybe yours.

environmental stuff

thornie has a neat post on her thurday thirteen- about what to do with those millions of plastic shopping bags we all have. i am sure many recycle them- yeah!!!- but if you haven't and you are over run- take a peek at some of the neat things you can make from them.

also, consider buying recycled toilet paper. as green as i am trying to make my home, there are a few things i won't do without unless i have to- one being toilet paper. but i do try to buy recycled and honestly, seventh generation has good products. i buy as many of their products as i can get in my local stores. and, their toilet paper (when i can get it) and paper towels- are not rough. i also use their cleaning products- laundry and dishes mostly. pretty good.

wonder if he takes the stairs?

mayor bloomberg buys out neighbors

huh- so much for bobby jindal

guess his response went over like- well, i didn't watch it but chris matthews said 'oh god' before he even spoke.

should i even try to gauge rethug response? i mean it is the party of sarah palin. they probably love him.

this is an apt description.

update:

i guess the rethugs see jindal, et al, as a way to appeal to younger folks. i mean meghan mccain is the one who started the whole deal with attempting to get rethugs acquainted with the internets. i guess they just prefer to twitter.

did not watch president's speech

i do occasionally watch him on youtube though. what i have been doing is reading what other folks write about president obama. what strikes me is- any other president up to now would have gotten his (hasn't been a her yet) 100 days. not president obama. the media expected him to have everything cleaned up in less than a week. hell, they thought he should have been working on the job BEFORE he even swore and reswore the oath. can we cut the man some slack here?

seriously. he rolled back some egregious civil rights violations here in america on day 1. and he isn't a progressive. he never claimed to be one. he's a democrat. not as conservative as rightwing bill clinton- but a democrat. he is not a leftist but he seems to be a decent human being. let's see what he does. i intend to back him fully. i intend to continue voting as left as i can in every election. it's symbolic. do i truly believe that voting is more than that? no. but until i am denied the right- i will exercise it as a symbol.

listen, here's the deal- the folks i posted about below- and the other rethugs- are mobilizing to take STATE and LOCAL elections back. if they get congressional seats they will be pleased- but they want governorships people. we cannot expect president obama to shoulder all 3 branches of government and our individual states too. contrary to the msm's belief- he is not superman or a messiah. he is a human being with failings and shortcomings and talents and feelings. WE have to remain vigilant. WE have to take responsibility for our own areas and communities.

millions of us play spectator politics because it doesn't interest us or it's negative or whatever. it's how we got into this mess in the first place. you don't have to be a political junkie to be involved. you have to keep your eyes open and hold people accountable. president obama shouldn't be above criticism but neither should we judge him by the same yardstick we did the criminals who held the office most recently. he should take his own lumps and be held accountable for what he does and doesn't do. but we should give the man more than a month and a half for christ's sake.

anyhoo- happy morning cuppa :)

why is it?

that the 'new' face of the gop looks remarkably like the old face of the gop? at least in ideas, policies, tax cuts, vision, tax cuts,....

bobby jindal:

"In other words, Jindal - the alleged voice of the GOP future - had absolutely nothing new to say. And what he did say, about the stimulus, was purposefully misleading. I'm not sure how well the Obama stimulus, banking and budget plans will work. No one is. But I do know how the philosophy and the misleading politics that Jindal offered today has worked in the recent past. "

george p. bush:

"Bush, the son of former Gov. Jeb Bush, grandson of former President George H. Bush and nephew of former President George W. Bush, addressed a national conference of young Republicans and told them there is a rift in the party between fiscal conservatives and what he calls "D light" — Republicans who are trying to appeal to the political middle."

sarah palin:

once elected, palin hired cronies and lashed foes

todd palin in contempt

gov. palin to pay back taxes on perks

but hey, according to the rank and file, these folks are 'charismatic and good looking':

"A lot of people say that maybe he (george p.) couldn't run because of his name, I don't think that's the case," Graham said. "He's smart, he's good looking, he's charismatic. I don't see anything that would stop him. It's a great package."

kinda like mitt 'mittens' romney.

blogroll

i put a blogroll on the sidebar. i did not import my whole google reader, however, and if you would like to be added and don't see your name there- shoot me an email and i would be delighted to add you in. feel free to browse other folks if you aren't sucked in by my always meaningful prose ;) usually ten times out of ten- those folks say whatever it was i was trying to say- much better. thanks to yous who voted or left comments.

remember diebold?

i guess they are under the umbrella of 'premier election solutions' now- well, they don't want to be reached apparently.

more truth

frank rich- what we don't know will hurt us

"No one knows, of course, but a bigger question may be whether we really want to know. One of the most persistent cultural tics of the early 21st century is Americans’ reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news. We are plugged into more information sources than anyone could have imagined even 15 years ago. The cruel ambush of 9/11 supposedly “changed everything,” slapping us back to reality. Yet we are constantly shocked, shocked by the foreseeable. Obama’s toughest political problem may not be coping with the increasingly marginalized G.O.P. but with an America-in-denial that must hear warning signs repeatedly, for months and sometimes years, before believing the wolf is actually at the door."

i am putting two and two together

this story says that nearly 75% of the bushies haven't found jobs. guess the "think" tanks aren't hiring and the lobbyist jobs aren't as plentiful these days. or perhaps it's because they keep thinking up gems like these:

gop: isps, wifi must keep logs for police

and the fact that only 3 rethugs total in the congress voted for economic recovery for regular americans but jumped real high to support tax cuts for the rich and no accountability funding for the fat cats. and the fact that the gop has decided to reject stimulus money in rethug states or partial stimulus money. i guess the good thing is- those folks in those states that continue to vote rethug- get the government they deserve.

and hey, the bushies and the rank and file voter stupids- can look forward to this from the banks and the rethug state governments. i would wish you good luck- but i wouldn't really mean it.

truth

February 20, 2009

BILL MOYERS: It seems every soul I meet these days is experiencing some pain from the economy. People with jobs worry about keeping them. Retired friends are watching their savings and pensions shrink. Mortgage holders worry about their payments.

In Phoenix, Arizona, for example, more than half the home sales now are foreclosure sales and the median price of a house has dropped 49 percent from what it was three years ago. A taxi driver here in New York told me he's working twice as many hours for half the income of a year ago.

A reporter covering a job fair in a suburban New Jersey county wrote of men over 40 standing in line for interviews, dressed in sober suits as though they could start work today if someone would just make an offer.

These hard times prompted me to want to talk to a man whose lifelong mission has been to negotiate the difficult realities of life with the help of faith and spirit.

Parker Palmer founded the Center for Courage & Renewal. He's widely known for counseling people who chose vocations for reasons of the heart and may have lost heart because of the troubled, sometimes toxic systems in which they work.

In addition to fifteen years as senior associate of the American Association of Higher Education, Parker Palmer is also a senior adviser to the Fetzer Institute, which, coincidentally, also supports the Journal. Parker Palmer's many books include "Let Your Life Speak", "A Hidden Wholeness" and "The Courage to Teach". In a few days he will be celebrating his 70th birthday.

Parker Palmer, welcome, old friend.

PARKER PALMER: Thank you, Bill. Good to be with you.

BILL MOYERS: So you were born as America was climbing out of the Great Depression. And here you are reaching your 70s as America is descending into the great collapse. I mean, I'd say your life has been sandwiched between two great eras of adversity.

PARKER PALMER: Oh, I think that's true. And I also feel having been born in 1939 and then sort of coming to an age of awareness in the '50s and '60s that I was inculcated with a lot of illusions about what was going on in this society, which are now being punctured and vaporized before our very eyes.

BILL MOYERS: Illusions?

PARKER PALMER: Yeah, illusions I think about, first of all, about America's essential goodness as an economic system. I don't want to deny that there is goodness in our national character or in our economy and certainly not in democracy rightly understood. But the notion that we always get it right, my country, right or wrong — that somehow America is the noblest nation in the world, these are things that I've for a long time, been unable to believe. And I think a true patriot is one who loves his country.

But as you do when you love something, you also have a lover's quarrel with it. And that means that you stand on some other ground than simply the inherent 100 percent continuing goodness and validity of that which you love.

BILL MOYERS: It's a little surprising to hear you say these illusions are being stripped away now because you were a child of World War II. You came of age in the Cold War. You lived through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the riots in the cities. What is it peculiar to right now that strips away, as you say, those illusions?

PARKER PALMER: Well, first of all, I think the rehearsal of that history of losing our illusions is very important. It's very important because it tells us that we can lose illusions big time as we did at each of the moments you just named. And then a year or two later forget that we lost the illusions.

So I think that what's happening now is a little bit like what's often been said about — what would happen to war if Congress members had to send their kids first or the administration had to send their kids first. And that is that we would declare and fight fewer wars.

Today a lot of people are being affected by what's happening. And while that's very, very painful it does hold I think some promise for the very kind of thing we saw in the recent presidential election. By which I mean the mobilization of segments of the American population that had never gotten involved in politics before or had gotten involved in less than thoughtful ways to suddenly connect the dots and see that what was happening did have an impact on them and to vote accordingly.

BILL MOYERS: This seems to me one of those moments when the dots connect themselves. Reality can no longer be denied, right?

PARKER PALMER: Well, absolutely. Absolutely. So at the same time, I don't think that we should ever doubt our capacity to deny reality. I mean, after all, until you get to be our age, you really believe you're not going to die. That fundamental human fact of life.

And of course, that's part of our problem. I mean, I could make the same argument about the current economic collapse. Who didn't know it was coming? Who didn't know that a system that encouraged us to live beyond our means and provided all kinds of devious and ethically doubtful ways for us to do that was going to fall apart someday?

Who didn't know that housing was over-evaluated? That stocks were overpriced? Who didn't know that a system the makes the rich richer while the poor get poorer will someday face a curtain call? We all knew that at some level, just like we know we're going to die. And yet our capacity to deny reality is huge. And I think that we don't want to know what we really know because if we did, we'd have to change our lives. And now we have to change our lives because the whole thing is crashing down around our head.

BILL MOYERS: Much of the talk today is about the middle class and what's happening in the middle class. But as both of us know, you as a teacher, I as a journalist, there are all those truly powerless people out there-

PARKER PALMER: Right.

BILL MOYERS: -who have nothing on which to hold right now.

PARKER PALMER: Right, right. Exactly. I really don't know and I don't think I ever will know what it would be like to have my home and my means of livelihood ripped away from me. So there's a strong sense in which I don't have counsel for them or deep insight into the interior of their lives. And I think that's an important thing to say.

At the same time, I have learned from the great movements that have been conducted, energized, animated by people in exactly that situation the black liberation movement in this country, the movements for liberation in Eastern Europe and Latin America, the fight against apartheid in South Africa, the women's movement itself around the world, movements that have been animated by folks who have had every external form of power taken away from them and yet have created movements, social movements that have changed the lay and the law of the land.

BILL MOYERS: Why aren't there no movements like that right now, Parker, in terms of the widespread economic the misery that has beset the country?

PARKER PALMER: Well, I think that's a very perplexing question. I've actually wondered since Vietnam why a larger movement hasn't arisen in this country against the palpable injustices of our system. I think there's a lot of anesthesia being — that's been pumped into American culture, the mass media television, various forms of entertainment, and the illusion of wealth that we now understand to be an illusion as well as the illusion that America is a world power.

I've never understood that one, the world leading power, because as far as I know, we haven't won a major significant war since World War II. And yet we've been able to pump enough anesthetic into the culture to maintain that illusion or the sleepiness that allows us to hold those illusions.

I do think that the recent presidential election is evidence of our capacity to mount a movement. And I think the Obama campaign was very skillful and not only skillful but understood something about the human heart to create the movement that it did. I'm fascinated with this, with the Camp Obama phenomenon.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

PARKER PALMER: Camp Obama, starting two and a half, three years before the election, when the Obama candidacy was a real long shot, happened around the country. Circles of people gathered together for two or three days and invited to tell three stories.

And I want to call attention to this because I think movements always begin in this very interior place in the human heart where people are asked to look at and share something of their own lives, their own experience.

And so at Camp Obama, in small groups and over a period of a couple of days, people were invited, first of all, to tell the story of self. What are the hurts and hopes that bring you to this occasion, to the possibility that this long-shot candidate might represent your interests and might actually get elected? The story of self.

The second story, very important, the story of us. How do you see your own story relating to the stories of other people you know and to the larger American story that's going on right now? I'm a Quaker. And one of my great monitors was Douglas Steere, a great Quaker teacher. And he always said the "Who am I?" question is important. But the "Whose am I?" question is equally important.

What do you mean when you say "we"? And so the story of us, so that self-story doesn't end up in narcissism but gets connected to the larger fabric of community. And then finally they were asked to tell the story of now from their point of view. What do you see going on in this moment that makes you think we have a chance to heal some of the hurts and pursue some of the hopes that you've named in those earlier stories?

Well, there's a lot to be said about that process which then rippled out through concentric circles to gather more and more people in as these folks went back home and asked other people to tell the same stories.

So that in Madison, Wisconsin, where I live, in the several days preceding the election, we probably had a dozen people knock on our door at different hours of the day and night saying, "Do you know where your polling place is? I'm deeply involved in this campaign. I hope you are, too."

BILL MOYERS: And that's where community organizing begins.

PARKER PALMER: That's where community organizing-

BILL MOYERS: The sharing of these stories-

PARKER PALMER: -begins.

BILL MOYERS: -and then the going out and knocking on the doors-

PARKER PALMER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: -and asking other people to do something about it.

PARKER PALMER: It's feet on the street. And it's press the flesh. And it's ring the bell. And it's talk to each other, which is something that in a privatized affluent society you don't do.

But to me the underlying genius of what happened at Camp Obama was simply this. I don't remember until the Obama campaign a presidential campaign which we were not asked, I was not asked, to buy a presidential candidate as a commodity in a consumer culture. The Obama campaign did not ask me to buy something. It asked me to tell a story. And in that movement it turned me from being a consumer of a political commodity to being a citizen, a voice. Somebody wants to hear my story. That's why we ended up looking on TV in the wake of the election at all of these young people, these African American people, these Hispanic people, who had always felt disenfranchised, who had always felt their stories didn't count but now felt they were being heard on some significant level. And they turned out to vote as a result.

PARKER PALMER: These things don't happen overnight. They aren't easily done. They require, to use the good words of my mentor Robert Bellah, a new set of habits of the heart. But it's precisely in hard times, it seems to me, that we start to learn new habits of the heart because we don't have a choice.

BILL MOYERS: You've written that we all have to learn to live in what you call the tragic gap. Now, some people are going to find that notion very un-American then because it flies in the face of the fundamental American assumption of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What is the tragic gap? And who wants to live there?

PARKER PALMER: Well, I think the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of reality because illusion never leaves us ultimately happy. And I think the opportunity now is for us to get real. And I think that's going to make us, in the long run, more happy. The tragic gap, and I call it tragic not because it's sad. It is. But more fundamentally because it's an inevitable part of the human condition.

Tragic in the sense that the Greeks talked about it. Tragic in the sense that Shakespeare talked about it. The tragic gap is the gap between what's really going on around us, the hard conditions in which our lives are currently immersed, and what we know to be possible from our own experience.

We don't see it every day. We may not see it very often. But we know it's a possibility among real people and real space and time. Now, what happens when we don't learn to hold the tension between what is and what we know to be possible? I think what-

BILL MOYERS: Reality and the possibility.

PARKER PALMER: The reality and the possibility.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

PARKER PALMER: I think what happens is we flip out on one side or the other. Flip out into too much reality and you get what I call corrosive cynicism. And corrosive cynicism is partly what's got us where we are. Corrosive cynicism is, "Oh, I see how the world is made. It's dog eat dog. It's whoever gets the biggest piece of the pie gets the biggest piece of the pie. So I'm going to take my share and run and let the devil take the hindmost." That's corrosive cynicism.

Flip out into too much possibility and you get irrelevant idealism. Which sounds very different from corrosive cynicism but both have the same function in our lives. Both take us out of the action. Both keep us out of the fray.

BILL MOYERS: I can see how corrosive cynicism keeps us from doing anything because we just don't believe anything signifies. But how does this idealism you talk about keep us out of the action?

PARKER PALMER: Well, I think irrelevant idealism that's not held in tension with what's really going on on the ground eventually just disappoints and drops people off the wagon. It actually...

BILL MOYERS: Because nothing does change...

PARKER PALMER: Because nothing changes. Because if you don't have a capacity to hold the tension in your heart between reality and possibility then you're just going to give up eventually.

It's actually a concern that I have and I think other people have it about the huge enthusiasm on the part of newcomers to the political process that went into the Obama campaign. Now we see that Obama is an ordinary person. He has feet of clay. He makes mistakes. He himself says, very refreshingly, "I screwed up."

The question is, are people who came into this with the enthusiasm that one attaches to a messiah and then discovers this is not our savior, are they going to fall away because they haven't learned to stand in the tragic gap? And I don't think that we, I don't think in this culture we teach very much or have very much formation around the holding of these great tensions, which is so critical to our lives.

We want instant resolution. You give us a tension. We want it to get it over with in 15 minutes. We do it in everything from microcosmic situations to what happened in this country after September 11th, which is one of the great tragedies of our time, not only September 11th but our national response to it. We had an opportunity in the weeks following September 11th to really connect in new ways with the rest of the world, who were showing toward us compassion, which means suffering with.

They were saying today I, too, am an American, despite the fact that they knew more of this kind of suffering than we did. And we had caused some of theirs. Around the world people were saying, "Today I am an American."

Well, if we had held the tension between that attack, that horrific criminal attack, and this possibility of connecting and deepening compassion, held it not through inaction but through what Bill Coffin called the justice strategy rather than the warfare strategy. If we had done that I think we would have opened a new possibility in American life. But we couldn't. The 15 minutes elapsed and we had to hit back.

BILL MOYERS: You've also written on the politics of the broken hearted. Now, you know, I grew up to think that broken hearts are a personal matter, not a political condition. What do you mean by that?

PARKER PALMER: Well, there are two ways for the heart to break. When we hold these tensions and we don't know how to hold them, the heart explodes like a hand grenade. And we sometimes want to throw that hand grenade at the enemy. I think that's what happened after September 11th.

But a new habit of the heart would allow us to take that broken-hearted experience in a new direction, not towards the shattering into a million pieces but toward a heart that grows larger, more capacious, more open to hold both the suffering and the pain of the world. I think that's teachable stuff. I think that if our schools and our religious communities worked on that, that we would have a greater capacity individually and collectively to do it.

BILL MOYERS: I came upon this passage in one of your books over the weekend. "While writing this essay, I have been dealing with some personal heartbreak. The details are commonplace, familiar to anyone who draws breath, especially to those of a certain age, the deaths of people I love, the transitory nature of the work to which I have devoted myself for 40 years. And the impossibility of realizing some of my dreams for my life." What's behind those words?

PARKER PALMER: What's behind those words, Bill, is that my closest analogue to some of the economic suffering that's going on right now that I don't share in is my own journey with personal darkness.

BILL MOYERS: Depression?

PARKER PALMER: Three times clinical depression, which I've written about and spoken about-

BILL MOYERS: Yes.

PARKER PALMER: -most recently when I was 65 years old. I think it's a very important thing to talk about partly because it remains a subject of shame in this culture. And I think those of us who have come through to the other side and have a new appreciation for life and its realities need to talk about it on behalf of those that suffer and those who are standing with them.

I got tremendous help from a therapist at one point, in one of my depressions, who said to me, "Parker, you seem to keep treating this experience as if depression were the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Would it be possible to re-image depression as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it's safe to stand?"

Well, those words didn't mean much to me immediately because when you're there you can't hear that kind of counsel. But they grew on me, those words did. And I started to understand that in my case this very situational depression that I had fallen into, not the result of bad genetics or brain chemistry gone awry, but the result of getting crosswise with some of my own truth had resulted from my living at altitude.

I was living in my intellect. I was living in my ego. I was living in a kind of up, up, and away spirituality. And I was living in a set of ethics that didn't really have anything to do with what my, how I intersected with the world-

BILL MOYERS: I don't understand that.

PARKER PALMER: -rightfully and properly. Well-

BILL MOYERS: You mean you're a hypocrite?

PARKER PALMER: Yeah. I was living by oughts that weren't mine to act out. I mean, there are a million oughts in the world. There's a million ways in which I ought to be serving the world. But the ways I'm gifted to serve and the opportunities that come to me to serve are not a million. They're more like one, two, three, four dozen over the course of a 70-year journey. And so when you live at elevation and you trip and fall, as most of us do every day, you have a long way to fall. And it might kill you.

BILL MOYERS: What do you do when you hit bottom?

PARKER PALMER: Well, nothing for quite a while. And people sometimes say depression is like being lost in the dark. My experience is it's more like becoming the dark. You don't have a sense of self any longer with which you can stand back and say, "Oh, I have this disease and it, too, will pass."

The voice of depression takes over. And all you can hear is the darkness which is you. And I think what you learn at that point is a couple things. One is there's huge virtue in simply getting out of bed in the morning, by which I mean learning to value the fact that you can take one step at a time.

The second thing you learn is that you need other people. You don't need their advice. You don't need their fixes and saves. But you need their presence. I sometimes liken standing by someone who is in depression as being like the experience of sitting at the bedside of a dying person because depression is a kind of death, as is addiction and other serious forms of mental illness.

You have to be with that person in an unafraid way. Not invading them with your fixes, not hooking them up to wires or whatever the non-medical equivalent of that is, giving them advice, but simply saying to them with your very presence, your physical presence, your psychological presence, your spiritual presence, I am not afraid of being with you on this journey of the — at the end of this road.

BILL MOYERS: There are two ways to measure the health of a society, the gross national product, the sums of the goods and services that we produce, and the gross national psychology, the sums of our hopes and fears. Is it possible to think that this depression you experienced can also affect us politically, socially, and communally as a nation?

PARKER PALMER: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I don't think it's an accident that we talk about the Great Depression and maybe the impending depression that we're going into economically and about clinical depression.

There's a lot of darkness out there. And there's a lot of lossness. And there's a lot of people feeling that their lives are over. We need to learn to be present to one another in listening ways, in compassionate ways. Do we need to be doing outside work that has to do with repairing a broken economic system and a political system that's in disrepair? Absolutely we do.

But we need to be drawing for that on an inner wisdom that isn't there when it's only fake science that's driving our reconstruction efforts, when it's only an illusion of rationality or an illusion of affluence. We need to penetrate those illusion bubbles. Thoreau said reality is fabulous. And I agree with him. It's a lot more fabulous than illusion because it won't let you down. Reality won't let you down. It is what it is. And we have to learn to deal with it. Because when you're standing on the ground of your own reality, your society's reality, you can fall down, as we do and we will continue to do, and simply get up and dust yourself off. You aren't falling from 100 feet in the air where you're likely to kill yourself.

BILL MOYERS: Is this a heartbreaking moment in American history?

PARKER PALMER: Absolutely. It's a heartbreaking moment. And part of the heartbreak is around things that never should have happened, like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We're seeing that in our faces now. And it's good that we are because those things never should have happened.

Part of the heartbreak is around having to give up illusions that we've carried for far too long. And it's good that that's happening, too. And the two, of course, are related. But, yes, it's a moment of heartbreak. And it's a moment for people to step up and say we have to learn to hold these tensions in a life-giving way. We have to learn that Camp Obama has to be for all of us, whether we're Democrats or Republicans or Independents. We have to learn that we need to hang together or we're going to hang separately. We have to learn a new set of habits of the heart. And I think that can happen.

BILL MOYERS: Parker Palmer, thank you for being with me on the Journal.

PARKER PALMER: Thank you, Bill.

video

bill moyers journal

should be mandatory on friday nights. he should receive the medal of freedom for the work that he does. who else would put a lineup on like this- together in the same program?

robert kaiser- too damn much money

parker palmer- center for courage and renewal

warning: reality ahead

i have been weighing what i should do over here because honestly, gleaning information, distilling, linking it, and presenting it- is mentally exhausting. so, i haven't much lately. plus, many folks don't seem to want to hear it anyway- so why should i put myself out to bring truth to the unwilling? but sometimes i can't help myself.

here's the ugly- the good times we had are over. it really is that simple. this country is a dangerous place not just because of the economy- but because the american people are at war with each other. but only one side apparently knows it. look, here's the deal- the right wing of this country is not benign. they are fearful and hate change. also, many are christian wingnuts who tote guns and belong to militias- christian not just state. that's a fact. please, do google and find out for yourself. these folks are not on the fringes. these folks firmly believe that they are in exile and that they need to save their country from foreigners, illegals and liberals. and no, i am not exaggerating.

look, the south never got over the first civil war- no, they didn't. they still fly their flag and they still burn crosses. they still have 'their side' of town and 'ours'- there is bigotry, racism, and hatred and white supremacy is still masked behind the facade of southern hospitality. segregation is alive and well. and that mentality is what is leading the right wing. the folks who have stepped into the breach and are filling up the vacuum left by dick and don- all white, all southern. oh, they deign to allow their western bumpkin brothers to join in- places like idaho and wyoming- but only in a secondary role.

hate media- tv and radio and their newsletters- all point to 'taking back' what's theirs. they are the 'true americans' they will protect the flag from us 'commie pinko liberals' they will bring back god and morality and kick out all of the dirty mexicans. it will come at a price but we on the lefter side of the ideological spectrum- and any poor person of color- well, we are collateral damage. we are currently fighting a war of words- but look for it to be guns and look for it soon.

bob cesca's awesome blog- the commenter is not atypical. ask jolly roger or any of a host of other lefty blogs.

with nice weather projects around the corner,

Left In Aboite: Call before you dig!

question of the day

i am going to put a poll on the sidebar- and i would appreciate if folks would vote if they have an opinion. i don't currently have a blogroll and i am wondering if i should put one up again. do people actually use others blogrolls? do you find them useful? feel free to leave your opinion in the comments or vote- and i will go from there. thanks in advance. b

my ongoing mantra

these folks never go away- they just change their names or get recycled

"And in the months of quiet desperation following the election, he has once again become one of the most quoted Republicans in Washington. Conservative columnist Robert Novak dubbed Gingrich the "Moses, or Reagan" who could lead the party out of the wilderness. "Newt has the unique ability to turn dense political thinking into what people can immediately understand—whether they agree with it or not," says Galen, now a consultant and pundit."

fyi unemployment folks

jobless being charged interest and fees to get their money out of the bank

"For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there's a new twist to their financial pain: Even when they're collecting unemployment benefits, they're paying the bank just to get the money — or even to call customer service to complain about it.

Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp, an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 — even though they could decline charges for more than what's on the card."

um, aren't these the folks who we just bailed out in order to save THEIR jobs? just askin'- hopefully that was free.

otgf over at thornie's place

i will eventually get around to the 'give what you grow' thing here- proper write up and linkage and whatnot- but go get the info now rather than wait :) i may not be around much this weekend. or i might.

only good friday

hmmmm....... still on the self imposed news blackout but mom keeps me updated once in awhile. she is semi blacked out. :) hubby made it safely to florida to visit his fam- no plane crashes this go round. now, i only have to worry on tuesday. they seem excited to see him so he should have a good time. me and the lap leeches have the house to ourselves- what to do what to do? they aren't much good at party planning because 1) they are lazy and 2) they don't have opposable thumbs. guess we'll just listen to music and beach ourselves somewhere warm. sounds good to me :) hopefully, everyone is staying warm and safe and loving their loved ones. we only get one life to live- and we should make the most.

i intend to :) i also intend to call it an early day and night as i got up at the buttcrack of dawn to take hubby to the airport. he owes me real big :)

only the good fridays

and we thought space was the final frontier

the myth of perfect lesbian sex

ooh- i hope that doesn't bring all sorts of unwanted spam.

stating the obvious

"We need to inform, but we also need to stimulate the audience to think and act and emphasize existing solutions," he said. "We need to start looking at the social science aspects.... You really need to mobilize the community. I really don’t think we’ve done enough."

so climate change is real, now what?

blog against theocracy

if you are interested in participating in blog against theocracy this year- info here

serious tools

it took me an hour and a half (and repositioning 2 sleeping lap leeches) to get through the catalog. i am convinced that anything you need for gardening- is in there. and if it isn't- i'll bet they could get it. haven't comparison shopped any of the items but man- check it out for yourself:

lee valley tools

where's dog the bounty hunter?

UncommonSense: Stanford on the lam?

update:

2/19- guess they found him in virginia. go figure.

my summer plans

for the kind souls who have asked- these are my summer plans- i am going to start preparing the garden plots in march. i have mine and my sister's to get ready and i will start my seeds probably end of march. i want to say i am zone 5ish so i will plant first or second week of may. our frost date here is supposed to be last week in april this year. or so the almanac says :)

i ordered my seeds (johnny's seeds and seed savers exchange) and most have arrived. i have a couple outstanding but they will be here in plenty of time. i intend to do a combination of square foot gardening and traditional row gardening- both in the companion gardening style. what the heck does that mean?

square foot gardening is growing intensively in one square foot of space. so, what i am going to do is put together a 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed separated into square foot grids and plant certain veggies there. i can harvest and replant all season. i had toyed with the idea of cold framing but i don't think i will try that this particular harvest season. companion planting is growing mutually beneficial fruits, veggies and herbs together so that they will enhance each other and you can harvest more. it's also not putting plants together that will inhibit each other. native americans planting a stalk of corn with a squash vine using it as a support with bush beans at the foot- is a great example of companion planting in a small space.

so, i will do some veggies in the raised bed and will do companion planting in a few rows also. i want to put corn and sunflowers and whatnot in- and they need room. so- a few rows of them along with putting beans and squash vines to use them as supports- helps everything grow better and helps keep the critters at bay. using cucumbers or squash vines with corn helps scare raccoons away from the corn. garlic will help keep the bunnies at bay (i hope). i have some excellent books and will put the links below.

roses love garlic

carrots love tomatoes

square foot gardening

four season harvest

seed to seed

root cellaring

that's plotting, starting, growing, harvesting, saving, and storing. i have more books i will share along- but that's how i spent my winter.

on the bright side

this would definitely stimulate more jobs. i'll let you figure out the downside.

checking in

i realize i haven't been hanging out here much these days. it has more to do with where i am at and where i want the blog to go than anything else. i find i cannot really handle the news anymore and have been on a self imposed news blackout. no msm, no google reader, no olbermann and maddow. not even jon stewart (yes, i hear the gasps). i can't do it anymore. what will happen is going to happen. the truth is out there for folks to see and the ones who see- well, who the hell needs me to preach to the choir. and the unfortunate part- i haven't been writing at suzie q or the sirens chronicles and i really enjoyed writing there. but it isn't my space and i don't feel right weirding it up with whatever pops into my head rather than the topics generally covered there.

i have been writing a bit more at the corner and i do my tuesdays at the peace tree. i also try to post monthly at poets 4 peace because it blends my love for haiku with writing about peace. not always inspirational but hey, it's poetry and we try to be timely over there too. so, not having really sorted anything out- i just haven't really been online much period. change is definitely coming. perhaps not what we were seeking but it's coming. and i don't need to read about bristol palin's baby or planes crashing all over or the gop obstructing anything that they didn't propose. there is always going to be 'the other side' for both sides squaring off. i don't want the right wing to win because they are regressive and scared and fearmongering rather than productive and forward thinking and proactive. i don't really want the left in its current incarnation to win either because they are not much different than the right.

i want what i can't have- and that's common sense, decency, compassion, empathy, intelligence, and peace to win out over the 7 deadly sins. i hate greed. it has destroyed empires and civilizations and now, it has destroyed an entire planet. and i don't care for roller coasters. i always close my eyes before the plunge. i generally don't even get on the ride but i have been forced on and strapped in- and i have closed my eyes for this last part.

so, being a truth teller- i am not sure how to proceed. the truth is not really wanted and it isn't really peddaled by the media or folks around the water coolers. it isn't popular and quite frankly, it's ugly. i don't want to deal with it day after day. and i know folks who come here don't either. this has never really been the forum for the sanctuary- the corner has been my refuge. so, this blog has largely gone silent. and here i am. wondering where to go from here and what i really want to write about. for the most part, i have always written from where i am- and so that's what i am doing right now.

what gives them the right?

and who the fuck do they think they are? contrary to their belief system- they don't have any more right to exist than anyone else on this goddamned planet and they don't have a right to decide who has a right to exist anymore than we do. fuck you israel.

army recruitment may be up

THE PEACE TREE

but it's not what you think

nothing to say today particularly

up to my eyeballs in crap getting the apartment building ready for sale- code and whatnot- and have extended my news blackout because i am not in the mood for stupidity. tooling around in ancient history and researching different ancient religions of different regions. just further underscores the spiritual theft that the pauline christians have perpetrated- as have the judeo-muslims. no big surprise there. incurious people.

timely links

the field negro- on abraham lincoln

the angry black woman- on the octuplets

they never go away

they just rename themselves- be alert.

love

Love is real , real is love
Love is feeling , feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
we can be

Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needed to be loved

happy valentine's day

Perhaps Love

john denver

Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort
It is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home

Perhaps love is like a window
Perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer
It wants to show you more
And even if you lose yourself
And don`t know what to do
The memory of love will see you through

Oh, love to some is like a cloud
To some as strong as steel
For some a way of living
For some a way to feel
And some say love is holding on
And some say letting go
And some say love is everything
And some say they don`t know

Perhaps love is like the ocean
Full of conflict, full of Pain
Like a fire when it`s cold outside
Or thunder when it rains
If I should live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

And some say love is holding on
And some say letting go
And some say love is everything
And some say they don`t know

Perhaps love is like the ocean
Full of conflict, full of Pain
Like a fire when it`s cold outside
Or thunder when it rains
If I should live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

'only good' friday

short one this week- i will be gone much of the day. the sun is shining here and the storm that came whistling through like a wet freight train has blown by. meeting code at the building today which is one step closer to selling- so it's good. looking forward to the weekend. blue sky and puffy white clouds with warm sun shining in mid-winter. lovely. feel free to make your own good friday.

this eclectic life- shelly

links in the chain

i have been having a conversation with a blog buddy of mine about words- their meanings and intentions and why we use certain words in certain settings. i have been reading a series of books too that i wouldn't say i enjoy per se- but i have invested much time and am half way through and i really must see how this adventure ends. the author must get paid by the word because he writes an awful lot of superfluous ones. and bringing it full circle- i have been thinking about putting together a cookbook with recipes i have collected from various family members over the years- but to what end i don't know.

but it got me thinking about life and people and the world at large and the challenges we face- and the ones the folks who cooked those recipes faced- and their lives. i am estranged from much of my extended family due to substance abuses and just plain jealousy issues. i decided early on that if i wouldn't be friends with these folks if they weren't relatives, why should i force the issue because they are? many of my cousins and i- most- have nothing in common. so, we just parted ways no hard feelings. many of my uncles on my dad's side are deceased- there are only 3 kids left out of 9- and my mother's siblings think we are too hoity toity- 'highbrow' i believe they used to say. and i laugh.

i don't know much about what kind of people my grandparents were- i have none left- but i know that my mom loved her dad and does to this day miss him. i know that my paternal grandmother and i share a love of african violets and she grew them in pots that covered a buffet table. i also know she was a native american- seneca tribe- and my grandfather was an alchoholic with a mean streak. my maternal grandmother was a gossip who pitted her children against one another and divorced my grandfather in the days when it wasn't proper- for another man.

and i know that i am a product of all of them. i don't need geneology and dead words on documents to understand the people i came from. i see in myself that i got my dad's temperment- easily irritated and not quite a temper like he has- but i use my words to punch where he used his fists. i have his penchant for fighting for the underdog always and putting myself out there to do and say what no one else will. and my mom's love of reading and baking. i got my maternal grandfather's hazel eyes and my gram's big forehead. and i got my grandmother's native american cheekbones and my dad's oval face. luckily, i didn't get his ears.

where we came from- in my case bluecollar poor folks from the wrong side of the tracks- determines our future. we have to look back to look forward because who we are determines how we handle what comes next. my stock is stubborn on both sides and resourceful. making nothing out of nothing- it doesn't occur to us to not buck the system and make our way. we don't want something for nothing and we are not afraid to work for what we have. and i am lucky.

being a product of our ancestors is a foundation to jump from to become who we should be. i am not an alcoholic and i am not jealous of the time my sister has with my mother. i don't work to undermine their relationship and while i am not a hunter- i do enjoy fishing and working with my hands. words can be powerful tools but when it comes right down to it- they are a weak imitation of actually living life. and for me, anyway, they are a stepping stone to climb the mountain of what lies ahead. i have to do the actual living- and the scrappy folks who came before me gave me the tools.

if you use splenda

you might want to think twice- and apparently never eat peanut butter again- new wave of recalls

i have a few questions too

about personal responsibility and parenthood and christian 'quiversfull' and racial disparity, etc. i doubt that the msm will jump on board shark fu

i left a comment over there- but i will feel free to discuss here if anyone wants to jump right on in... :)

color me perplexed

as to how cold in the winter adds up to evidence that there is no global warming? here's the deal- green house gases trap heat- hence the melting polar ice caps in both poles. melting ice cools the oceans and voila` also changes weather patterns and makes winters in some areas a wee colder. don't worry fred- one day we won't have those pesky polar ice floes melting to cause the colder winters.

also, i am not an expert, but when you have folks playing around with weather patterns- chinese and americans- that isn't great either.

rapture crapture

big h/t to dandelion salad- onward christian zionists

"Christian Zionists believe that in order to fulfill Biblical prophecy, Israel must conquer most of the Middle East. They are a growing force in American politics with ties to many powerful pro-Israel groups in Washington. Once considered a marginal doctrine among evangelicals, the dispensationalist theology of Christian Zionism includes a belief in the rapture, when the faithful are to be lifted up to Heaven while the rest of humanity—including most of the Jews—will perish."

if you are interested,

i am over at the tree today

weekend roundup

wanted to share some good news from my reader:

the upside of the real estate crisis- affordable housing

tex-ass evangelicals caught in effort to stop palin's 'troopergate' case from moving forward

(jeez- first the mormons interfere in cali and now this- who woulda thought christians would interfere in government?)

iran going green- wind power and natural gas powered cars?

kbr pleads guilty to bribery

paul krugman

"What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?

A proud centrist."

paul krugman

food for thought- and the world

i have been shaking my head quite a bit lately- i guess i don't understand people. i am one of those people who don't like change- one of the many reasons my path to nirvana will take more than several lifetimes i expect. that and my loathing of all things dick cheney- but i digress. i like order and quiet and routine, but whether i like it or not, my life has changed and will continue to change until i am pushing up dandelions.

recent reports state that 1) global climate change is irreversible for at least 1,000 years. i should be into a few lifetimes by then. so, what does that mean? well, it means that the weather patterns are changing and some places will experience extreme drought and others will flood beyond belief. australia is one of the world's largest food producers- rice, wheat, etc. guess what? and the american west is drying out- and according to my farmer's almanac, 2009 is poised to be hotter and drier than normal. whatever normal is these days.

2) water is drying up or being polluted so that it is non potable. what's left is being used up by an exploding populous- 6 billion folks on the planet means a whole lotta water being used. we use fresh water for industry, agriculture, washing our clothes and dishes, cooking, flushing toilets, etc. think about that the next time you take a 30 minute shower. :) anyhoo, water isn't free either. i pay for mine. and guess who is buying up water as fast as they can?

i realize that the economic crisis is a big deal- but you can live without shelter longer than you can without water and food. so, what are we to do? my thoughts are this- grow your own. yes, i said grow your own. and this is where i start shaking my head because this is where i usually start hearing myriad excuses. the truth is- most of us have room to put at least one square foot of vegetables. many of us have really lovely yards with shrubs and flowers and garden gnomes. if you have garden gnomes- you can plant your own food.

what? no garden gnomes? do you have a postage stamp yard? you can plant basics. do you have a sunny window or a small porch? you can plant basics. you can grow a corn stalk, a squash vine and bush beans in one square foot of garden. you can grow cherry tomatoes or regular tomatoes in a large flower pot- peppers, onions, etc. any of the basics. you can grow lettuce in window boxes. network with your neighbors and start a community garden on a vacant piece of land or start front yard gardens. urban gardening is on the rise with folks gardening on rooftops or within their own apartments or townhouses.

i hate to frequent dollar stores- but you can get pots and potting soil really cheap there to get started- or if you have a yard- a shovel. but what about seeds? look into seed exchanges or seed societies. many times, they are free as they are exchanged between members. i am an heirloom snob because if i am going to put in the sweat and the labor to grow my own- i don't want monsanto's genetically modified seeds. they are partially responsible for the decline in natural pollinators and combined with the chemical fertilizers- they have cut honeybee populations by more than half. they can keep their seeds.

ask around your own areas- many families save seeds from year to year and pass them down (hence heirloom) but don't necessarily belong to a seed exchange. as for making compost- that one is the easiest. i started out with a rubber maid tub with holes poked in the bottom and in the lid- and voila! i put paper products and vegetable scraps in the tub and let them work their magic. i had a small amount of compost and minimal smell. believe it or not. i used it on the rose bush in front of the apartment where i used to live with a postage stamp yard.

the biggest excuse i hear is- it's too much work. too much work? because you are so busy doing what exactly? give me a break. what are you going to do when the farmers who supply the farmers' markets can't grow food anymore? when they either get driven out of business or can't grow the monsanto seeds? monsanto is forcing farmers all over the world to use its seeds with disastrous results:

argentina

india

iraq

and they are making inroads into africa. they are forcing north american farmers to use their soybeans, corn and most recently- sugar beets. think of the implications of that.

at any rate, if you aren't convinced- read this and this.

think about 'emergency' stock in a grocery store- how much inventory does one typically have when everyone runs in to get bread, milk and batteries during a storm? bottled water? they only keep enough on hand for a few days. if the food supply dries up- where are they going to get the food to stock the shelves? one of my blog buddies has a friend who works in the industry- this is an email i got from her:

"I spent this afternoon talking to someone about how grocery stores are extremely vulnerable in this economy, not so much of the shipping issues, but because of the way food marketing is structured.

This individual, who had worked in the industry for several decades, felt that it is extremely likely that grocery stores will stop functioning long before the food runs out if only a few major food producers experience any sort of problem along the supply chain.

I'm going to pass along what I learned, but realize that I'm no way an expert on this subject. I feel like this information was very important to understand because the empty spots on the shelves signal a big problem for major food retailers. Literally, they are unable to switch gears and to carry most locally produced foods. You will NOT be shopping there in the future.

Big food companies practice something called vertical or horizontal monopolies market control. They either control one key ingredient to the success of the product, such as being a pizza company and controlling all the mozzarella production (horizontal market control); or they control their entire process (vertical), such as owning every step in the process, from growing the wheat for the dough, the tomatoes for the sauce, distribution, etc.

So say we have a fictitious company called Acme Crackers and it is a vertical company. It controls everything along the way in its products from growing the ingredients to stocking the shelves. Acme negotiates with all the grocery store chains to sell its crackers, buying six inches of prime shelf space in the cookie aisle. This is a very big deal and may not seem like much, until you realize it's a contract for that six inches in every store.

Realize that almost every product in the store is handled this way. Shelf space is contracted like real estate, suppliers get a guaranteed specific amount of space which has a specific location. This applies to bread, dairy, soft drinks, soups, boxed pastries, etc.

Because of these contracts, you cannot put Progresso Soup in the Campbell's area, even if Campbell's is out of a specific type of soup. It's legally binding.

Individuals and companies distribute Acme Crackers to the grocery stores in a franchise operation. They stock the shelves, make sure the contract space is where it's supposed to be, etc. Acme Crackers bills the main headquarters of all the Big Chain grocery stores for one big check, then cuts individual checks to the distributors for their share of the money.

Okay, here's where it gets doomerish.

If anywhere along that supply chain, there is a problem -- like no wheat for flour to make the crackers, the factory making the boxes shuts down, or the distributor goes out of business, there's no product on the shelf.

That section of shelf sits empty.

More importantly, the grocery store is not making any money because it doesn't have any products to sell. Because of these marketing practices, it is extremely difficult for a very small company to compete, so most grocery stores carry the products of very few suppliers. It might be that 90% of a store's inventory is really supplied by 10 or 20 food mega corporations, because so many of them make a huge number of products.

If a company like Kraft went under, you would see 150 less BRANDS in the store, which could represent as much as half of the store's items.

So when Acme Crackers starts having problems with getting product shipped from it's warehouse to the distributors, the grocery store cannot fill the void with a local product. It must leave the shelf empty.

If you had an across the board shipping problem, and say it affected even one of the mega corporations brands, it would bankrupt all the grocery stores in no time flat, because all of the major chains have this same contract and can't put a different product on the shelf.

You should also realize that these mega corporations control food beyond the grocery stores. They are heavily invested in fast food restaurants, commercial food service, cookware, appliances, dairies, batteries, etc. That's why you see weird stuff in the grocery store, because the corporations control a lot of diverse consumer goods.

If one of these mega corporations went down, it would scarcely be believable the impact would be so enormous.

In order for us to shift from a national food model to a locally produced one, we will have to see either a complete revamping the way food is marketed and sold (highly unlikely) or a new way to sell food, which will have to completely restructure everything. Likely, we will return to specialty markets, where there is a butcher, a baker, dairies, etc. and the public accesses the producers direct."

i googled and googled to find out a link but i guess these sorts of things are industry trade secrets or something. anyway, i hope that this is food for thought. no pun intended ;)

update:

another blog buddy sent me this story about california agriculture

"The loss of California's crops would stun not only US, but world markets as well. The state exports to almost 150 countries and had exported $8 billion worth of agricultural products in 2004. In 2006 (latest figures available), that export total had grown to $9.8 billion and the state is ranked the fifth largest agricultural producer in the world (pdf), the country's only major producer of many fruit, vegetable and nut crops, with a total production of $31.4 billion in agricultural outputs."

just guessing here

but if folks are laying planks over cracks in the ice- perhaps it would be a good idea NOT to go out onto the ice. just sayin'...

jon stewart and keith olbermann commentary

posted over at the sirens- take a peek at the videos and cheer that our mouthpieces are calling it like we see it over dick 'the big dick' cheney. hopefully, there will be some karmic justice for him one day. lord knows we won't get it from congress.

'only good' friday

president obama channels his inner president lincoln quite frequently- and rightly so. lincoln was an intelligent man faced with a difficult burden- and has been built up into a cult status as well. but, in the end, he was a man- a fellow human being on the planet. and, in his own words,

"I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end."

"I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day."

and as i began to read more of his quotes, i wondered precisely how, without completely rewriting history, the republican party could claim lincoln as their own. just because they shared the same party name doesn't mean that they shared the same value system:

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

but, i digress...

in the 1860's, we fought a war of ideologies- north versus south. today, we are facing what amounts to the same thing- north versus south, for if you look at the obstruction going on and the damage done over the last decade, much of it has come from the south. in lincoln's time, it came down to a bloody war with bullets. he was elected and sworn in much like president obama- citizens hoped for the best and cast their ballot. what they got was ideologues from both sides dividing the country and ripping it apart. we face a similar situation today.

but we have an edge- most folks in this country are sick and tired of the ugly division. they are tired of hearing hate speech and lies. and while it is unfortunate that these people share the same rights decent citizens do, it is america's legacy. so, what is a decent human being to do in the age of faux noise and hate radio- and apparently, msm who continue to give these yahoos air time?

we can speak the truth.

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. "

we can counter the lies and spin and attempts at rewriting history with truth and facts- not just on the blogs but with every person we meet. we must have the courage to stand up and not ignore or be embarrassed- but to speak out. it is our duty as citizens in a somewhat free republic. we have a duty to the world to maintain our freedoms because that is what they look to us to do. we used to be the role model for the world- and while we have feet of clay when it comes to following our own principles- we were looked at as the goal to aspire to. we were inspirational.

it is up to us to shoulder the burden of responsibility that president obama has taken on- it is our country too. and,

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

so, my own thought- lincoln was a closet buddhist :) no, probably not but i will say that my mom heard this quote- which started this post- and tells it to my sister every day (my sister's job really sucks but guess what? so does the economy so she stays):

"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be"

and i believe that to be true. i was unhappy for a long time- and it poured out into my journal and my blogging and into my life where i made others unhappy. as thornie and shelly suggest, positive is contagious. if we want to be the change we seek, we have to start somewhere. let's start with inspiring others to be inspirational. it just might work :) namaste

this eclectic life- shelly

don't forget

tomorrow is friday- only the good fridays via thornie

i admire chris hedges- he seems to be a pretty sharp guy. he apparently has come around to something i have realized for the last 3 years or so-

it's not going to be ok

no, it most likely isn't- but i have also realized over the last hellacious 8 years- we only have one life to live and no matter what the situation- we should live it to the fullest. moment by moment if necessary. staying as calm as we can and feeling the fullest range of emotions we can feel and being the best people we can be- for ourselves and for others. it's really all we have. the only person you can truly depend on looks back at you from the mirror every day. hopefully, you make that person proud.

the best advice i have is the same i have been giving- become as self sufficient as you can. and be willing to protect you and your loved ones against your neighbors. it really is that simple.

a little slice of lovely

so, it is currently hovering around 5 degrees F but feels like negative 9. the sun is shining and it is softly snowing but so cold that the snow looks like crystals shimmering in the early morning sunshine. i imagine that if i went outside, the snow would crunch beneath my feet and it would smell cold and lovely. perhaps i shall....

(photo is googled- not mine)

universal healthcare

people- this is the 21st century. there is no excuse for people dying because they don't have insurance- the only reason we have such a system is greed, greed, greed. we do not have the greatest healthcare system in the world- far from it. we are near the bottom. there is absolutely no reason that america should not provide every man, woman and child in this country with basic healthcare. no reason. all of us have experienced the drug pushing, misdiagnoses, arrogance, indifference, etc. of doctors and other healthcare providers. we have lived through the drug recalls- although some have died and there is no excuse other than greed. this should not be. our country would do better to understand that socialism is not a dirty word and that a proper blend of capitalism and socialism would insure our ability to live to 'pursue happiness' that is our human right according to thomas jefferson. there are millions of stories and i am going to share one i got from my buddy happy in nevada:

kwikkick's diary

update on kwikkick

that last minute

attempt to fuck the environment at the behest of the energy seekers- failed. yep. so much for your legacies creeps. guess that's why dick 'the dick' cheney has been out there fear mongering again. apparently, he doesn't realize that no one 1) gives a shit about what he has to say and 2) that he is irrelevant. oh- and dick- we know who will be behind any 'attacks' on american soil- and it won't be al quaida. seriously, you looted the treasury of america and you want us to believe that you won't orchestrate something to hassle obama? we lived through the last 8 years with you at the helm and the last 30 or so with you in politics. we got your number.

see, this is why i only read my buddies' blogs and not the newsy ones. my blood pressure went up about 30 points.

update:

keith olbermann's rebuttal to cheney

bigotry and racism in america- imagine that

say the words 'bigotry and racism' and immediately what springs to mind are jim crow and racial profiling- among black folks generally. but before you get complacent- just a reminder that it exists against every 'minority' population in america. that includes asian folks- but you rarely hear about the bigotry perpetrated against that group. i have seen it first hand on the block i used to live on- that hotbed of 'tolerance and respect'- i shouldn't have been surprised really. i already knew the neighbors didn't like black folks or gay folks. they should be thrilled that the buyer of our apartment building may be a chinese immigrant :) if he qualifies for the mortgage. but i digress...

anyhoo- while everyone makes a big to do over michael phelps inhaling- disney's darling miley cyrus is apparently partying hearty too. it's unfortunate that when you party- you do really stupid things- and hey, when you are a celebrity with all of those corporate endorsements (hasslebitch on the view is riding that pony hard in regards to phelps) perhaps you should act like a better role model. especially the prepubescent ones. why not hop on this story hasslebitch?

mom runs in good company

she was telling me she watched the nova special last night about the nsa and the wonderful spying that they do. big fella over at the sirens chronicles wrote a great post about it- check it out and see what extent that the nsa spies over americans.

the american future- a history

my mom caught a snip of simon schama on bill moyer's (who has to be the best journalist we have imo) and sent me to search for it and watch the interview. so, i did. what an interesting human being- so much so, i purchased the dvd of his series 'the american future- a history' that aired on bbc the week before the inuguration i believe. i encourage everyone to follow the link to bill moyers and at least watch the interview. i bought the dvds of his series for mom but you can probably stream it somewhere- and the book is out in may.

news blackout

didn't read any news yesterday and i skimmed the headlines briefly this morning. marked all as read. yep. burying my head in the sand because the sheer hubris and arrogance and stupidity of the democratic party is nauseating. it was one of the best decisions i made leaving that party. the alleged progressive movement is apparently, only to move themselves forward. there isn't going to be any change. it is going to be status quo- the power structure isn't interested in our lives and exists to perpetuate itself.

therefore, going on a news blackout and concentrating on my home and garden and getting ready for self sufficiency. join me?

public service announcement- i never knew

one of my buddies emailed me this bit of info- and i am admitting that in my 37 years on the planet- i never knew this. i am sure my mother didn't either because she never said a word (and i am sure she was around when tin foil and saran were invented :) well, i'll be damned. i am emailing everyone i know :)

"I can't believe it's been there all this time.

I had to go into the kitchen and check this out for myself.
Whoever looks at the end of your aluminum foil box?
You know when you try to pull some foil out and the roll comes out of the box.
Then you have to put the roll back in the box and start over.
The darn roll always comes out at the wrong time.
Well, I would like to share this with you.
Yesterday I went to throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it,
and looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, Press here to lock end.
Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in place.
How long has this little locking tab been there?
I then looked at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too.
I then looked at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too!
I can't count the number of times the Saran wrap roll has jumped out,
when I was trying to cover something up.
I'm sharing this with my friends.
I hope I'm not the only person that didn't know about this.
I know you're going to go and check your boxes, so go ahead!"

monday, monday

the first week in february- yeah!!! i am pretending today as if the world didn't exist. i think we all need those moments where we are just peaceful where we are and enjoying the moment. the superbowl was a good football game yesterday; i finished the baby blanket for a relative that i started (wow- i finished a project :) and the weather is in double digits above freezing. life is good. put our old apartment building on the market and we have gotten a few nibbles- so i am grateful for that.

new feature here at the blog- and you can thank my buddy thornie for this one- only the good fridays. fridays tend to be 'dump the crap' news days because it's the weekend- and hey, we don't want to be hassled. so, this was the idea behind the day and i couldn't agree more:

"We are living in some pretty negative times, aren’t we? You can’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing more bad news about the economy, the war, the stock market, the political candidates. I think that many of us are living in a state of fear (though I’m in the state of Texas).

Fear feeds upon itself. It’s like a contagious virus. I’m tired of adding to it. I want to start another kind of “virus.”

You see, I think that optimism can be contagious, too. If we consciously try to look at the good in the world around us, it will become easier to see."

it's halftime at the superbowl

game is pretty good so far- nothing spectacular- springsteen doing halftime show. my complaint- the sound guys at nbc SUUUUUCCCCKKKKK!!!!! can't hear springsteen at all. this is the f***ing superbowl and you are a major network. get real. guess they are leftovers from bushco ;) well, their 'glory days' are over.