So...

If a white American living in...say...Tennessee possesses weapons of mass destruction, bomb making materials, and a host of other weapons, would you call him a terrorist? Apparently not.

Living Democracy

I'm almost done reading a wonderful book I'd like to share with all you Brainiacs out there.I was reading it and just thinking"wow,now THIS is some good stuff,and just crazy enough that it might work".

It's called Democracy's Edge:Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life by Frances Moore Lappe'. If that name sounds familiar,Lappe' is the author of an old classic,Diet for a Small Planet.Her son Anthony,is one of the creators of the Guerrilla News Network website.Her daughter Anna is also a writer,writing about our food supply,ways to make it healthier,and how the people can wrestle back their food supply from large companies who control most of what we eat and drink.Anna and her mom team up to write quite often.

What I like most about this book(and it's earlier companion piece,Hope's Edge)is Lappe' offers up not just a laundry list of problems facing Our country and telling us how we got into this mess,she gives examples of citizens,just regular folks like you and me,who are actively doing something about these problems. Her basic philosophy is "Democracy is not something we have,it's something we DO". Simple,but true.It's the concept of creating a Living Democracy.And this,dear readers,is something I believe that is missing from how we go about things as the fight to save ourselves heats up.

For way too long,most of America has been convinced that they hold no power in changing"the way things are".We've been convinced,by media,by politicians and their operatives,by CEOs and corporate monopolies,that we have no say.And after all,this is America,we're lucky to live here in freedom and all that,right?It can't be THAT bad,can it?And besides we've limped and leaped along this far,why change how we do things? Well,for one thing,if we don't change how we view ourselves and others,and we aren't willing to try something different once something breaks,Democracy Will Die.It will be lost.Only we can save it.Democracy is a living and breathing entity,it's supposed to change and adapt to suit our needs(wants is another matter entirely,and today those lines are very blurred.Most of America is spoiled rotten,and we behave accordingly too much of the time)not remain stagnant.Our core principles are unmovable,as they should be,but the way we implement and use those principles is key.

Yes it can die,it is dying,we all know it,even if we can't admit it to ourselves.And even if we can admit it,very few solutions are offered up,other than winning elections or running for office. Yes,those things matter too,but to forget that politics and elections are only two tools available is to get in our own way.

As things stand today,it's clear the leaders of our nation do not believe or trust in us.They lie,manipulate us,steal from us,and make damned sure we keep fighting among ourselves so we don't watch what they're doing in secret. They've dumbed us down,peddled and pandered to hatred,fear,shame,and humiliation,forcing us to accept their will,making us irrelevant.

We tend to look at the big picture,and overlook our own backyard.

The ideas and programs highlighted in this book cross party lines,lines of religion,color,and culture.Because really,if you think about it what do we all have in common? Think of it:

1)Basic needs being met.Food,clothing,shelter,healthcare and education are not only for the well off,they are essential to Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

2)A means for each and every one among us to work to provide those basic needs,a Living Wage.This preserves the Dignity of All,nothing is more humiliating than being unable to provide for the needs of yourself and those you love.It's demeaning.A hand up,not a handout.You cannot pull yourself up by a damned bootstrap if you have no boots and no where to get a pair.

3)Education. This is HUGE. Public schools are in trouble,but most of the trouble lies in a series of policies made from a distance that get in the way of children leaving their school years with usable skills.Community involvement is a key to stopping these destructive policies and directing funding TO the classrooms.Things can change on a local level. I know from personal experience,with my intervention and giving dedicated teachers information they could use,our county now has Autism classes in their Special Ed curriculum.I can't take credit for this,it was all the teachers' doing.I just brought them the info and spoke to administrators and board members as an assist. If I had remained silent,many boys(and it is almost exclusively boys who find their way to these classes.In seven yrs I think I've seen two girls in my son's classrooms)wouldn't be getting the help they need.Good ideas are catchy. Our program is based on some excellent work being done in Seattle for autistic children in public schools.One of our teachers went to Seattle on her summer vacation,talked to the teachers there and came back with an excellent Power Point presentation that sold everyone on the idea. We have our problems in this school system(attack of the killer fundies anyone?),but we do have an excellent Special Education program.

4)A safe community.Today we live in fear and mistrust of one another.We've been manipulated to be afraid of some "other"that lurks in the shadows of every street. If we can shed that fear and work together,neighborhoods by extension become safer.Democracy is not a passive exercise.

There's just so much good stuff in this book,it's impossible to condense it all into one post.I got my copy of Democracy's Edge for under 15 bucks at Amazon,a small price to pay to be inspired.

In the coming weeks,I'm going to try to dig up some info on various Living Democracy Projects taking place in various places around the country.And maybe I'll share some of my own ideas.Because really,in the end,the only way to stop feeling helpless is to help.

[Link to purchase book added by yours truly. - Fixer]

Suggestions

I got a million things to do today so I'm making reading suggestions:

Commander Huber on the Chimp's Iran gambit: Part 1 - Part 2

Bob Geiger's "Top Ten People I Would Rather Have as President Than George W. Bush". He'll probably have has the Saturday Cartoons up later too, which are always good.

Blondie shows we all have an Abu Ghraib or Haditha inside us.

Just like global warming, Iraq, and every other damn thing, the Rethugs lie about the economy too.

Our pal Lurch on command responsibility.

Happy Saturday.

Lights out, Honey-bunkie...

The Rude One welcomes Republicans to the party. Note: all print, but probably not work-safe. It even made me blush! Ooooh!

'Course, at the end of the day, most prison bitches put away the shiv, hide it in the mattress, or behind the brick, and go on receiving the fucking, behaving graciously that at least his husband is protecting him from real harm, you know. So Sensenbrenner ended his opening remarks at his "Reckless Justice" hearing by praising the President for the 45-day period of sealing the documents seized from Jefferson's office, saying, "The President has allowed for precisely the sort of reasoned deliberation on important issues of separation of powers I expect this hearing to accord with today." Yeah, now come on back to Daddy and drop your panties. It's lights out on the block.

I love it when he talks dirty!

It wasn't just Ohio, and they're gonna do it again...

Greg Palast at BuzzFlash on how the Republicans stole the '04 elections and how they plan to do it again in '08.

But the shoplifting of those votes in Ohio was just the tip of the theft-berg. November 2, 2004 was a national ballot-box bonfire. In total, over three million votes (3,600,380 to be exact) were cast -- marked, punched, pulled -- YET NEVER COUNTED. I'm not talking about the Ukraine or Uganda. I'm talking about the United States of America "with liberty and justice for all."

How will they pile up five million un-voters in 2008? Let's start with the three million "disappeared" of 2004:

Step 1: "Spoiling" ballots -- 1,389,231 of them. In the vote-count game, these are called "undervotes" and "overvotes." You can recognize these lost ballots by their hanging chads, punch cards without punches (an Ohio specialty), paper ballots eaten by scanners, and touch screens that didn't know you touched them.

Step 2: Rejecting "provisional ballots" -- 1,090,729 in this pile. Voters finding themselves at the "wrong" precinct, or wrongly "scrubbed" from voter rolls get these back-of-the-bus ballots first inaugurated in 2002. In '04, provisional ballots were passed out like candy to voters in the poorest precincts. They handed them out -- then threw them away -- one million dumped in all. In Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell changed state rules, allowing him to toss out the ballots of legal voters who cast ballots in the wrong precinct although these citizens were told their vote would count after confirming their registration.

Step 3: Not counting absentee ballots -- 526,420 of them. At least, that's what we figure from official stats. But it's anyone's guess how many mailed-in votes were dumped. (However, in one case, in Palm Beach, Florida, Jeb Bush's candidate for Elections Supervisor, Theresa LaPore, counted more absentee votes than absentee ballots mailed in. Not the brightest bulb in the vote-fix biz, that Theresa.)

Step 4: Scrub'm, Purge'm, Block'm. These are the voters who never got to vote at all. This group includes those who found their registrations were never entered on the voter rolls. In Ohio, about one-fourth of those registered by Jesse Jackson's 2004 voter drive, found their registrations delayed beyond the election date or lost.

Add to this un-voter group, those who were wrongly "scrubbed" from registries as "felons." For example, there was Bernice Kines, purged in Florida in 2004 because she was convicted of a felony on July 31, 2009. I repeat: 2009. There was something especially odd about the Ohio felon purge: ex-cons are ALLOWED to vote in that state, Mr. Blackwell.

I wish I could give you a book on a page, because information is our weapon: Turn on the lights and the cockroaches scatter. That's why I'm asking you to read RFK's article on the "Theft of Ohio" (link is to Truthout - G) in Rolling Stone magazine -- and GET ANGRY. Then read, Armed Madhouse: The Scheme to Steal '08 -- AND GET READY.

Forewarned is forearmed. If we let them pull this shit again, we are a pathetic, beaten, cowed society of sheep, and we truly will get the government we deserve. Again.

Friday Cattle Dog Blogging

Princess Shayna thinks Peggy Noonan is an idiot and Preznit My Pet Goat is a sociopath.

Shayna thanks the great Dave Johnson for the link.

Smart kid...

I love seeing stories about youngsters who are intelligent or do good things for their communities. Gives me hope for the future.

(New York - WABC, June 1, 2006) - Thirteen-year-old Katherine Klose, from Spring Lake, New Jersey, won the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday night.

Klose correctly spelled the word 'ursprache' to claim the title of America's best speller, televised live on ABC.

...

Good on ya, honey. You should be proud of yourself.

I got yer legacy...

Right here. Worst. Preznit. Ever.

Still writing...

They Can't Win Unless They Cheat

The new Rolling Stone magazine should hit newstands tommorrow(?),and boy oh boy,are the wingnuts not gonna like this one.Heh.

Go follow Peter of Lone Tree's linkage at Blondesense....

The right wing keeps insisting that this isn't an issue,it's"old news","sour grapes",or we're just whiny little sore losers.Ummm NO.

A shitload of federal laws were broken here.And who knows how many state laws.

If you don't get pissed after reading this,I don't give a damn how wingnutty or moonbatty you are,then you need to go back and take some fucking civics classes.If you're against any sort of consequences for people who deliberately tamper with our,OUR votes,then get the fuck out of America,you don't belong here,screw you.

There should NEVER ,EVER, for any reason even be a QUESTION,even a suspicion that something is wrong or dishonest with our voting system.The fact that there is MORE than enough evidence to show that someone toyed with this shouldn't be a partisan thing,this is an AMERICAN problem,and if you're a Patriot,you'll want to get to the bottom of it.No politics needed.

"Wino Nino Firehouse Skid Row."

The LATimes reports that the new owners and developers of luxury lofts and condoms in L.A. want the words "Skid Row" taken off the fire engines. (Go see the pictures.) Imagine that!

Street people and loft residents have joined forces to block removal of the name "Skid Row" from the sides of firetrucks and rescue ambulances that are assigned to the beleaguered downtown zone.

Firefighters and paramedics - as well as some residents - said the skid row label helps instill a feeling of community in a district struggling with homelessness and crime.

But top fire officials say they've received complaints that the name is derogatory and ordered "Skid Row" stripped from Station 9's two fire engines, its hook-and-ladder truck and its two paramedic ambulances.

"If it's offending people, we don't want to be doing it," said Battalion Chief Lou Roupoli, adding that residents of the new condominiums and lofts popping up in the area have complained that the fire engine label is objectionable.

Some of the developers who have been converting old bank buildings into luxury lofts on the edges of skid row have increasingly been using the less-gritty name "Central City East" to describe the district.

To the firefighters at Station 9, the skid row name is more than just a way of identifying the neighborhood they serve. They take pride working at what is considered the toughest assignment in the Los Angeles Fire Department, where the station can respond to more than 60 calls a day. Off-duty firefighters also wear T-shirts printed with the slogan "Wino Nino Firehouse Skid Row."

I feel for those guys and the local residents. Pretty much the same thing happened in my town - the rich folks moved in and everything turned to shit.

It's a fun article with pictures and graphics. Go read.

"Send Them!"

Democratic Underground on Bush's service and sacrifice during the Vietnam War.

Critics Blast Al Gore's Documentary As 'Realistic'

The Onion

The Al Gore-produced global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth is being panned by critics nationwide who claim the 90-plus minute environmental film is "too disturbingly realistic and well-researched to enjoy." "I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief in man-made climate change for the first half-hour - and utterly impossible after that - which makes for a movie-going experience that's far more educational than it is enjoyable," said New York Post film critic Skip Hack. "Gore's film overwhelms viewers with staggering amounts of scientific information until nothing about global warming is left to the imagination, and that's just not good entertainment. Two stars." Some critics have called the film's claims that sea levels could rise 20 feet somewhat sensationalistic, although most agree that this is not enough to save the film from being unwatchably factual.

Yep, looks like "reality" is rearing its ugly head again. Looks like the Department of Anti-Science ain't doing its job, lettin' something like that come out.

Ned is Spoken About

The NYTimes says to take Ned Lamont seriously as a candidate. Duh.

"Once you scratch and sniff, you realize he would be a very credible senator, and that makes him a very credible candidate," said George Jepsen, the immediate past chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee. "If he was a nut, Joe wouldn't have a problem. But he's intelligent. He's accomplished. There are no personal warts. He teaches in the Bridgeport public schools. How many people of his pedigree and background go do that?"

Mr. Jepsen, who supported Senator Lieberman in past races, has not taken a public position in the primary. He is among many Democrats, however, who predict that voters who are angry with Mr. Lieberman are likely to turn out in great numbers in the primary. The senator, he said, is "genuinely threatened on Aug. 8."

Good.

Ned Speaks

Ned Lamont at Kos

When no one else would step up to challenge Senator Lieberman and everything he represents, my family and I made the decision that the time was indeed right. I hoped that the fundamental humanity and decency of everything America stands for in its core values would call upon others as it had me to rise up and say no more. And when the final votes were tallied at the state's Democratic convention, our faith was vindicated. In the face of unbelievable odds and some pressure from the party brass, Connecticut Democrats called out for change. My belief in our party, our delegates, and in the people of my state has never been firmer.

I realize that our campaign would have been much more difficult without the netroots. I never had to make promises I did not want to keep to big donors because netroots citizens gave five, ten, twenty dollars at a time to my campaign with no strings attached. Before the mainstream media were taking us seriously, bloggers told my story with honesty and insight and compassion. The free exchange of comments and ideas in the blogosphere carried the tale and forced the traditional media to take notice. Ordinary people with video cameras, with petitions, with websites volunteering their time and their passion forged an army that no K Street lobbying money could buy. To all of you I am eternally grateful.

I never thought I'd give a shit about what happens in Connecticut, but the internets have shrunk the joint to where I do. I hope Lamont kicks that old DINO's ass.

Fucking New York 2

In the post below I said:

...You can be sure Cheyanne, Wyoming and Zanesville, Ohio got their fair share...

So I see this today:

...Meanwhile, grants for cities like Louisville, Omaha and Charlotte, N.C., each jumped by about 40 percent, to about $8.5 million each...

Um, remember that hole on the southern end of the Isle of Manhattan? We were the ones hit on 9/11. It is our blood that enabled you to get as far as you have with your illegal war and the destruction of our civil rights. Motherfuckers.

Fucking New York

I guess we haven't fallen into line:

(Washington-WABC, May 31, 2006) - Next year, New York City will get just $124.5 million in anti-terrorism grants from a special program for cities at high risk of attack. That's a cut of some 40 percent from the previous year. [my em]

...

You can be sure Cheyanne, Wyoming and Zanesville, Ohio got their fair share. You know what? Keep your fucking money. I'd rather our kids are self assured adults than homeschooled little Jesus freaks. I'd rather my taxes double than kiss Repuke ass.

Why me?Seriously,WHY?

I have about had it with stupid crap like this.

Yes,this is the county I live in. And it's this kind of fucktarded madness that makes our schools mediocre at best. Consider too,that Cobb county is one of the wealthiest districts(and the second largest) in the state of Georgia.We could be nourishing some great schools here(the teachers I talk to btw,hate this shit more than I do,and that's saying something.And trust me,there are some teachers who find lots of creative ways to play around the no science allowed rules.But still,think about it,they have to SNEAK AROUND to teach.Disgusting),but nooo,we have to worry about panty sniffing little stick up the ass busybodies subverting an entire county school district.I'm PISSED.Looks like AOB may be addressing the school board AGAIN.

Note this gem:

"It had been the school's policy since 1995 to tear out chapters on evolution from science textbooks out of "respect for the family teachings of a significant number of Cobb County citizens," according to Thursday's opinion. But, in the spring of 2002, when the school district selected a new biology book that contained 101 pages on evolution, school officials decided to affix a disclaimer sticker instead of removing the section."

Ripping "offensive"parts out of science books?WTF? This is NOT a majority instigating this nonsense,for chrissakes,over 50 percent of the people who live in this county have a college degree of some sort.

Damn it,these freaking people can either homeschool or send their kids to any number of Christian schools in this area.

And the money and time the district has to spend on this FUCKING NONSENSE could actually,oh,I don't know,here's a novel concept, be SPENT ON THE KIDS. Why,that's crazy enough that it just might work.

God I want out of here SO bad.I've grown to hate living here over the last 5 yrs. Throw in urban sprawl(as I type this, a contractor is clearcutting about 50 acres of mixed growth forest across the street from me.The SIXTEENTH new subdivision to appear on this road in the last 18 months.Starting price on these homes?500K up to 1.5 million)and I'm about ready to start assaulting people on principle.

Ignorance can be battled with education.I don't loathe the ignorant for that very reason.But goddamnit,this is just Willfully STUPID,which I can not STAND.

So 2300 people signing a petition scares the shit out of the school board does it(consider the district has somewhere around 105,000 kids)? Good to know.Really good to know.

Would you like to bet me how many of that 2300 also belong to one of the local megachurches? This smells like a church campaign to me.Who in the hell do these idiots think they are?

Up to now,I hadn't noticed no evolution being taught,especially since I thought this had been settled.This year the kids in 6th grade had Earth Science and they talked alot about geology,which you can't really teach without going back farther than 6,000 yrs.Of course the kiddo has only been in schools here for 7 yrs,and his first three years were spent in speech therapy,reading comprehension and retention teaching,and in self contained special education class,which is actually a better education than mainstream classrooms. Plus,I make sure there's a ton of kid science books and grown up ones lying about the house. So as of now,my son gets that the earth is a few years older than 6000.

My question is,how in the fresh hell can you send a kid to college with no science worth a damn in their heads? This is making kids pay for an adult arguement that has NO PLACE in public schools.God this pisses me off.

ARRRRGH!

PSA

If you have a Toyota Prius, The Fixer & Gordon has some news for you.

Things ain't always like they seem...

24 hours in a topless bar.

A Notable 100-year-old Leak

Allay your fears - this is not about me when I get up in the morning! Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell commemorates the 100th anniversary of a notable leak by a Pulitzer Prize-winning muckraker.

Open-Source Politics

Jonathan Alter on the possibility of the internets as the third political party. Interesting.

Bob Schieffer of CBS News made a good point on "The Charlie Rose Show" last week. He said that successful presidents have all skillfully exploited the dominant medium of their times. The Founders were eloquent writers in the age of pamphleteering. Franklin D. Roosevelt restored hope in 1933 by mastering radio. And John F. Kennedy was the first president elected because of his understanding of television.

Will 2008 bring the first Internet president? Last time, Howard Dean and later John Kerry showed that the whole idea of "early money" is now obsolete in presidential politics. The Internet lets candidates who catch fire raise millions in small donations practically overnight. That's why all the talk of Hillary Clinton's "war chest" making her the front runner for 2008 is the most hackneyed punditry around. Money from wealthy donors remains the essential ingredient in most state and local campaigns, but "free media" shapes the outcome of presidential races, and the Internet is the freest media of all.

[...] Their hope: to get even a fraction of the 50 million who voted for the next American Idol to nominate a third-party candidate for president online and use this new army to get him or her on the ballot in all 50 states. The idea is to go viral - or die. "The worst thing that could happen would be for a bunch of old white guys like us to run this," Jordan says.

Perhaps an idea whose time has come. Something to think about as an alternative to the "rich white man" system we have now. Go read the rest.

Oh yes!

This is what Jesus would surely want:

"Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians.

Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life

These Jesus freaks can talk about God's love all they want, but this is their real agenda. Switch a couple nouns around and you could have something written by Fundamentalist Muslims. They think this video game is how they're gonna recruit and indoctrinate their 'Christian soldiers'. Maybe it's time to put the christo-fundies in the 'them' category in the 'war on terra'. If you're gonna use the term 'infidel' to describe me, I'm gonna act like one towards you. From now on, anyone who preaches Jesus to me is gonna get put on their ass. When you paint a theoretical target on my back, you don't think I'm gonna let you shoot at me, do ya? Take your best shot, but I'm gonna shoot back. I've just about had it with you fucking people.

It's not the same.

Guess who:

...

Republicans have to cling to moral equivalency, and hope that Pussy Dad shows up, because comparing Harry Reid and William Jefferson to, let's say, Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham, with Bob Ney and others pulling up the rear, is like saying that unsolicitedly squeezing a nice ass in a bar is the same thing as engineering and participating in the gang rape of abducted illegal immigrant children. It's like saying a shoulder punch is the same as getting kicked in the nuts repeatedly. It's like saying that a paper cut is the same thing as a sliced jugular. It's like saying that X equals Y, even if X is a flea and Y is, well, an elephant. At worst, Reid had an ethical fart. At worst, Jefferson is a greedy motherfucker acting alone. Remember: they're not even part of the majority in Congress. DeLay and Cunningham represent a systemic sickness, a malignant tumor of graft and power madness that revealed itself in bill after bill, vote after vote.

...

...and he speaks better English than Bush, too!

Philly.com

Donna Santiago, an unemployed single mother from the Kensington section of Philadelphia, never thought much about Venezuela before January, when she received a load of discounted heating oil courtesy of the South American nation.

Santiago was so ecstatic - her family was among a lucky 181,000 low-income households in the Northeast that received 40 million gallons of discounted oil - she told the program organizers she wanted to thank Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez personally.

Much to her surprise, she got her wish.

Last month, Santiago and her two daughters - none of whom had ever traveled abroad before - were flown to Caracas with about 60 other heating-oil beneficiaries at Venezuela's expense. After a two-day whirlwind tour of Chavez's accomplishments, the American visitors got an audience with the charismatic president himself.

"All I had heard about Chavez was that he was a dictator," Santiago, 38, said after returning to Philadelphia. "The man is far from that. He's a really warm person. I wanted to bring him home and stick him in the White House."

Oh, Si! It would be a big improvement over what we're stuck with now.

G.W.O.T.

This Modern World

Still Fighting The Good Fight

Steve Young tells of his recent visit to Jewish War Veterans Post 697 in Levittown, PA, to see what the old codgers were up to.

Know what these old coots were up to? For one, anything that has to do with veterans affairs, from writing letters to get more aid for those brothers and sister veterans who will never get out of the hospital to picking up the utensils and feeding those who no longer can manage for themselves. And it's not like they take the easy route.

But hospital visits are just a small part of what the veterans groups stand for. Nationwide, on a daily basis, they continue their battles on the front lines helping their communities; collecting food, clothing, bottle caps and anything else that they might bring hope to those in need. Whether caring for elderly veterans or cradling sick infants, they are on hand helping out at the hospitals and retirement homes. They are at the blood banks, working with the mentally ill, placing flags at the graves of our fallen heros, supporting the Holocaust exhibits, lobbying our lawmakers to not forget those who sacrificed for our freedoms, telling their stories at schools, always available to do whatever needs to be done for those who may not be able to do for themselves, showing that you never need stop being of service, even when you're out of the service.

And while this particular story is about a particular Jewish War Veterans post, the same story applies to all veterans groups; the American Legion, Veteran of Foreign Wars, AmVets and so many others, no matter what war, no matter what belief, no matter actual veteran or auxiliary.

As Abraham Lincoln once said..."To Care for Him who Shall Have Borne the Battle, and for his Widow and his Orphan..." To that I might add, "lest we forget their true worth."

I'm a member of the VFW, the American Legion, and the Marine Corps League. I don't always agree with the leadership on politics, but it never comes up locally. The point is to do something for other Vets and for the community if they'll let you. (That reference is to an ongoing fight with our county to let our VFW post repaint the flagpole at the Vets Building here in town. Bureaucracy = Molasses in January.)

When I was at the VA hospital in Prescott, AZ, the Vet's groups for hundreds of miles around came there to volunteer for all kinds of things, from bedpans to Bingo, to help their fellow Vets. It made a big difference in the quality of life for everyone.

My fellow Vets, if you're not a member of a Vets group, please consider joining one. Screw the rightward lean of a lot of them: it's about service. The old wingnuts can always slip on the ice when you're helping them to their car. Heh.

My personal motto is: "Not so lean, not so mean, but still a Marine."

Still tryin' to fight for what I believe, in whatever way I can.

But Why'd They Make It Look Like A Kennedy?

Go see the Anatomy of a Republican.

I'm really sorry...

...for this, but when I saw this headline in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Bush lands in same hole as dad

All I could think was "He really is a motherfucker!"

A little lightness...

Since it seems all of us here are pissed off this weekend, and rightly so. Princess Shayna got a far too infrequent bath this afternoon.



"Dad, I hate being wet! And I hate that camera too."

Burn that yellow ribbon...

RJ's hot today. Hot under the collar, too, like a lot of us at the way our troops are treated by those who put them in harm's way. This is my Memorial Day "must read" recommendation.

Flags are at half-mast, fluttering in the breeze. The smell of barbecue clings to summer dresses in a suburban yard. Somewhere, "Taps" is sounding over crumbling tombstones laced with flowers. And in the whitewashed halls of Washington, Republicans and their "Christian" clerical allies aren't giving a second thought to the young soldiers' lives they destroy every day. To them, our troops are tools to be used and discarded.

Here's my advice to the lady in that SUV over there, the one with the flag on the antenna: Burn your yellow-ribbon decal.

To this crowd, soldiers are puppets and props. Send 'em to the Mexican border for a photo op, stand 'em next to the President with a papier-mache turkey, send 'em out to die for a war that's going to boost our poll ratings. Who cares? They don't belong to our country club, anyway.

That's why I suggest you burn that yellow-ribbon decal, if you have one. It may say "Support Our Troops" in black ink, but what it's really saying is "I've been manipulated by politicians and cynical preachers into supporting an Administration that mistreats our veterans, disrespects our soldiers, and sacrifices them both on a whim."

This Memorial Day, you can truly honor our fallen heroes - by fighting for their comrades who are still among us.

Like Nina said in an earlier post - fight like Hell for the living.

They, too, did not serve....

DarkSyde at Kos on what Memorial Day really means to some. Angry, and right on the money.

[...]To avoid staining our national day of mourning, I felt it more appropriate to dedicate this post at this time to a very different kind of American. They may be clueless neocons, erroneous White House talking heads, or smear artists and their self-appointed town criers. But what they all have in common is that each one bravely ducked when called and later took part directly or indirectly in assaulting the reputation of those who stood in harm's way. They are known, affectionately, as Chicken-hawks:

* President George W. Bush - served four years of a six years Nat'l Guard commitment, some say after daddy's friends pulled some strings to keep him out of Vietnam. The circumstances of his early separation from state-side service are still controversial (details)
* Karl Rove, occasional Deputy Chief of Staff and alleged full time smear artist, escaped the draft and did not serve
* VP Dick Cheney - several deferments, by marriage and timely fatherhood
* Former VP Chief of Staff I. Lewis Scooter Libby - did not serve
* Secretary of State and former NSA Condaleeza Rice - did not serve
* Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist - did not serve.
* Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert - did not serve.
* Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay - did not serve
* House Majority Whip Roy Blunt - did not serve
* Majority Whip Mitch McConnell - did not serve
* Rick Santorum, third ranking Republican in the Senate - did not serve.
* Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott - did not serve

Recently while stammering out a convoluted apology for avoiding service, one budding Yellow Elephant mentioned in part that he 'can support the Yankees without wearing their uniform.' Not too far off: Your average Chicken-hawk does not play for the Yankees because they lack the physical skill required to walk out on that field and compete; likewise, maybe they do not serve in Iraq because they lack the simple courage required to walk into a recruiting office and sign up. But how about his role models?

* Rush Limbaugh - did not serve
* Sean Hannity - did not serve
* Pat Buchanan - did not serve
* Ann Coulter - did not serve
* Ralph Reed - did not serve
* Bill O'Reilly - did not serve
* Michael Savage - did not serve
* Bill Kristol - did not serve

The 101st Fighting Chicken-shit Keyboardists and assorted neocon shills may be conspicuously absent when their country is in need, but they're always at the ready to order other people's sons and daughters into the meat grinder. They sure seem to pop up on the Quad when the battle is over and the band is a'playin. And they're always on duty, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to smear any survivors with vicious accusations of cowardice or worse when Neoconia calls. Just a couple of examples of their bipartisan handiwork include smearing Democrat Max Cleland, triple amputee, awarded both the Silver and Bronze Stars for valorous action in combat. The same treatment was shown to Republican John McCain who won the Silver & Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross and spent over five years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.

I reserve tomorrow for those who served with honor. But today, I recognize the puppet masters and their fleshy mannequins, who will shortly swagger over sacred graves, bravely intercept the standing ovation intended for the dead, and unflinchingly bask in the goodwill directed at the lost. They have all but sworn under oath to stay their deadly course, brook no change, and justify every new body bag as giving meaning to the coffin that came before it; an endless procession cleverly contrived to evade responsibility, to forever postpone their day of accountability, the future fallen be damned.

I fear the Chicken-hawks will continue to enlist the dead and maimed in their grotesque media pageants, to cover their blunders and attack any opponent, every week, every month, and yes, even every Memorial Day, ad infinitum. Until We the People finally put an end to this gruesome nightmare.

Go read the rest. I have nothing to add.

Headlines

Ironic Times

Bush Compares Present Era to Cold War
Except this time we're the Soviet Union.

Prime Minister Says Iraq's Troops Almost Ready to Do Battle
With U.S. troops.

Once-United GOP Beginning to Fracture (see chart below)(Go see the chart - G)

Bush Dismisses Gore's Global Warming Movie as Mere Speculation
Will instead see The Da Vinci Code.

Fiddle Goes for $3.54 Million
Washboard, jug thrown in to close deal.

Memorial Day

In Memorium

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses.
(Who has not heard them?)....

They say,
We were young. We have died. Remember us.

They say,
We have done what we could
But until it is finished it is not done.

They say,
We have given our lives
But until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.

They say,
Our deaths are not ours,
They are yours,
They will mean what you make them.

They say,
Whether our lives, and our deaths were for peace and a new hope
Or for nothing
We cannot say.
It is you who must say this.

They say,
We leave you our deaths,
Give them their meaning.

Archibald McLeish

So let's pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living, as Mother (Jones) would say.

That's some toe-tappin' stuff, you betcha!

Our pal RJ Eskow gets down wit' the "top 50 conservative rock songs of all time" at the HuffPo.

Many of their selections are laughable for their inability to know irony when they see it. Some are inexplicable ("Wake Up Little Susie"? Huh?) Others confuse a singer's bowing to society's conformist pressure with an endorsement of that pressure (see "Wouldn't It Be Nice" -- by their logic, why not include "Society's Child" by Janis Ian?)

Maybe the National Review will be coming up with a list of "Top 50 Conservative Hip-Hop Songs" soon. That's one I'd like to see, given the Right's inclination toward easy money, bling, infidelity, theft, gas-guzzling cars, and shooting people in the face.

Until then, conservatives, keep on rockin'. I can't wait to see Scalia and the rest of the gang gettin' down. Pass the Dutchie, somebody!

I'm guessin' "Dutchie" is some kind of herbal remedy - a laxative maybe?

"Conservative rock" is like "conservative comedy" - a non-existent oxymoron.

Too little, too late...

Why I don't like John Kerry:

john kerry, apparently waking up from a two-year coma, has called the swift-boat veterans liars and wants to set the record straight, now that it doesn't matter to anyone except him.

...

You had your chance in '04, John. Go back to Boston and shut the fuck up.

Quote of the Day

From Atrios:

The willingness to send others off to die for a misguided war because you wet your pants after 9/11 is called "cowardice" not courage.

No boom?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's plan for a massive detonation of conventional high explosives in Nevada to test the effectiveness of weapons against deeply buried targets has been postponed indefinitely, officials said on Thursday.

...

No boom.

Great thanks to Xan for the link.

That's Comforting...

From BBC News

Speaking to cadets at West Point military academy in New York state, Mr Bush said the US would not rest until the threat of terror had been removed.

The 861 new graduates must fight a war against terror that knew no boundaries, the president told them.

"The war began on my watch but it's going to end on your watch," he said.

Boy, that's a relief! The new officers are mostly about 22 years of age. They have to retire from the Army at 62.

"Dope"-sniffing dog does its job

This image is dedicated to Fixer and Gordon, two of my fave veterans and dog whisperers. And it's dedicated to "the pups" and Princess Shayna, all of whom would no doubt conduct themselves with equal dignity, honour and pride when facing the Master of Murdering Meanace, George W Bush. I wonder if Our Fearless Leader felt as terrified and humiliated, at least for a moment (I hope he flinched), as the prisoners in Abu Ghraib were when unmuzzled dogs were used during the "interrogations" in which such useful intelligence to stop the insurgency was supposed to have been gathered. And I can't let this post end without mentioning Tony Blair.

[I did a little editing of the HTML so it fit better on the page. - Fixer]

In Memoriam

Dear Comcast,

You suck.Big giant rabid wolverine penises.

I pay you WAY too much money every month.For what?Let's see...

Last night was a Saturday night,and what do I find?

TEN channels,yes ,TEN channels with stories of murdered white women.One of the ten switched over to a story about a murdered banker in Italy from the 80's.

Or,I could have watched reruns on the major networks.Or more stories of murdered and raped women.

Since it's Memorial Day Weekend,on the science and history channels it's all war all the time.I'd like to hope this country has more history to offer than war and it's machinery,but hey,I'm just a girl,what do I know?

Oh and enough of this fucking"It's Comcastic!"advertising.Jesus Christ on a plate of noodles,what brain trust did you hire to come up with THAT? If anything,it makes me want to pick up the phone and cancel my service.

I know,I know,you don't decide what programs are on a particular channel.I get that.Dish Network,Direct TV, and other cable companies are no different than Comcast,you aren't special or"comcastic".But for the lousy 100 bucks a month I pay you people just to even HAVE TV reception,the least you could do is use your clout to pressure the TV industry to provide something of substance and interest.

If it weren't for my husband and his tech weenie self,I'd throw all your equipment,along with our home theater system out in my driveway and back over it repeatedly with my car.After which I'd set the whole mess on fire.

I'm going to go read a book now.

Sincerely,
A Disgruntled Customer(and maybe not a customer for much longer)

I don't give a fuck

About Brad and Angelina's baby. Our President and his henchmen are fucking this country to hell and the big news is the fact two shallow, morally-challenged, IQ-deficient actors figured out how to procreate? Give me a fucking break.