Watergate Summer: A LETTER TO THE DNC AND THE CLINTONS, ESPECIALLY TO HILLARY, IT IS NOW OFFICIALLY TIME FOR YOU TO EXIT, THE RFK STATEMENT CROSSED ALL LINES....

I did not read the articles I saw online but after reading this I'm totally disgusted.



Watergate Summer: A LETTER TO THE DNC AND THE CLINTONS, ESPECIALLY TO HILLARY, IT IS NOW OFFICIALLY TIME FOR YOU TO EXIT, THE RFK STATEMENT CROSSED ALL LINES....


courtesy of Christopher

Happy Birthday Didi..

Well, it's not really Happy Birthday 'DIDIii..' but happy birthday Rebecca. My youngest turned 5 at the beginning of this week and one of her presents was a cd of Backyardigan music. Now to those sans young kids, you're drawing a blank and are probably getting ready to click your way to the next interesting thing..BUT.. if you have heard parents having (had) to endure Barney or the Teletubbies, you probably envision something horrible and waaay too childlike for any adult to enjoy.
Wrong!
If there is one kid show that even adults can enjoy, it actually is the Backyardigans. Created by Janice Burgess the Backyardigans is an animated series that feature 5 preschool 'kids' (different animals) who meet up in their communal backyards (you know, where people don't have fences) and make up a story and their backyard turns into one of those environments they imagine (castle, the Canadian Yukon etc). As a grown up you can appreciate and understand a child's view of how they play act and on top of that, it's done in an intelligent AND funny way.

One of their defining characteristics is their use of music. Every episode uses a musical genre; spaghetti western, reggea, flamenco, big band, zydeco etc. My daughter also got another Backyardigan dvd that featured the music genre 'rai'. When I told my son (who's 10 and also likes a lot of the music) that it sounded arabic, I had to look it up and voila, it was. Well, to be exact, this is RAI:

Raï (Arabic: رأي) is a form of folk music, originated in Oran, Algeria from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms, which dates back to the 1930s and has been primarily evolved by women in the culture. The word raï is Arabic for “opinion.”

Singers of raï are called cheb (young) as opposed to sheikh (old) the name given to Chaabi music singers; the tradition arose in cities like Oran and elsewhere in Tlemcen, primarily among the poor. The word raï means literally opinion but is colloquially used as an interjection along the lines of oh, yeah! Traditionally sung by men, at the turn of the 20th century, female singers became common. Rai musicians, as early as the 1930's, were singing about social issues which affected their arab colonies. They ranged from disease to the police of the colonies. [1] Much like today's rap stars and hip-hop artists they sung about the current issues around them which was indeed revoluationary for their time.[2] It's popularity not only taken the traditional sounds of the Middle East and "updated" it, but pop rai' reputation as a racy type of music has also influenced a fusion between rai and rock and several other "up and coming" styles

So that reminded me of a very popular song in the early 90s which I found on Youtube (gotta love it) so here's my offering of 'rai' to you for the weekend;


Khaled - Didi

Happy birthday rebeccalekkadingdong! (she said lovlingly)

Cyclone a big boon for military junta

don't let this smily face fool you, General Than Shwe

More than one million homeless in Myanmar were battling to stave off disease and hunger Thursday, with the military government still limiting foreign assistance six days after a massive cyclone.
With death toll estimates near 100,000 and the clock ticking for those who survived, Myanmar's junta -- long suspicious of the outside world -- came under new pressure to fully open up to help from abroad.

Aid was only trickling in despite warnings that specialists were needed to deliver food and water through disaster zones strewn with rotting bodies, and it was unclear if the regime was giving visas to foreign aid staff.

The United States, one of the military junta 's most vocal critics, announced it was not sending an aid flight after earlier saying it was, adding to the sense of confusion and frustration over the international relief effort.

There is another way of looking at this continued denial of permission to give aid in Myanmar. How much easier is it to rule a dictatorship when you have less people to worry about? Is this payback time for the protests?

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. Niccolo Machiavelli

Swish and swallow...

no..I'm talking about something else disgusting...

This morning, after my son's send off on his first camp out trip (I shouldn't remind myself I miss him already mouthy little twerp that he can be).. I went out for breakfast with my mom. Then, we came home and decided to 'quickly' clean the bathrooms before going out again.
Well, something funky/hinky happened. I had cleaned the tub with the clorox (with bleach) and thought I had rinsed it well enough to spray my vinegar on it to do a final wipe down and shining up the faucet. Well, I got hit by a very vinegary waft and in a reflex drew back. Geesh..I still got a sore throat afterwards which I endured for most of the day but it just kept bugging me. Then I got freaked out enough to call the doctor's office and the long and short of it is; I got prescribed this mixture (siladryl, maalox, licodaine) which is to numb the pain and coat the mucus membranes in my throat. (there where you can't gargle or 'hold' it)..
Swish and freakin' swallow! It's disgusting and the flavour is making me feel a bit nauseated.
The pharmacist said that if I swished it for a longer time in smaller doses, it would most likely have a better effect. Consequently, I 'swish and swish and swish and numb my mouth and yak..swallow.
I'm obviously still a bit freaked out, good grief. But.. at the doctor's they said that it 'only' looked very irritated and it might've burned the mucus membranes a bit in the back. When I asked how long it could take before getting better she said, oh.. 3 to 5 days!

So TUA.. know anyone who's good for healing prayer??!! (g)

Lewis Black..from me.. to you!

My friends,....enjoy!

Viva Banksy

In my travels around 'the Sphere', I find some gems. I think it was on Gary's site that I discovered for the first time a controversial (well, in the words of mainstream media) art provoceur Banksy. This illusive graffiti artist who leaves his political commentary either spray painted or dressed up not only in his native England (we'll assume it's a 'he') and here in the US. Here is a short exchange from LA's public radio's "Market Place":

KAI RYSSDAL: Art is big business and getting bigger. Christie's did more than $2 billion in sales in the first half of this year. That's up 39 percent from 2005 and this week begins a new cycle of buying and selling. It's the fall art season. Thousands of artists are displaying their wares, mostly at upscale galleries. But on Friday, here in Los Angeles, there's an art event of a different kind. From a different kind of artist. It's being called a "vandalized warehouse spectacular." Marketplace's Rico Gagliano has more.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RICO GAGLIANO: On Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, Christophe Loiron stands in front of his vintage clothing store. On the wall near the door is the spray-painted stencil of a rat.
CHRISTOPHE LOIRON: When I first moved into this building, I saw some graffitis on my wall, and to be honest with you, when I first looked at them, I wondered what color paint I was gonna use to repaint the walls.
Then he noticed people stopping by to take pictures.
LOIRON: And asking me if I knew the artist. Some people mentioned his name, Banksy, and it took me a while to figure out how to spell it.
It's B-a-n-k-s-y. And when Christophe Googled the name, he discovered his store had been vandalized by one of the world's most elusive and sought-after artists.

[ Anchorman from UK Channel 4 News Video: Subversive graffiti artist Banksy has now created nine spray paintings on the controversial barrier which separates Israel from Palestine. Channel Four news has exclusive footage. ]

Much of Banksy's work combines edgy political commentary with ironic humor and criminal derring-do. Last week he dressed a mannequin like a Guantanamo Bay prisoner and somehow installed it beside a railroad ride in Disneyland.

Read the rest. bold added by yours truly.
Note how one becomes 'subversive' when protesting the barrier that separates Israel from Palestine.

choochoo, look mommy, why is that man in the red outfit wearing a big black scary mask?


The sculpture, consisting of an inflatable doll dressed in an orange jumpsuit with its hands and feet manacled remained in place for one and a half hours before Disneyland's security staff shut down the ride and removed it amid fears over public safety. The Wooster Collective.ROTFL!!! hehe...snif..ehm yeah, bold added by yours truly hehehe...boy, what a safety issue that was!

Anyhow, in this political world of paranoia and government abuse in the Western worlds of the US and the UK with increased domestic terror laws limiting people's rights and freedoms, it is ALL important for this kind of art (political commentary out in the open for everyone to see) to not only exist, but for it to be encouraged. Yes, I said encouraged. What speaks more to the collective mind when passing a building and suprise surprise, it has a message you can't ignore. Anything to shake people out of their complacencies. Ok, not just anything for those sticklers who'll think in the extremes of death and gore. We're talking Banksy. Viva Banksy. May he never be found out. Or she. Or they...

Banksy
The Wooster Collective - a celebration of street art

BRILLIANT!

Independent Thinking

The Future Was Yesterday was very happy with my previous post. In fact, of all the things to laud me for he mentioned in his enthusiasm that he "ran into the most profound shock I've had in a long, long time!! Not that she posted, or even posted about a subject near and dear to my heart, But the research!........" (bold added by yours truly)

Now the 'research' is not so much the key to some of my findings. I've always been an Independent, politically and otherwise. That makes your antennea for/of information set to all that info that speaks to you as equally, independent, thoughtful thinking. Not thinking contrary for the sake of it, but not agreeing with everything automatically with those who you share similar or the same values and opinions with.



Living in Austin Texas has been a blessing. It's been the most fun place I've lived since moving to the States; it's a great place to raise a family AND have a life as an adult/grown up as well; it's politically diverse (read, in a sea of Republican red there's plenty of Blue dems, ranging in hues and of course, don't forget Independent Texans and those ornery Libertarians, not Rogel though!!) with many great Austin/Texans icons, noted musicians, writers calling this place home. Never mind the acting celebs that come here or even live on the outskirts in the fancy mansion land, although they do make up the whole 'Keep Austin Weird' thing.(aka collaborative fission of coordinated individualism) Austin City Limits show and festival. That and all the running events, lots of 5Ks, like for example the upcoming "Get Your Rear in Gear" where the proceeds go to the TX chapter of the Colon Cancer Coalition.



But I digress... (do get it in gear though)..
One other Austinite, besides Davidson Loehr that deserves thought and attention, is Robert Bryce, a political writer who writes for amongst others the Texas Observer and who's work has been in numerous noted American and British publications. I will not editorialize but let you find out for yourself..as in, do your own research but really what I am saying is, with no preconceived notions, read, reflect and think.

An excerpt from Bryce's interview in US NEWS: Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence



Where did this notion of energy "independence" come from?
Energy independence is not a new idea in American politics. Richard Nixon first started talking about it in 1974. The problem is it's no more feasible today than it was then. We live in an interdependent world, from jet fuel and gasoline to fresh flowers and iPods. In 2005, the U.S. imported crude oil from 41 countries. Virtually every cellphone and running shoe Americans use is imported. And yet, all the presidential candidates are touting the same line. In December, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The American people are simply being lied to. Energy independence is neither doable nor desirable.

Why has it become so popular?
In my book, I cite a memo that was put out in 2006 by James Carville, the political strategist. He said energy independence is the one issue out there that gives people hope. It's a two-word phrase that trumps all these other issues, that gives people a sense that we can somehow address all their biggest fears—the Iraq war, peak oil, global warming, and terrorism—in one shot. But it is a false hope.

Why?
The best analogy I've seen of this is one put forward by Fred Singer from the University of Virginia. He said the global oil market is like a giant bathtub. All the producers dump their oil in the bathtub and all the consumers pump their oil out of the same bathtub. And the level in the bathtub is the price. So yes, we could consume less oil by finding something else—we don't know what yet. But in the meantime, we're still going to be tapping into that same bathtub and paying that same price that the rest of the world's global consumers do. This idea that we can detach from this market is craziness.

As long as the United States is buying oil, in other words, it will be vulnerable to political upheaval in the Middle East. But isn't it worth investing in alternative fuels now, so we can be more self-reliant later?I suppose energy independence could be possible within a century, but that's not what we're being sold. We're being sold energy independence here and now. And that's just a lie. There's no polite way to put it.

To 'research', read and think some more, here's the REST.

Something that begs to be discussed honestly and openly, whether it suits our opinion or outlook or not.

The Future was Yesterday..this is for you!

Davidson Loehr, minister at Austin's First Unitarian Universalist Church

One, very enjoyable, hilarious and passionate blogger, The Future Was Yesterday, loathes fundamentalism. Does not particularly care for 'religion' and like most reasonable people, knows and appreciates the distinction between 'religion' and 'spirituality',people who like to control others using their respective Bibles or Korans, and people who quietly live their faith, being the true believer that they are and walking the talk.

I told TUA..that reminds me of Austin's own Davidson Loehr. He participated in a large study called "The Fundamentalist Project" that was sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For five years, from '88 till '93, 100 scholars from around the world reported on their findings on fundamentalism. Here are some 5 basic commonalities between fundamentalism of ALL faiths, and I quote;

The fundamentalists' agenda starts with insistence that their rules must be made to apply to all people, and to all areas of life. There can be no separation of church and state, or of public and private areas of life. The rigid rules of God—and they never doubt that they and only they have got these right—must become the law of the land. Pat Robertson, again, has said that just as Supreme Court justices place a hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution, so they should also place a hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible. In Khomeini's Iran, and in the recent Taliban rule of Afghanistan, we saw how brutal and bloody this looks in real time.

The second agenda item is really at the top of the list, and it's vulgarly simple: Men are on top. Men are bigger and stronger, and they rule not only through physical strength but also and more importantly through their influence on the laws and rules of the land. Men set the boundaries. Men define the norms, and men enforce them. They also define women, and they define them through narrowly conceived biological functions. Women are to be supportive wives, mothers, and homemakers.

A third item follows from the others. (Indeed each part of the fundamentalist agenda is necessarily interlocked, and needs every other part to survive.) Since there is only one right picture of the world, one right set of beliefs, and one right set of roles for men, women, and children, it is imperative that this picture and these rules be communicated precisely to the next generation. Therefore, fundamentalists must control education by controlling textbooks and teaching styles, deciding what may and may not be taught.
Fourth, fundamentalists spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. Men are on top, women are subservient, there is one rigid set of rules, with police and military might to enforce them, and education is tightly controlled by the state. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. The phrase “overcoming the modern” is a fascist slogan dating back to at least 1941.

The fifth point is the most abstract, though it's foundational. Fundamentalists deny history in a radical and idiosyncratic way. Fundamentalists know as well or better than anybody that culture shapes everything it touches: The times we live in color how we think, what we value, and the kind of people we become. Fundamentalists agree on the perverseness of modern American society: the air of permissiveness and narcissism, individual rights unbalanced by responsibilities, sex divorced from commitment, and so on. What they don't want to see is the way culture colored the era when their scriptures were created.

Good biblical scholarship begins by studying the cultural situation when scriptures were written in search of their original intent, so that we can better discern what messages they may still have that are relevant for our lives. But if fundamentalists were to admit that their own scriptures are as culturally conditioned as everything else, they would lose the foundation of their certainties. Some scholars see evidence that St. Paul, for instance, had severe personal hang-ups about sex that may account for his harsh teachings about homosexuality and women. Many biblical scholars treat some of Paul's teachings as rants rather than revelations. But for fundamentalists, their scriptures fell straight from heaven in a leather-bound book, every jot and tittle intact.

Except for the illustrations I've added in laying out the agenda that the Fundamentalism Project discovered, you can't tell what religion, culture, or century I'm describing. The scholars discovered this a dozen years ago while they were presenting abstracts of their papers. Several noted that all their papers were sounding alike, reporting on “species” when studying the “genus” was called for, that there were strong family resemblances between all fundamentalisms, even when the religions had had no contact, no way to influence each other.

bold and italics added by yours truly.

Interesting psychology isn't it? All the people who do not function on the basis of that many fears are all in the same boat the world over. Now if that is not saying something for 'we're all the same'!
At any rate TUA..you'd love reading the whole article;
The Fundamentalist Agenda
is absolutely natural, ancient, and powerful—but the liberal impulse makes us humane. Enjoy!