“I just want Freedom”

A bumper sticker I saw today said “Give me my money, my gun and my freedom: You keep the change.”
Freedom? In Florida? Ha. A thing of the past.
The legislature that runs and spouts on the agenda of less government intrusion and more personal freedom is about to pass SB1070 which at this writing gives any police jurisdiction the right to ask ANY ONE, ANY TIME AND ANY PLACE with no probable cause for proof that they are citizens.
Of course, Canadians and Europeans (read white people) are exempt from having to prove they are citizens if they have their own passports. What about a Jamaican here on holiday that leaves their passport in the hotel? Screwed. The Brazilian? Screwed. All the rest? Screwed.
Me? No, I don’t look like a Mexican roofer, but by god if some cop asks me for proof of citizenship you can visit me in jail. Resistance is the only way to fight this kind of “Freedom”.
What crap. But, scary crap. And Governor Scott says he will sign it into law if it gets on his desk. I wonder if he carries his passport or birth certificate around with him. Oh yeah. He doesn’t have to. He looks “European”.
Image: www.memegenerator.net

Tired?

And while we are at it, let me say this: I am tired of citing essay after essay for accuracy and then having somebody deny the facts. I am tired of ignorant people in the world refusing to see what is before them, or making up some lane alternative to “explain the truth” as they want it to be.
I am tired of trying to logically present facts and truth and documenting, just to have someone tell me “It jest ain’t so” .
So starting with the essay before this little disclaimer I said at the end : “Content: Do your own damn looking up. I’m tired of citing truth and then having it denied.”
I may just be tired. Full stop. But I am at least “up to here” trying to make sense of sensible issues to insensible morons with cheese for brains, or worse, with religion for brains.
Think I am tired?
Image: www.sodahead.com

Miracles My Ass

Boy oh Boy. The fire is getting turned up on education. For years education has been viewed in this country as the territory of the liberal, and the antidote was “Vouchers”. That didn’t fly in most states so the conservative business oriented went instead for “Charter Schools” which are public financed private schools without the accountability of a public oversight.
The stats are clear: charter schools do not produce better results. But, they do pay their teachers less, have no tenure or pesky unions, and no need in most states to follow a curriculum required by the more rigorous public schools. Yes, I know. Some charter schools are very accomplished, but many are just religious wolves in sheep skins. And some are just business rip-offs.
The best schools in the world, typified by Finland, are 100% public with mandatory attendance and well paid, well respected and well protected teachers.
America was once like that. And then we were the envy of the world. Now we are sinking fast in the “business model” of education. Bulls***. Since the conservative agenda started to chip away at schools in the late 70’s and early 80’s, America’s schools have declined steadily. The target is now the higher education system (look at the most recent budget for Pennsylvania for an example, or Florida for that matter) to see the future.
Too late to wake up, though. Kids coming up today are already screwed. Only a miracle would help, and who believes in that?
Oh yeah, you do. You think it’s a Miracle when a Japanese woman and her grandson are found alive after the tsunami. Bulls*** again. The real miracle would have been a great big hand diverting the flood so 20,000 Japanese men, women and children didn’t die in the first place. Don’t tell me about miracles.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34476833@N04/3850299810/
Content: Do your own damn looking up. I’m tired of citing truth and then having it denied.

Abused as a child? Should you tell?

We can all learn something from Stacy Lannert. She killed her father after he raped her repeatedly from the time she was 8 until she turned 18. She didn’t kill him for that, though. She killed him because he told her that her younger sister would take her place, and indeed was preparing to do follow through. She was unable, for legal reasons I can’t fathom, to raise the issue of abuse in her trial, and since she wasn’t a spouse the legal avenues open to spouses were closed to her. So she spent 18 years in prison before being released by the Governor of Mississippi.
There is some contention about the facts in the case. I heard Stacy and I believe her.
What we can learn is not that it is a good thing to kill someone. Not that. What she is doing is far more heroic in my mind. She is going public with her story with the hope of helping other sexually abused people realize that the shame and guilt they may feel is not their fault. That hiding what happened to them helps no one, and maybe by telling their story they can maybe help someone else or themselves.
So this essay is a way of introducing the idea that “going public” with a story of sexual abuse doesn’t have to be an “Oh woe is me. Oh pity poor me” kind of moment. It may just be the push that someone else needs to get help or to begin to understand that an eight year old child is NEVER responsible for being abused. End of story.
More on this in a future essay.
News Summary:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=7168291&page=4
Image: http://ncmbts.blogspot.com/2010/04/secrecy-law-scandal-john-aster-exposed.html

News from the Earth.

According to the JPL and NASA, the quake in Japan has: moved Japan closer to the US; shortened the day by a microsecond or so and; shifted the axis (1 and others). Don’t worry, though. These minor changes are normal results of major plate shifts. The interesting thing is that a mass as large as Earth can be changed at all by a surface action.
When the Chinese announced the building of the huge dam and lake complex, the Three Gorges Dam, calculations showed that this mass of water would change the rotation time, the shape and the axis of the Earth. They built it and it did those things. With no noticeable effect on anything except the 1.8 million people they moved and a reduction in flooding. This complex generates a huge number of megawatts of electric power. The trade off is seen as a good thing for China. Now they can have more people.
Reforestation is moving forward in many places in the world even as deforestation continues to increase.
Fresh water supplies continue to be stressed as more and more people are born and more live longer. The population increases continue to stress the Earthly infrastructure. So what? So nothing, that’s what. I just think it is amazing that human activity can measurably change the face of the Earth. Oh, and new data indicates more melting of the ice sheets and glaciers. This should be good, no? More fresh water? Wrong. That fresh water goes into the oceans and just causes a slight rise in sea level.
All in all we are seeing a positive feedback mechanism at work. Some things, like quakes and tsunamis are independent of human activity while others are a direct or indirect result of our activities. Whatever you think about the political stances you have to be glad that you won’t live to see the next 100 years. Hold on tight folks, there is a bad moon rising. Read the lyrics to Fogerty’s song and see if you don’t get a little chill.

Lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/creedence+clearwater+revival/bad+moon+rising_20034328.html
1. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Japan-Earthquake-Shifts-Earth-s-Axis-Shortens-Days-189265.shtml
Image: http://www.notkeren.com/writing/2009/07/bad-moon-rising/

Shame on the World

Genocide in Rwanda. The world watched as a million were butchered. Genocide in Bosnia. The world stood by while tens of thousands were butchered. Genocide in Kenya. The world stood by while thousands were butchered. Genocide in Sudan. The world stood by while thousands were butchered. Genocide in Germany. The world stood by while millions were butchered.
After all that, and more, you would think we would get the lead out of our collective asses and stop it from happening again. This time Libya. An oppressed people finally aroused by freedom seekers in neighboring countries take to the streets and begin a resistance that turned into a rebellion and then into a civil war. We watched as Gadhafi reeled back, then struck back with airpower, artillery and mercenaries. And we watched while he butchered his own people. The freedom seeking people have begged for help from the free world. Anything. And we stand by and watch.
The UN commissioned a report on alleged human rights abuses. Report due in June. Big f-ing deal. June. A no fly zone in Iraq worked without a preliminary softening up. The jets just flew over and sent a missile into anything that “lit up” with radar. The world could do the same here. In Bosnia the UN targeted tanks and artillery. Then the baddies negotiated.
In Libya we watch. The free world is full of gutless bastards. Us (spell that US) included.
Image: www.patriotactionnetwork.com

About time to get pissed again. But first the good news: unemployment is below 9%, due mostly to the efforts of the DEMOCRATIC administration over the last 2 years; Sara Palin probably can’t get elected President. Bad news abounds: Libyan civilians getting killed by the 100’s; women in Ivory Coast mowed down by tank machine gun fire; union busting going on all over the country.
Unions: Organized groups of laborers that have won all kinds of benefits for EVERYBODY that works, union or not, by collective bargaining for wages, benefits, workplace safety and other things. This country was built on the backs, arms and legs of workers, and without unions we would still be in the dark ages of industrial production. I have only belonged to one union unless you count the AAUP, of which I was an organizer and card-carrying member. The other one is now called the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers International Union for long). Then it was just the “Union”. I joined because I had to in order to keep my job, and yes, my dues were deducted from my pay every week. I loved it.
The efforts now to break the union’s so-called power are a thinly veiled move against the middle and lower-middle class workers, even those not in unions or in “right to work” states. The reason is clear: Republicans want to break the fundraising capabilities of the unions that mostly benefit Democrats. Duh. Since the law passed that allows anybody to spend anything secretly supporting somebody, the Republicans have tried to make it their private turf. Why would anybody in a union vote for a Republican? The Wisconsin debacle is just the tip of the problem for unions. Republican Governors all over the country are lining up to kill public and private sector unions. We are all screwed if that happens. Including the Republicans. Just watch.

Image: www.animationguildblog.blogspot.com

"Fall Off the Perch"

I have written before that I have for decades had the feeling that I would die in the “dead” of winter. And, if I make it to spring, then I have some time to play. Well, today I planted potatoes, weeded the cabbages, watered the orchids and did it in shorts and a tee shirt. I have this feeling that I’m good for another 6-10 months at least.
I wonder where those feelings come from. Sometimes I sense real doom just around the corner, and wait, or look, and it isn’t there. I heard Sally Mann the other day talking about her husband and his muscular dystrophy and how it is progressing. They both affirmed that they didn’t want to know the details of when it would get near terminal. She said she would rather that he “just falls off the perch.” I love that. So would I. Rather just fall off the perch I mean. But my Sally wants some time to get used to it, and so do I if she is the one that falls first. Trouble is you can’t have it both ways mostly. I’m getting too old and cantankerous without being sick and I can’t imagine me being this way and suffering a long slide to the end. So I vote for a modified falling off the perch. Maybe a week of quiet sliding, sign some papers, some murmured nothings, time for family to gather to party, then fall, baby, fall.
Now that sounds like a plan. And it includes time for a few more IPAs.
Image: http://abstract.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/45841/

Revolution Any One?

The news from Libya and Bahrain continues to be bad and good. Bad because protesters are still on the streets and being killed by their governments, and good because they are still protesting for more freedom. These people, mostly young but not all, are putting their lives on the line for an idea. I cannot express my admiration strongly enough, and my sadness for their losses.
Wisconsin is dealing with another kind of criminal leader. This is a Governor who is attempting to gut the unions of the state by voiding the collective bargaining contracts unilaterally. People there are protesting in the streets. Dying for your freedom and protesting for your rights are different in intensity, but not in character. In both cases despotic rulers have overstepped and need to be corrected somehow.
In America we can protest without fear of death or injury, usually. We can also vote out the offending politicians and vote in new ones. Not always better, but at least we can vote. In many places in the Arab world there is no alternative but the street and armed confrontation.
Killing your own people leads to revolution.
Unilaterally killing contract obligations can also lead to revolution.
Revolution any one?
Image:http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/02/9944/live-reporting-wisconsin-protests

Frank Morris and Stanley Nelson

A black man killed, burned to death in his shoe shop in 1964 by the KKK and a white man from the town where he died. If you haven’t heard of either, read the link. There is so much to learn from these men and their stories , and the little essays I write can’t do the job for you. In a nutshell here is what happened:
Frank Morris (wearing hat in photo) was a black shoe repairman living and working in Ferriday Louisiana and was killed in a fire started by KKK members. He was burned out because he had white patrons who respected him. The investigations at the time went nowhere and became a “cold case”. Stanley Nelson, editor of the small town weekly the Concordia Sentinel broke the story in January. The story? That the KKK member that was part of the gang that started the fire was alive and never charged with the crime.
Two heroes uncovered here: Frank Morris for being a black man in the South and daring to have white customers. A man of high principles, a father, husband, church goer. A threat to the bigots of the times; Stanley Morris for being a white man having the courage to pursue the story in the community where the killing occurred.
This is what courage and a free press is all about. If you get a minute, go to the Sentinel website and send Stanley a note of appreciation for his courage to face the community, the families and the killers and standing up. But don’t ever forget that there are two heroes here. Frank Morris and Stanley Nelson. Hey Obama, how about Freedom medals for these Americans?
Image (Morris): http://www.cnycentral.com/news/photos.aspx?id=566371
Image (Nelson): http://blogs.clarionledger.com/jmitchell/files/2011/01/nelson_stanleyBW_150.jpg
Background information at the Concordia Sentinel: http://www.concordiasentinel.com/news.php?category=9