spacey stacy

why would we send our precious children to school?

2011-01-26T11:04:00.003-05:00

it never fails to impress me just how much children learn when they aren't shackled to a school desk all day long busy not learning

there is nothing more necessary to a healthy society than raising children. this society, being unfriendly towards the work that mothers do, keeps itself sick by raising children in sick institutions instead of at home. just because we were all sent to school and institutionalized at a very young age, doesn't mean we should do that to our own kids. we know better, we can do better. they deserve better than that. the future of our world depends on it.

unless, of course, you are okay with raising yet another generation of brainwashed thugs. i'm not.

keyboard sputum

2010-11-17T12:21:00.002-05:00

i'm just dumping my words here where i might can find them again easier than digging through thousands of status updates at facebook... :-)

do you find people acting defensive around you all the time? maybe if you stopped attacking them, they wouldn't feel a need to defend themselves. did that never occur to you? did you think you were helping them? you were wrong. telling other people what they should do is not help, it's just bossy and mean. and you think of yourself as being soooo kind, don't you? i hate bullies.

and to everyone else, those who, like myself, are always being accused of being too defensive, standing up for yourself is not a bad thing!! your voice counts, too.

there are so many different bob dylan lyrics i could start to sing right now. what makes anyone any sort of authority over anyone else? when you assume authority over someone else's actions, thoughts, beliefs, etc, that is the same as tel...ling them they are beneath you, that you think you are somehow better qualified to make their decisions for them. that is the greatest insult of them all. and when it hurts their feelings to be so insulted, constantly, by those who think they are superior in some way or another, those bullies blame us for it, it's our fault for being too sensitive, they were only trying to help. BAH!

the divine right of kings is a lie. the only thing they were born with that the rest of us don't have is money.

and the money system is collapsing along with the other controls, as freedom draws near. now the money is nothing more than numbers in computers. that's all it is. used to just be numbers on paper, but we've "progressed" and the lie is m...ore evident to those who wish to see it for what it is. how is it that those numbers in those computers controls everything you do? where does this power come from? it certainly didn't come from the gods i believe in. it comes from fear. we are taught to be afraid so that we may think we want to be controlled. who puts this fear in our hearts? it does not come from within. who are the real terrorists?

and since i enjoy answering my own questions (even if i might be wrong) i'd say the real terrorists are the bullies, the ones who think they know what's best for other folks.

the ones who claim to be "protecting" us from some threat, real or imagined doesn't matter which, so long as we buy into the fear that allows such abuses to continue.

********

oh but there are different rules for the super-wealthy than for the rest of us. you know why. it's because they are the ones making up the rules as they go along!

who tells governments what laws to pass? chatham house does. who gets invited to meetings at chatham house? not people like me, certainly. not people like you, either. only the very very very rich and powerful get to go to those meetings, where they decide policy that affects all the rest of us.

http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/13276_270109miliband.pdf "managing global insecurity" (in other words, manufacturing fear)

gardenias

2010-06-05T20:07:00.002-04:00

my newest apron

2010-06-04T19:13:00.003-04:00

my apologies for the very hasty blog entry, and the lame description of how i make these aprons. here's how it turned out. i used denim from worn out bluejeans to make a wide waistband, and then a very long tie from bias tape that goes all the way around and ties in the front (my hair has grown too long and gets stuck in the bow when it ties in the back). :-) yes, the kids took this picture, and they were fighting over my camera, hence the growly look on my face. hahahaha

new apron!

2010-05-24T14:04:00.008-04:00

okay, so my husband had a stain on his shirt i couldn't manage to get out. oh dear! so now his old shirt is my new apron! this is one of my favorite sewing projects, ever. i have a few of these shirt-aprons, i really like them a lot. :-)

first, you cut off the collar and along the seam at the top of the shoulder.

turn the shirt inside out, and using a straight-edge, mark a line along the side-seams, leaving a gap where the sleeve is for pockets. stitch along that line, rounding out the sleeve for to make a better shape for the pocket. if you are real slick, you can topstitch that seam from the front of the pocket all the way down to the hem. but if the shirt being used was an old denim workshirt (they do make wonderful aprons!), don't bother with that step as it isn't really necessary.

other than the little strip of fabric trimmed off from straightening the side seams, this is all you will have left over. (most efficient recycling, isn't it?)

then you just gather the top edge and sew on a strip of coordinating or contrasting fabric for the tie. presto! instant apron!! :-)

and best of all, the hem is already done for you!! does anyone else have such a hard time with sewing hems as i do?

big birds

2010-02-16T10:51:00.003-05:00

hawks, two of them, visited my backyard this morning... they let me get a lot closer than usual.

(not sure why blogger has to rearrange the order of the photos, but there you have it)

little birds

2009-10-24T19:03:00.002-04:00

the maple tree in our backyard is full of these little guys. does anyone know what they are?

this about sums it all up

2009-09-19T11:24:00.003-04:00

from my other blog:
http://mamaboogie.gaia.com/blog/2009/9/what-experiences-do-you-think-are-important-for-children-to-have#comments

What experiences do you think are important for children to have?

Posted on Sep 19th, 2009 by boogie

This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for September 18, 2009:

to play in the rain and the mud.
icecream for breakfast.
pony rides.
going to art museums.
the companionship of animals.
putting their feet in the ocean.

the poem aside, there is only one thing children need, and that is to make their own decisions. we maybe can guide them and help them figure out what is best, but we can't make their decisions for them. what children need is for grownups to realize this simple fact. if we set the children free, the entire world will follow. this i believe with all my heart. every mother knows good and well that babies are not born evil, they have to be taught how to do evil things. children know the difference between right and wrong, they don't need us to tell them what to do. they really don't. it's the ones who have been abused, never allowed their own choices to make, that don't know the difference between right and wrong. if we don't allow them to ever follow their heart, they will grow into adults who are unable to hear the truth their heart speaks to them.

the most important lesson i learned from my childhood was that when the pain gets too much, that's when the angels come. the most important lesson i learned as a parent was that it's the same abuse that causes the pain that makes them go away in the first place.

my blog is full

2009-09-15T16:56:00.004-04:00

i don't update this blog regular anymore. not since i started feeling done with this one and went to zaadz. then i let the trolls freak me out and i deleted that blog, but then made a new one there (same website, new name, gaia). now that one's feeling full, too. i'm not saying anything new anymore.

adding more posts at this point would just be fluff.

friends

2009-04-12T15:51:00.003-04:00

introducing george and ned...

aren't kids just so clever? :-)

dominance theory???

2009-03-30T11:48:00.002-04:00

Veterinarians Concerned About Outdated and Confrontational Advice Given by
Cesar Millan The Dog Whisperer

www.AVSABonline.org

In an article written by Timothy Kim for the VIN News Services (5FEB09), an
on-line resource for veterinarians, representatives of the American
Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) have expressed concern about
dog training advice given by Cesar Millan, on his reality TV show, The Dog
Whisperer. The AVSAB is so concerned that they have issued an official
statement (Position Statement on the Use of Dominance Theory in Behavior
Modification of Animals - dominance statement pdf ) to counter the unfortunate
pervasive influence of Millan's show.

In their position statement the AVSAB demonstrates that the dominance theory
which is the core of Millan's approach, has been rejected by animal behavior
experts and can actually cause serious fear aggression in dogs. In the
article, Dr. Laurie Bergman, of Norristown, Pa., a member of AVSAB's
executive board was quoted as saying "We had been moving away from dominance
theory and punitive training techniques for a while, but, unfortunately,
Cesar Millan has brought it back."

Dominance theory has typically been presented as the reason for a dog's
misbehavior. Its basic premise is that the dog is a pack animal like a wolf
and all packs are ruled by the dominant alpha male. Millan essentially
believes that in order to counter a dog's misbehavior, or as he sees it a
"grab for power," a person must be the dominant alpha male and must use
force and coercion to get the dog to behave and submit.

The article describes Millan as using a number of assertive techniques
".negative-reinforcement, or correction. alpha rolls (the dog is rolled onto
its back, a submissive position) and flooding (the dog is exposed to
something that causes it anxiety and is not allowed to escape, to
desensitize it). He also has been shown choking a dog on the end of a leash
until it fell onto its side, gasping for air." These techniques are of great
concern to the AVSAB which has also adopted a position statement on the use
of punishment for training animals (avsab position statement pdf).

The theory of dominance hierarchy was set into motion in 1922 by Thorleif
Schjelderup-Ebbe and his research on chickens. It was popularized by the
Monks of New Skete with their publication of How to Be Your Dog's Best
Friend. This now very dated book, takes the premise that if we want the best
relationship with our dog then we should treat them like an adult wolf would
treat a wolf puppy, at least according to the Monk's understanding of that
scenario. Many of their key recommendations focus on fear and physical
punishment.

Thanks to the work of Dr. L. David Mech, a senior scientist with the U.S.
Geological Survey, we now know that dominance theory does not apply to
wolves in a natural, wild (non-captive) environment (Alpha Status,
Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs pdf).
Research by Dr. Ray and Lorna Coppinger (DOGS: A New Understanding of Canine
Origin, Behavior, and Evolution (Scribner, NY, 2001; Univ. Chicago Press,
2002) has helped us understand that while closely related to the wolf a dog
is not a hunter or a pack animal. Dogs are primarily scavengers and when
living feral often live alone or in very loose groups.

So what does all of this mean? It means that the dominance theory spouted
for years by many in the dog community is a poor model for describing wolf
behavior and is an even worse model for training your dog. Unfortunately,
just like there is still a Flat Earth Society there are still those like
Cesar Millan, who hang on to a dog training model that is erroneous and
based on creating confrontation and fear.

The AVSAB is not the first to question Millan's techniques. On February 23,
2006 the New York Times quoted Dr. Nicholas Dodman [veterinary behaviorist
and director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts University] as saying
''My college thinks it [The Dog Whisperer - Cesar Millan] is a travesty.
We've written to National Geographic Channel and told them they have put dog
training back 20 years.'' Later that same year the American Humane
Association stated "The training tactics featured on Cesar Millan's "The Dog
Whisperer" program are inhumane, outdated and improper"

Kim's article concludes with a statement by Dr. Sophia Yin, a member of the
AVSAB executive board, warning dog guardians to avoid dog trainers and
others who: continually tell owners that they have to be the "alpha," warn
owners not to use rewards too much, and uses pinch collars or shock collars
on dogs in a training class. "The AVSAB recommends that veterinarians not
refer clients to trainers or behavior consultants who coach and advocate
dominance hierarchy theory and the subsequent confrontational training that
follows from it."

"they will come for you anyway"

2009-02-03T11:00:00.001-05:00

http://www.tpuc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=324&p=2393

that very well may be. threats of horrible punishments cannot turn me into a docile sheep, or quiet my voice, because that is in contrast to what my inner spirit tells me i must do. if they wanted me in jail, or dead, for that matter, i'd already be there. and what good would it do their cause? to get rid of some housewife in tennessee that isn't bothering anyone. imagine some faceless army marching up the street bearing machine guns, coming to take me and my children away, what a joke! how could they possibly spin that into anything other than a hollywood fairy tale that the public would never buy. it is not my decision to make, what anyone else might choose to do. what is my responsibility is to decide for myself (without fear of any threats) whether to continue to live in fear and remain silent, or to speak out, at the top of my lungs, if i have to. i choose to believe that i am making a difference, not by giving my power to some group in the hopes that the group has my best interests at heart, but by standing alone and using my power to change my world in a way that benefits everyone, and not just a select few who are members of the right group.

the group has only the "good of the group" as its goal and purpose. that is how the groupthink mindcontrol works. and we don't like those words, do we? no, we don't. words like that makes us cringe, makes us cower in fear, don't they? the group tells you that individually, you are weak and pitiful and you need someone else to help you, to teach you, to lead you, to give you the right answers, because you aren't worthy of making any decisions for yourself. when you join the group, you give up your right to disagree with the majority, regardless how foolish it might be what the majority thinks. my version of anarchy is the opposite of that. it's each individual human being, no matter who they are, believing in themselves. freedom means that we get to make our own decisions for ourselves. autonomy. it means that no group, no organization, be that in the form of church or state, has higher authority than each individual's own innermost guide.

and society tells us we are wrong to believe in ourselves. we need the system. we have been so sorely abused by authority that we lose touch with that inner voice, we forget how strong we are. but there's lots and lots starting to remember. because the only way world peace will ever happen is for all of us to stand up, alone, individually, for everyone else's right to do the same.

...

problem is, the political system does not work. it never has, except to benefit the few at the very tippy top of that pyramid. we want to think it works, don't we? we want to believe in the "american dream" (sure you all have something similar on that side of the pond, don't you? that if we play their game well enough, we can come out on top ...well, never all the way to the top, but we can "succeed" - we can rise above).

so we are divided up into groups, building blocks, as it were, to support the pyramid, the heirarchy of power and control. and the higher up that pyramid we go, the more people we step upon for personal advance, the more we think we are better than them, those who are "beneath" us. a pyramid made entirely of sand would never support its own weight. the sand has to be mixed with lime and aggregate, made into concrete first. and how is this accomplished? mostly with what is popularly known as "education" - indoctrination into the system of control and abuse. and we are told that we should believe the good of the group comes first, and our individual freedoms matter not.

coal ash

2009-01-10T08:26:00.004-05:00

the water filter that would usually last a few months, is clogged after having been replaced just a few weeks ago. the water smells funny, and there’s this light-colored powdery substance left behind…. ick

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98857483

Tennessee Spill: The Exxon Valdez Of Coal Ash?

by Elizabeth Shogren

Morning Edition, December 31, 2008 · There aren't a lot of answers yet about what caused the catastrophic Dec. 22 spill of coal ash from a Tennessee Valley Authority plant near Knoxville. But the disaster has raised lots of questions about whether regulations of coal ash are strict enough.

Coal ash is the stuff that's left over after coal-fired power plants generate electricity and strip out pollutants. Plants produce about 130 million tons of it every year.

"That's enough to fill a line of railroad boxcars stretching all the way from the U.S. to Australia," says Eric Schaeffer, head of a watchdog group called the Environmental Integrity Project. He says he's been watching the growing heaps of coal ash stored at 440 electricity plants around the United States.

In the case of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, the waste had been accumulating for half a century. The mountain of sludge covered more than 100 acres and rose 65 feet into the air before an earthen dam burst, spilling 5.4 million cubic yards of ash that fouled homes and about 300 acres, as well as a river.

Glen Pugh manages solid waste for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and is in charge of regulating the landfill. He says that despite the accident, the regulations were adequate, and TVA was following them.

"I do think our regulations provide for the proper checks and reviews and evaluations," Pugh says. "Something happened here that was unexpected."

Schaeffer says the accident came as no surprise to him.

"We saw this several years ago in Pennsylvania. A little town named Forward Township got buried in a landslide of fly ash," he says. "We went in and tested the ash, and it turned out to be toxic, also full of arsenic just like the TVA site."

Schaeffer says disasters are waiting to happen in other places because coal ash isn't subject to strict federal regulations that govern hazardous wastes. Instead, it's up to states to regulate it — and some don't. Most treat coal ash as though it's not toxic.

"The prevailing myth is that it's safe," Schaeffer says. "We have EPA buying into that for years and really refusing to regulate this material for what it is, which is highly toxic ash that leashes metals like arsenic, cadmium and mercury into drinking water and rivers and creeks."

In 1980, Congress asked the Environmental Protection Agency whether coal ash should be regulated as a hazardous waste. The agency said no in 1993, but kept researching the question. In 2000, the EPA said it should be regulated, but as a nonhazardous waste. So far, however, the agency hasn't produced any rules.

Matt Hale, head of the EPA's solid waste office, says the agency has been studying the problem for 28 years. It's taken so long because, he says, "there's been a significant amount of technical work. Simply, the process has required this amount of time."

Some people think federal oversight is unnecessary. Jim Roewer of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group says states are doing a fine job of regulating the hundreds of ash pits around the country.

"I think that we've only seen four of these rather spectacular events over the last 50 years would underscore the fact that this really isn't an epidemic problem or trend that would call for federal intervention," Roewer says.

But environmentalists say the TVA ash slide will become the Exxon Valdez of the coal industry — and force government to finally regulate coal ash storage.

how much??

2008-10-28T08:10:00.002-04:00

good gawd! and just how many bowls of hot soup would that buy for those who don't have enough to eat this winter? how many blankets would that buy for those who are cold? and why do some people still think any politician actually cares about them?

WASHINGTON — Democrat Barack Obama, who is on track to spend a record $230 million on television advertising, will punctuate his broadcast strategy Wednesday with prime-time commercials on CBS, NBC and Fox.

question...

2008-10-19T21:19:00.001-04:00

if an orange is orange
and amber is amber

what is a purple?

Senate Slips Huge $488 Billion Pentagon War Funding Bill in Under The Radar

2008-10-09T20:22:00.003-04:00

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14967.cfm

Senate Slips Huge $488 Billion Pentagon War Funding Bill in Under The Radar

Senate Slips Huge Pentagon War Funding Bill in Under The Radar
By Tommy News
OpEd News, October 1, 2008
Straight to the Source

The Senate has acted against the will of the American people and caved to the Bush Administration yet again. US Senators donned their Harry Potter invisibility cloaks and under the cover of darkness late Saturday night, with the smoke and mirrors distraction of the Wall Street bailout, quietly voted on and passed a huge, outrageous spending bill that gives an additional $488 Billion dollars to the Bush Administration and The Pentagon for funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There has been a near media blackout of this vote, and we need to get the word out that this outrageous warfunding is quietly continuing while the news media is being distracted by the gigantic and horrendous Wall Street bailout bill.

While we have all been preoccupied with the staggering $700 billion bail-out of wall street, boggled with the size of the dollar amount, having to raise the National debt limit and borrow money from foreign nations to fund it, late Saturday night the Senate passed a bill of a comparably huge dollar amount which made little news, but gives $488 Billion to the Pentagon for the continued funding of the the war, There has been a near media blackout of this vote, and we need to get the word out that this outrageous warfunding is quietly continuing while the news media is being distracted by the gigantic and horrendous Wall Street bailout bill.

The Pentagon is in line for a record budget. In addition to $70 billion approved this summer for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department would receive $488 billion, a 6 percent increase. The spending bill was bundled in with a bill which also offers aid to victims of flooding in the Midwest and recent hurricanes across the Gulf Coast. The total cost of the spending legislation exceeds $630 billion.

Such a huge bill usually would dominate the end-of-session agenda on Capitol Hill. But it went below the radar screen because attention focused on the congressional bailout of Wall Street.

The bill was quietly rushed to Bush's desk to be signed into law, and John McCain rushed quietly back out of Washington and yet again avoided having to vote on another controversial spending bill. When the roll call on final passage occurred, McCain was at his campaign headquarters in Crystal City, Va., only five miles from the Capitol. McCain has missed a staggeringly huge number of Senate votes.

With the election fast approaching, I want to give you a breakdown of the 78-12 Senate vote as recorded in the Congressional Record. I urge you to take this outrageous spending vote into strong consideration when you cast your votes on November 4th.

*From the Congressional Record:*

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00208

Sammy the Dragon

2008-10-04T12:26:00.003-04:00

a nice little coloring page created by my oldest daughter.

red-tailed hawk vs rattlesnake

2008-09-16T17:19:00.001-04:00

cool video

i highly recommend muting it and watching in full screen. ;-)

mass hysteria

2008-09-12T09:41:00.004-04:00

so our local news created a panic yesterday. there was a run on gas. hardly any stations had any gasoline left in their tanks, and there were long lines last night, people going crazy, getting bent out of shape, about to fight each other.

link one

link two

it's the same thing they do when the weather looks like it might snow, everyone rushes to the grocery store and buys up all the bread and milk. it is somewhat frightening to see how easily my neighbors are manipulated by what they see on the teevee.

update: as of noon today, everything seems back to normal. i noticed the price had gone up 40 cents since i filled up the tank two days ago. there were lots of cars at every station, but no lines.

and more...

2008-09-02T09:03:00.001-04:00

3-D mandalas i created using chaoscope (see previous blog entry):

chaoscope

2008-09-02T06:23:00.002-04:00

from their website:
"Chaoscope is a 3D strange attractors rendering software." (link)

and here are some pictures i made using the free software...

life of work

2008-08-29T06:39:00.001-04:00

Longest Walk 2

2008-06-15T09:06:00.000-04:00

Hello Friends, Supporters, Colleagues and Walkers –

LONGEST WALK 2: The Final Stretch Into D.C.
by Tashina Banks Moore, National Coordinator
June 12, 2008

Hard to believe it’s been four months of walking already! To date, The Longest Walk 2 northern and southern routes have covered over 6,000 miles through 17 states with less than a month to go to reach Washington , DC on July 11, 2008. We need your support. We INVITE YOU TO JOIN US IN D.C. on July 11, 2008 as we take the last steps of The Longest Walk 2 journey and the first steps on our next – taking our concerns to an International audience. JOIN US on July 11, 2008 to send a powerful message to the lawmakers of this country that we have a message to deliver and we seek accountability from our government.

Sponsors needed for Welcome Celebration on Washington , DC . As we prepare for the Welcome Celebration on the National Mall at Washington Monument July 11-13, we are seeking sponsors to support the celebration expenses such as sound, lighting and travel expenses to help bring in Native American artists and performers.

Tentative Schedule of Welcome Days in Washington, DC.:

July 7 – 10: Cultural Survival Summit at Greenbelt Park, Maryland (National Park Service)
July 11: Longest Walk 2 Final Leg Into Washington, DC - meeting point: TBD / Press Conference
July 12 & 13: Welcome Celebration – Washington Monument

Dennis Banks, my father, has asked the national committee to put a CALL OUT FOR BIKERS. The Longest Walk invites bikers from around the country to join us as we enter D.C. A motorcade of 1,000 bikers to open the path for the Walkers would make a powerful statement!

Please spread the word and send this email to anyone who wants to join The Longest Walk as we walk into Washington , DC .

SHORT TERM SUPPORT ALSO NEEDED: both routes are in need of funds to get them through the last days – gas prices are over $4/gallon and food costs are also rising. We ask you to please go to www.longestwalk.org and make an online donation if you can - $5.00, $10.00, $100.00, $1,000.00, $10,000 whatever you can afford.

Tashina Banks Moore
Volunteer
National Coordinator
LONGEST WALK 2008
www.longestwalk.org
www.myspace.com/longestwalk

hawks

2008-06-02T10:15:00.000-04:00

hawk

2008-05-23T18:10:00.003-04:00

For Tawodi, my dear friend. You are in my thoughts.

May your broken heart heal to beat stronger than ever before.

got some things to talk about

2008-05-21T05:52:00.003-04:00

Whoa, oh, what i want to know
will you come with me?

www.longestwalk.org

trying to get anybody excited about helping out the Longest Walk is the most discouraging endeavor I have ever undertaken. (undertaken? does that make me an undertaker? haha)

seriously, some people have offered to bring some food, and there's one person, Tammera Hicks, who has been a HUGE help. She found the campsite, after I kept running into brick wall after brick wall, she got it taken care of, and I couldn't thank her enough for all the help she's been. I honestly thought this was such a big deal that there'd be hundreds of local volunteers signed up to help out, and I was the only one here in town who did. I never intended to do more than help prepare food. Nobody else stepped up to the plate, but there's plenty who have problems with the things I have done. well...??? uh...

anybody reading this? well, we need volunteers to help out with food when the Longest Walk comes through Chattanooga. All I'm trying to accomplish is getting together enough food to feed about 200 people. that's all. I figured a pot-luck would be the cheapest, easiest way for people to contribute. Anybody can cook a pot of beans, you would think.

Sunday Morning Ramblings

2008-05-18T09:12:00.007-04:00

The doves have built their nest taller as their babies have gotten bigger. I often see a little head poking up, looking out at the world, and I sometimes even get to watch as the parents feed their little ones. They will stop and look at me watching them, then just go about their business.

My pink roses in the front yard are almost ready to start blooming. Almost. The red roses are in full swing, though recent rains have left the branches drooping under the weight of all those wet blooms. Irises are done, cleaned up the mess this morning, some of it anyway. Time to mow down the daffodil leaves, they look raggedy. Something that looks like trumpet vine is coming up EVERYWHERE, even in the driveway. Birds must have brought it somehow, I sure didn't plant the stuff. When I go outside, everything smells of rain and roses and honeysuckle (try as I may, I will never defeat that Japanese Honeysuckle. I will not give up the fight!!). And, best of all, there are a bajillion (yes, a bajillion) flower buds on my gardenia bushes. :-)

Little Cedar Mountain

2008-05-17T10:12:00.010-04:00

for the "official" TVA government line of bullshit, click either of these links:

http://www.tva.gov/environment/reports/littlecedar2/index.htm
http://www.tva.gov/environment/reports/littlecedar/

From local Channel 9 website:

http://www.newschannel9.com/news/tva_968032___article.html/cedar_mountain.html

TVA Discusses Management of Controversial Little Cedar Mtn. Land

April 18, 2008 - 10:21AM

Richard Simms

TVA officials will be holding a public tour of a new interpretive trail at Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area and TVA's resource management plan for the Lower Nickajack Properties.

The area has been the subject of much controversy in recent years as developers sought more than than 600 acres of public land for an exclusive golf course and housing development. (link - s)

The TVA Board finally voted to sell the land to developer John Thornton in a trade-off deal after Thornton purchased several other tracts of lakefront property to offer in a barter deal for the Little Cedar Tract.

However TVA retained ownership of the area known as Little Cedar Mountain just South of I-24 at the Nickajack Dam Exit where the public interpretive trail will be located.

In addition, TVA is making plans for the future management of other tracts obtained in the deal known as Burns Island, the Boyd Farm and Big Cedar Mountain.

DETAILS

WHAT:
Discussion and tour of new interpretive trail at Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area and TVA's resource management plan for the Lower Nickajack Properties.

WHO:
TVA Endangered Species Biologist Hill Henry and TVA Watershed Team Representative Andy Lawson

WHEN:
10 a.m., Tuesday, April 22 (please note the date this story was aired - s)

WHERE:
Meet at Nickajack Dam

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
TVA has received inquiries from several organizations and the public regarding the strategy for using property acquired during TVA's Supplemental Environmental Assessment at Little Cedar Mountain in Marion County, Tenn. TVA is developing a comprehensive resource management plan on four parcels in the vicinity of Nickajack Dam -- collectively referred to as the Lower Nickajack Properties. They include Boyd's Farm, Burn's Island, Cedar Mountain tracts and TVA's Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area. The plan being developed defines proposed management goals, objectives, and activities designed to protect cultural and natural resources and improve public access on each tract.

Hill Henry and Andy Lawson will conduct a guided tour of the new interpretive trail at Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area, discuss stabilization of Burn's Island and plans for the use and access of the Boyd's Farm property.

The activities will occur rain or shine.

(also please note the lack of any mention of Native American artifacts, including bones and human remains, that have been found in the area. Also the lack of mention of any concerns regarding such artifacts. - s)

2008-05-13T09:24:00.005-04:00

I believe that eggshell came from the doves' nest in the eaves of our house, but I am not certain of that. Yesterday I watched as the baby robins learned to fly. They still have fuzzy feathers poking up in all directions, and can't fly more than about ten feet before having to stop for a rest. This morning, it was a baby mockingbird came to visit me. So sweet. Doesn't have the white stripes in his tail feathers yet but he was flipping that tail just like any grown-up mockingbird.

Big Mama Bunny Rabbit must have had her new babies. The bigger babies have been kicked out of the nest, and are hopping around in the ditch behind our house as I type this. We'll just think of them as hawk food, and hope they leave me a few veggies from my garden this year.

yesterday, in the garden...

2008-05-10T09:52:00.002-04:00

ignorance

2008-05-08T12:28:00.002-04:00

REALITY

2008-05-07T08:04:00.002-04:00

is like a jar of marbles, infinite in scope and magnitude
all different possible colors and sizes of marbles
some of them move very fast, some move slow
some are sticky, and like to congregate with other sticky marbles
forming clumps and clusters and groups.
some are unstickable.
each marble has it's own awareness,
and it's own unique perspective on what the "jar" consists of.
but from any one given standpoint, none of them can possibly see this jar,
or really ever know if it exists or not.
and pragmatically (in Jamesian terms, not the new definition of that word)
what difference does it make, anyway?

2008-05-03T20:21:00.000-04:00

2008-04-29T19:30:00.000-04:00

today in my garden

2008-03-23T19:21:00.003-04:00

HAPPY SPRING, EVERYONE!!

2008-03-21T08:12:00.008-04:00

there is a red-tailed hawks' nest in a tree in our front yard:
There are two hawks. I assume they are a breeding pair. we don't see them hunting in the neighborhood so much anymore, but i have seen them coming in to roost right at dusk.

AND... not one, but THREE golden eagles have consistently been heard calling and seen flying overhead!

what suprised me the most, was how completely different eagles are from hawks. i mean, you think big bird of prey, same same. but NO! They look different, they act different, they sound different. they simply aren't the same at all... neat, huh?

toxins found in "natural" products

2008-03-15T09:51:00.002-04:00

CONSUMER ALERT:CANCER-CAUSING INGREDIENT FOUND IN LEADING "ORGANIC" & "NATURAL" PERSONAL CARE PRODCUTS

A newly released study commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and overseen by environmental health consumer advocate David Steinman (author of The Safe Shopper's Bible), revealed the presence of the undisclosed carcinogenic contaminant 1,4-Dioxane in leading shampoos, body washes, lotions and other personal care and household cleaning products claiming to be "natural" or "organic". The study results, to be released this weekend at the Natural Products Expo in California, are already sending shockwaves through the "organic" and "natural" body care industry. Laboratory tests showed that products certified under the USDA National Organic Program DID NOT contain this toxin, but most of the best selling personal care products claiming to be "organic" (but not USDA certified) contained the cancer-causing ingredient. All leading self-proclaimed "organic" brands have at least a few individual "certified organic" ingredients, but for most of these top-selling brands, the product, as a whole, is not USDA organic certified, thereby allowing the presence of synthetic toxins. Similar studies have revealed the presence of this toxin in conventional personal care products, but this is the first study indicating the presence in misleadingly labeled "organic" and "natural" products. Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/comingclean.cfm

HOW TO AVOID 1,4-DIOXANE IN YOUR PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS:

Some of the products found to contain 1,4-Dioxane: JASON Pure Natural & Organic, Giovanni Organic Cosmetics, Kiss My Face, Nature’s Gate Organics (see a full list of OCA's study results here)

Remember that just because a personal care product labels itself with the words "organic" or "certified organic" doesn't mean it meets any specified organic standards.

Look for products that are certified under the USDA National Organic Program (or a similar German program) and products that bear the "USDA Organic" seal.

Search product labels for ingredients with the following in their names to avoid products containing 1,4-Dioxane: myreth, oleth, laureth, ceteareth, any other eth, PEG, polyethylene, polyethylene glycol, polyoxyethylene, or oxynol.

In general, avoid products with unpronounceable ingredients to be sure to avoid synthetic toxins and carcinogens.

good morning, sunshine!

2008-03-13T08:37:00.003-04:00

tell the EPA to stop allowing factory farms to poison the air

2008-02-28T16:26:00.000-05:00

ALERT OF THE WEEK:
EPA GIVES FACTORY FARMS RIGHT TO IGNORE POLLUTION LAWS

The EPA is accepting public comments until March 27, 2008 on an outrageous proposal to eliminate clean air standards for factory farms. Federal laws currently require industry of any type to report hazardous substances they are spewing into the atmosphere, but according to the EPA, factory farms should be exempt so as to "to reduce the burden on the regulated community." It's time to tell the EPA to stop allowing factory farms to poison the air in our rural communities. Learn more and take action:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10380.cfm

things kids say

2008-02-26T11:33:00.001-05:00

oldest daughter: "if we try to go normal, we'll go crazy instead"

younger daughter: "if I'm a fairy, that makes you an angel, Mommy!"

USDA extends comment period on "naturally raised" labelling of meat

2008-02-14T07:31:00.000-05:00

FOOD LABELING ALERT:
PUT THE "NATURAL" BACK IN MEATS LABELED AS "NATURALLY RAISED"

Thanks to a backlash of consumer letters from concerned consumers, the USDA has extended its public comment period on its proposed standard for meats labeled as "naturally raised". A 2007 Consumer Reports survey found that 83% of consumers assume a "naturally raised label means "it came from an animal raised in a natural environment." Yet the USDA's proposed standard is so weak, it would apply to a cloned animal raised in the confines of a factory farm, and fed a steady diet of genetically engineered grains. The public comment period on this labeling standard will close on March 3, so take action now: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9692.cfm

"Subdue yourselves to the federation of the world, or else"

2008-02-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

H.G. Wells:
Subdue yourselves to the federation of the world, or else
Old-Thinker News Feb. 7, 2008

By Daniel Taylor

H.G. Wells is perhaps best known for his status as the father of science fiction and his "War of the Worlds", which was recently transformed into a modern Hollywood production. Unknown to many, Wells penned several other books and essays which were not of the science fiction genre. The "New World Order", and the "Open Conspiracy" are two notable pieces that Wells produced.

Wells wrote the first edition of "The Open Conspiracy" in 1928. This book details what Wells called the "Open Conspiracy" among intellectual elites who despise the old order of things and desire to work towards a grand world directorate, a global society in which individuals no longer hold fast to tradition, but yield themselves willingly to the world state for the good of all. The Open Conspiracy utilizes propaganda, educational and governmental reform, and other forms of influence to achieve its goals. The scientific management of the world is at the heart of the open conspirators agenda. Of course, this tight management is sold as being for the benefit of all.

Population control is named by Wells in the Open Conspiracy as a "primary condition" of the world directorate. Wells writes,

"There is a clear hope that, later, directed breeding will come within his [mankind's] scope, but that goes beyond his present range of practical achievement, and we need not discuss it further here. Suffice it for us here that the world community of our desires, the organized world community conducting and ensuring its own progress, requires a deliberate collective control of population as a primary condition.

Very slight adjustments in social and economic arrangements will, in a world of clear available knowledge and straightforward practice in these matters, supply sufficient inducement or discouragement to affect the general birth rate or the birth rate of specific types as the directive sense of the community may consider desirable.

We want watchful and understanding guardians and drivers of complex delicate machines, which can be mishandled and brutalized and spoilt all too easily. The less disposed these masters of our machines are to inordinate multiplication, the more room and food in the world for their ampler lives. Even to the lowest level of a fully-mechanicalized civilization it is required that the human element should be select."

A concise and bluntly stated summary of Wells' idea of a federation of the world can be found in the introduction that he wrote for prominent eugenicist Margaret Sanger in her book "Pivot of Civilization", written in 1922. Wells speaks with an authoritarian and elitist voice condemning the world for misusing the "gifts" that the elite have so kindly presented to mankind. He writes these chilling words,

"The New Civilization is saying to the Old now: "We cannot go on making power for you to spend upon international conflict. You must stop waving flags and bandying insults. You must organize the Peace of the World; you must subdue yourselves to the Federation of all mankind. And we cannot go on giving you health, freedom, enlargement, limitless wealth, if all our gifts to you are to be swamped by an indiscriminate torrent of progeny. We want fewer and better children who can be reared up to their full possibilities in unencumbered homes, and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict upon us."

With this one paragraph, Wells succeeds in presenting the full intent of population control: total domination.

See more on this in an upcoming report:
An Introduction to The Open Conspiracy - Utopian Dreams of a World Scientific Dictatorship
Preview:

"The world is shifting to a globalized structure. The infrastructure of world governance is nearly complete. Proclamations of a "New World Order" herald the emergence of a new global order of nations, once sovereign but now interlocked with international organizations and bound by allegiance to the world state. Is this the natural trend of governance and human affairs, as some would say, or a deliberate, systematic, scientific attempt by the elite of the world to forge a new global order?"

http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker%20news/hg_wells_subdue_yourselves_to_the_federation.htm

daffodils!

2008-02-10T11:45:00.001-05:00

to those of you in colder climes:

neener
neener
NEENER

couldn't resist taking a photo of the sweet iris, too.

looks like I'll have flowers in bloom by my birthday!! :-)

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK CAPTURES 53 OF AMERICA'S LAST WILD BISON

2008-02-09T05:57:00.000-05:00

BUFFALO FIELD CAMPAIGN (BFC)
P.O. BOX 957
WEST YELLOWSTONE, MONTANA 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

* PRESS RELEASE*
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK CAPTURES 53 OF AMERICA'S LAST WILD BISON

Park Intends to Slaughter Without Testing; Calves May Be Sent to Experimental Quarantine Facility

For Immediate Release, February 8, 2008
Contact: Buffalo Field Campaign,
Stephany Seay 406-646-0070

GARDINER, MONTANA - Yellowstone National Park officials captured 53 wild American bison this morning inside the Stephens Creek bison trap located within Yellowstone National Park's borders. The captured bison are members of the last wild, genetically intact population existing in the United States, and number fewer than 4,600. Most, if not all, will be sent to slaughter without being tested for brucellosis antibodies.

"The National Park Service is caving in to the unreasonable demands of Montana's livestock industry at the expense of an American icon, our national heritage," said Stephany Seay, media coordinator for Buffalo Field Campaign.

The bison were captured for following their natural migratory instincts and walking onto habitat that is privately owned by the Church Universal & Triumphant (CUT). CUT land hosts fewer than 250 head of cattle. Wild bison are also refused access to publicly owned Gallatin National Forest lands adjacent to Yellowstone National Park and CUT property. In the winter months, grasslands in the Park are obscured by deep snow and bison and other wild ungulates venture to lower-elevation habitat where they find critical forage necessary for survival.

Yellowstone National Park officials said they will send the adult bison to slaughter without first testing them for exposure to brucellosis.

Bison calves may be tested for brucellosis antibodies. If testing occurs, those testing negative for antibodies will be sent to a state-federal quarantine feasibility study facility, while the rest will be slaughtered. More than half of the calves previously captured and quarantined by the government have been slaughtered, while the rest are being raised in pens like livestock.

Cattle interests claim such actions are necessary to prevent the spread of brucellosis, a livestock disease introduced to native wildlife in the early 20th century, from wild bison to cattle. However, there has never been a documented case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis to cattle.

"In one day the National Park Service is sending more than half as many bison to slaughter as have been killed during Montana's entire three-month bison hunt," said Mike Mease, co-founder of Buffalo Field Campaign. "When will the Park Service understand that they are in charge of protecting our wildlife, not protecting cattle interests?"2,120 wild American bison have been killed or otherwise removed from the remaining wild population since 2000 under actions carried out by the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP), as well as state and treaty hunts. The IBMP is a joint state-federal plan that prohibits wild bison from migrating to lands outside of Yellowstone's boundaries.

Wild American bison are a migratory species native to vast expanses of North America and are ecologically extinct everywhere in the United States outside of Yellowstone National Park.Buffalo Field Campaign strongly opposes the Interagency Bison Management Plan and maintains that wild bison should be allowed to naturally and fully recover themselves throughout their historic native range, especially on public lands.

Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field, every day, to stop the slaughter of the wild American buffalo. Volunteers defend the buffalo and their native habitat and advocate for their lasting protection. Buffalo Field Campaign has proposed real alternatives to the current mismanagement of American bison that can be viewed at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/solutions.html
For more information, video clips and photos visit: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

- 30 ---

Media & Outreach
Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

BFC is the only group working in the field every dayin defense of the last wild buffalo in the U.S.

springtime already?

2008-02-04T08:08:00.000-05:00

There's dafodils about to start blooming. The breeding pair of red-shouldered hawks have returned and are taking nest materials to all of the tall trees nearby. Didn't think they'd want to raise their babies with the red-tailed hawk's feeding platform nest in my front yard (no babies, seems she just uses it to eat the critters), but they don't seem concerned with her. I love them, they sing to each other all morning long. Glad they came back again this year. Maybe we'll get to see them raise some more babies.

The Longest Walk 2

2008-02-02T09:28:00.001-05:00

The Longest Walk 2 (if link doesn't work, make sure the www is in there)

On Feb. 11th, Longest Walk participants will embark on a 5 month journey from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. arriving on July 11th. The Longest Walk south route is being led by AIM co-founder Dennis J. Banks. It is an extraordinary grassroots effort on a national level to bring attention to the environmental disharmony of Mother Earth, sacred site issues, and to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original longest walk.

...

The Longest Walk is open to people of all nations and cultures. You will be asked to fill out a registration form and abide by the code of conduct/guidelines/principles of unity.

The Longest Walk 2 – Southern Route is being organized and led by American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis J. Banks, elders and original 1978 Walkers. Communities welcoming the Longest Walk 2-Southern Route are: Rumsey Wintun, Three Rivers, Santa Rosa Tachi, Mojave, Chumash, United Farm Workers, Navajo Nation, Houma Nation and the Choctaw to name a few. The Nipponzan Miyohoji Buddhists from Japan will be joining The Longest Walk 2 - Southern Route.

The purpose of the Southern route is to continue and carry the message from the Longest Walk of 1978: "The Longest Walk is an Indian spiritual walk, a historical walk; and it is a walk for educational awareness to the American and the world communities about the concerns of American Indian people." The Longest Walk 2 is walking to create awareness about the environment. We are walking to protect sacred sites in our country. We are walking to promote positive change in our world.

The Longest Walk 2 is a peaceful, spiritual effort to engage with the public about restoring harmony with the environment by leading an effort to clean up the lands surrounding our highways. We will be launching The Clean Up Mother Earth Campaign where our Longest Walk participants will work together to clean up our country's highways and roads by collecting debris found along the Longest Walk route. This monumental task will engage Walkers in a global effort at a grassroots level to promote harmony with our delicate environment. A rotating team of walkers will pick up trash along the way with trash pokers leaving a healthy trail in their path.

We take up this task to walk in a manner befitting our nations. We shall walk for the Seventh Generation, for peace, for justice, for healing of Mother Earth, for the healing of our people suffering from diabetes, heart conditions and other diseases.

We are Cleaning Up Mother Earth mile-by-mile, village-to-village, city-to-city, state-to-state and shore-to-shore from Alcatraz Island to Washington, D.C. We walk with the message: All Life is Sacred.

...

If you are interested in walking please be sure to read the following pages on our website:
FAQ's
Walker Resources Page
First-Aid Zine for Walkers (Right Click to download 1.4mb pdf)
If you do decide to register for the walk you will receive an orientation packet upon completion of your registration. Currently we are registering only volunteers, who can walk the whole way as well. You can fill that out online here.
Here is a Link to the Northern Route Overview

quotes for today

2008-01-31T17:31:00.000-05:00

"Farmers are seeing little of the huge profits ethanol refiners like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) are banking... ADM will earn an estimated $1.3 billion from ethanol alone in the 2007 fiscal year."
From New York Times article: "How ADM makes a killing on ethanol"

"The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before."
Economist Lester Brown speaking to the Des Moines Register 1/25/2008

http://www.organicconsumers.org/

on freedom, revistited

2008-01-21T11:02:00.000-05:00

would like to share with you all a little something I posted here:
http://friendstacy.gaia.com/blog/2008/1/from_lakota_oyate_with_comments

Greetings, everyone. I have many new friends here, you might not have read much of what I like to blog about. I'm an anarchist. I don't believe in governmental rule, period. This is how I interpret those truths revealed to me by my ancestors when I seek within for the answers. My ancestors, for the most part, are Lakota. I have to believe that there are other people in this world that share my viewpoint, but I can only take it on faith that they do, as they never replied when I asked for their assistance in the past. So this is my own personal truth, truth I found when I look within for answers. It does not come from the teachings of any human person, any book of ancient wisdom, any religious doctrine or political treatise.

I speak only for myself, from my heart. A very human heart. I believe in freedom. I believe it can really work, people can be free if they so choose to be. It is up to each individual person to make that decision, it cannot be made for them by others. THIS is my big problem with the world we live in today. Our decisions are all pre-made by those in control. We aren't granted autonomy, but sometimes the illusion of a choice is offered us. That makes people feel a little better and helps them sleep at night. I feel this current situation is unacceptable! I don't want the illusion of choices between options which represent false distinctions and are really all the same.

so, given the choice between Russel Mean's REPUBLIC and Bush's tyranny, who can possibly choose Bush? wrong. a new republic means nothing changes. a new republic means that Plato's plan for humanity is still in place. Government control of the people is not an option, no matter how sugar-coated it might be. In order to explain myself, I have to start with Plato. and we have to look into conspiracy theories that might make us uncomfortable. We have to learn about the globalist ruling elite, those few who run the whole show. And we have to search for truth in history, because most of it is lies. But most importantly, we have to break free of the operant conditioning from the indoctrination centers we know as schools and church.

We have to question our education first of all!! We must question all of it, every thing we hold to be true. We must ask "why do I believe this is true?" and if the answer is only because they told me to believe it, or if they threatened me with horribleness if I chose not to believe it, that means there are more questions that need to be asked.

My quest is not one for answers, but rather one for QUESTIONS!! I'm nowhere near learning Truth and Wisdom, or reaching some imaginary "enlightenment" - not me!! I'm still tearing down the false ideas I always thought were true. Things I was misled to believe. And as the lies crumble down, truth is left standing tall and strong and permanent.

Problem is, where those lies originated. The lies are told by those who seek to rule. They must lie to us in order to make us believe we want to be ruled. the parallels between politics and domestic violence are horrendous. They tell us we are stupid. They beat it into our brains with television and the non-stop onslaught of advertisements telling us to buy something. What they want us to buy aren't just the crap goods made by child slave labor in countries far far away. What they want us to buy is the whole package, this system that makes us slaves to the few in charge. and they're real good at it, too. Been doing it this way over 2000 years!

They make all decisions for us. Here are your rules, The Law. OBEY. Do not question authority, ever! If you do, horrible horrible things will happen to you. You might even spend eternity burning in hell. Plato planned it all out this way, check it out. The Republic isn't a difficult read, and you can find it online for free or at any public library. Plato's plan was to make the idea of the "good of the group" more important than anything else in society. this is how they get us to choose not to decide. Yes, it is a choice we make when we give the power to make decisions over to an authority. And I'm not saying that is always wrong. What I'm saying is that it is wrong when we are lied to in order to get us to make that choice. I'm saying it is wrong when someone chooses to rule others. What needs to happen is each person needs the freedom to make their own decisions, including the decision to follow any given leader at any given time for any given reason of their own. What needs to happen is for people to just simply start making their own decisions.

I do very strongly believe that people have the ability to be self-governing and not need government rule. Lots of other people have believed this throughout history, too. Lots of very intelligent, very highly respected people. Why is it that we still have government? What are we so afraid of that we can't trust ourselves and our fellow humans?

and back to Plato, just one last time. He left us a way out. Not by what is in The Republic, but what is missing from it. There is no mention of Socrates' Daimonion, his inner guiding voice, in all of The Republic. But it is a major part of most all other Socratic dialogues. This is our way out!! All we gotta do is listen to that inner voice that tells us right from wrong. The answer is right before us, ALL of us, each and every one! The only possible place you will ever find Truth, is from looking within. It's not from following the right poitician who claims to be fighting the corrupt system that supports his own extravagant way of life, or the right general into battle. It's not from listening to the right guru or believing in the right god. It's not from praying the right way or meditating on the right mountain or with the right people. It's something each person must decide for themselves.

It's up to you. What kind of world do your children deserve to inherit? Make it happen. Don't do what anyone else tells you to do, do what your heart says is right.

the top agricultural breakthroughs of 2007

2008-01-19T08:13:00.000-05:00

SUSTAINABILITY NEWS OF THE WEEK:
THE TOP AGRICULTURAL BREAKTHROUGHS OF 2007

Although the biotech industry and our indentured corporate mass media would have us believe that recent scientific advances in food and farming are derived from genetic engineering and chemicals, according to UK-based GM Watch, the real breakthroughs in farming in 2007 came from organic and sustainable agriculture:

1) In 2007 a deluge of new scientific studies from a wide variety of institutions indicate that in comparison to genetically modified (GM) crops, organic agriculture can better feed the world, reduce global warming, provide greater nutrition, and boost the economy. Digesting new research on the topic, the United Nations announced that organic agriculture is the best way to feed the world and help stabilize the climate.

2) A wide range of new, non-GM crops over the last year are bringing hope to farmers around the world. Some of these include:- A wheat variety that can withstand high salinity in soil, thereby opening up vast tracks of land previously considered "dead".- Non-GM corn and rice varieties that can tolerate droughts.- Indian farmers find traditional cotton varieties to be much more stress-resistant than GM cotton. - Iron fortified non-GMO maize strain reduces anemia rates in children. -Discovery of non-GM variety of allergen-free peanut.

Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9572.cfm

SNOW!

2008-01-17T08:14:00.000-05:00

it's quickly melting now, but I snapped some quick photos last night...

neat, huh?

Lakota Oyate

2008-01-08T13:30:00.000-05:00

lakotahoyate.net

Lakota Oyate represents the voice of the free Lakota oyate (people) from what was known as the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota,South Dakota and Montana. In our freedom, we reject the colonial apartheid system that has caused genocide to our people, and to all Indigenous peoples.

Lakota Oyate emerges from the work of the Lakota Freedom Delegation. Now that we have returned from Washington D.C., we work to ensure the voice of the oyate - the Elders, children and all people - are respected and heard in the rebirth of the Lakota Nation.

We do not represent those BIA or IRA governments beholden to the colonial system, but we encourage all people to reclaim their freedom. We do not support the imposition of the "Republic of Lakotah" or its so-called "provisional government" which does not represent the will of the people nor the spirit of the Animal Nations which survive within the Elders and children.

http://lakotahoyate.net/portfolio.html

http://eeng.net/CS/blogs/smileycoyote/default.aspx

there's a lovely discussion at my zaadz blog on this topic

any additional resources that you know of, please post links in the comments!

lakotafreedom.com now redirects to republicoflakota.com
if you've been reading my blog, like ever before, you know I gots big BIG problems with Plato's Republic and any government based upon rule by an elite class of people who are somehow better suited to govern (control) us than we are ourselves and based upon the good of the group rather than what's good for each and every individual person.

from organic consumer news

2008-01-04T19:42:00.000-05:00

PRODUCT PLUNDER OF THE WEEK:
SPLENDA GOES TO COURT
A federal court has rejected a request for summary judgment in a lawsuit launched by the Sugar Association against Splenda. The plaintiff alleges Splenda, a Johnson & Johnson company, is falsely advertising to consumers with its marketing slogan "Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar". Splenda is the synthetic compound sucralose, discovered in 1976 by scientists in Britain seeking a new pesticide formulation. The artificial sweetener is made by replacing hydroxyl groups in the sugar molecule with chlorine. There are no long-term studies of the side effects of Splenda in humans. The manufacturer's own short-term studies showed that sucralose caused shrunken thymus glands and enlarged livers and kidneys in rodents. But in this case, the FDA decided that because these studies weren't based on human test animals, they were not conclusive. As a result, Splenda is now one of the most ubiquitous ingredients in low calorie processed foods.Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9306.cfm

the seed catalogs have arrived!!

2007-12-29T11:55:00.000-05:00

yessirreee, it's that time again. Time to daydream about all the wonderful things I'd like to grow in my garden come Spring. Time to make plans, figure out what I want to do and weigh that against what I can realistically expect to get done. This new year, I think my resolution should be to make plans I can actually stick with. I need to spend more energy taking care of the existing plants, rather than attempting to grow new unfamiliar things. There will be squash and beans, and maybe I should get those right before working on anything else.

hawk ID anyone?

2007-12-21T07:29:00.001-05:00

this guy was hunting, in the rain, in our backyard yesterday. Caught some sort of mouse-like creature in the neighbor's yard. He has black and white stripes on his tail and on the ends of his wings. He has a dark mask on his face, and a bright orangey-red chest.

The Lakota "Indians" Secede from the Union!!

2007-12-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.

They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.

The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.

The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.

Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said.

"This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said.

"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.

"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

"Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young.

"We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA

Robert Anton Wilson

2007-12-18T18:27:00.000-05:00

loved his books in the way back. hadn't thought of him in ages until I came across this article and after reading it, surfed around a bit.

"The worst thing about hospitals," says Wilson, who was rescued when his daughter managed to break into the apartment, "is that all the rights guaranteed in the first 10 amendments are immediately canceled. You have no civil rights whatsoever. And the second thing is, all the ordinary rules no longer apply--you are no longer a person deserving of kindness, you're a disobedient child who has to be reprimanded and herded around. My God, I don't know why people put up with such treatment." Wilson, we can presume, doesn't particularly like being told what to do.

"Not by people who treat me like an idiot. Not when I'm 73 years old, I have 35 books in print, I supported a wife and four kids for most of my life. I do not appreciate being treated like a disobedient 4-year-old, the way they treat everybody in the hospital."

Of course, you don't have to go to a hospital to be treated like that, but Wilson's on a roll ...

"I was an editor of Playboy, for chrissake," he cries, as though that, if nothing else, should carry some weight in this culture. "I've had plays performed in England, Germany and the United States; my books are in print in a dozen countries. Why the hell do they treat me like a child? I refuse to tolerate it. If they won't treat me with dignity, I won't go anywhere near them, especially with all the goddamned germs they got floating around there. CNN did a report on it -- the number of people who are killed by diseases picked up in hospitals is much greater than the number who are killed by cars.

"I'm never going to a hospital again. Never, never, never, never! I will lie on the floor and die before I go back to a hospital."

link

weaned?

2007-12-15T06:12:00.000-05:00

Youngest child has suddenly stopped nursing. Her big sister weaned very very gradually, slowly cutting back a little at a time. Littlest one had never gone an entire 24 hours without nursing, not once. If she doesn't nurse today, it will be three days. Many mixed emotions, I realize some of it (most of it perhaps) is hormonal. Elated at the prospect of bras without flaps. Proud of myself for allowing her to decide when she was ready to wean, because it's important to me that my children listen to what their bodies are telling them. And there's a melancholy feeling I just can't shake. My babies are growing up so fast.

it's that time of year again

2007-12-13T08:59:00.001-05:00

*sigh* No matter how many wonderful things are happening in my life right now, I feel like I'm drowning sometimes. And it looks like we'll have to use plastic to pay for the kids to have a nice Christmas. It goes against everything I believe in, but I don't want to disappoint the children. Our grocery bill has gotten simply outrageous lately! Hamburger, the cheap stuff, is up to $3 a pound. WHAT??! yeah, wasn't that long ago you could find it for less than $1/lb on sale. We gotta eat. And we can't eat just anything, it has to be gluten-free, so there's another added expense.

Think I'll give etsy another try. At least sewing will keep me busy, it's lots of fun for me, and that's one hobby I have plenty of supplies without going out and spending any money we don't have on it.

cultural genocide

2007-12-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

The ruling elite use money, religion, public education, and mass media to control our lives, to make us afraid, so that we choose not to make our own decisions but rather do as we are told, and believe what they want us to believe. The homogenization of people into one world government, one world religion is all about denying us the right to define for ourselves who we are, creating an underclass of slaves whose lives exist only to support the agenda of those in power.

eight minutes into the second video, it says "the worst holocaust in human history occurred not in Nazi Germany but on American soil" If you don't watch any of the rest of it, watch that part.

media conspiracy theory rock

2007-12-08T19:41:00.000-05:00

"eco-friendly" gift ideas

2007-12-05T10:40:00.000-05:00

How ludicrous the advertising has become!! Do they not expect us to realize that capitalist consumerism is antithetical to helping the planet? So they feed the sheeple "green" products which cost twice as much as the other kind, while still being shipped halfway around the globe, and being packaged in plastics that not only pollute when thrown away, but in the process of manufacture too! How stupid do they think we are?

the word of the day

2007-12-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

realize -
–verb (used with object)
1.
to grasp or understand clearly.
2.
to make real; give reality to (a hope, fear, plan, etc.).

what if these two definitions are inseparable???

diapers and potties and such

2007-12-02T08:47:00.000-05:00

it's simply amazing to me, how different my girls are, them having the same parents and same environment and all. Littlest one is no longer wearing diapers during the day. Unlike big sister, though, she's been having accidents sometimes. When my oldest daughter stopped wearing diapers, that was it, no accidents, she was totally ready. Little one is doing things her own unique way, and Mommy is cleaning up the mess. But at least I'm not washing those dirty diapers every day and maybe, just maybe, I will soon eliminate that mountain of laundry that never seems to go away.

The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel

2007-11-27T20:19:00.000-05:00

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/27/1547221

NOAM CHOMSKY

Before saying a word, I’d like to express some severe personal discomfort, because anything I say will be abstract and dry and restrained. The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it’s likely to harm them. We have to face the reality that our actions have consequences, and they have to be adapted to real-world circumstances, difficult as it may be to stay calm in the face of shameful crimes in which we are directly and crucially implicated.

Well, I’ve been asked to talk about the apartheid paradigm and the proper response here, so I’ll do that, though not without some additional reservations. We have to recognize that there will be no clear answer as to the question of whether the apartheid paradigm applies in Israel or in Boston, right here, or elsewhere. The genre has, after all, only one example: South Africa. And there are similarities elsewhere in many dimensions, and it’s fair enough to bring them up, but there's very little point debating whether they are close enough in one or another case to count as apartheid, because that will never be settled, we know that in advance.

I’ve brought up similarities in the past, when I thought that they were appropriate. Actually, the one time I recall clearly was exactly ten years ago. That was at a conference at Ben Gurion University in Be’er Sheva. It was on the anniversary of the thirtieth year of the military occupation. And in the talk there, I quoted from a standard history of South Africa on elections in the Bantustans, which I’ll read; and just change a few words, and you'll know what it’s about.

“South African retention of effective power, through its officials in the Bantustans, its overwhelming economic influence and security arrangements, gave to this initiative of elections elements of a farce. However, unlikely candidates as were the Bantustans for any meaningful independent existence, their expanding bureaucracies provided jobs for new strata of educated Africans tied to the system in a new way and a basis for accumulation for a small number of Africans with access to loans and political influence. Repression, too, could be indigenized through developing homeland policy and army personnel. On the fringe of the Bantustans, border industry growth centers were planned as a means of freeing capital from some of the restraints imposed on industrial expansion elsewhere and to take advantage of virtually captive and particularly cheap labor. Within the homelands, economic development was more a matter of advertising brochures than actual practical activity, though some officials in South Africa understood the needs from their own perspective for some kind of revitalization of the homelands to prevent their economies from collapsing even further.”

Well, I won’t waste time expressing the similarities to the Occupied Territories, but you can do that quite easily. Ten years ago, that was the optimistic prospect for the Occupied Territories. By now, even that’s remote, and reality is far more grim than it was then. There’s no time and, I presume, no need to review the harrowing details.

We’re now approaching George Bush's historic Annapolis conference, as it’s called, on Israel-Palestine, so we can anticipate a flood of deceit and distortions to set the proper framework. And we should be prepared to counter the propaganda assault, which has already begun. Just to pick a couple of examples, Bostonians could read in the Boston Globe a few days ago that at the Taba Conference in January 2001 -- now quoting -- “Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepted ideas floated by President Bill Clinton that would have produced a Palestinian state in 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of Gaza,” but these forthcoming gestures failed. The evil Palestinians refused Israel's generous offers, keeping to their time-honored insistence on seizing defeat from the jaws of victory and proving they’re not partners for negotiation.

Well, there’s one fragment of truth in this conventional fabrication: there was a conference in Taba. And, in fact, it did come close to a possible settlement, but the rest is pure invention. In particular, the conference was terminated abruptly by Prime Minister Barak. The truth is completely unacceptable, so the facts are either suppressed, as they generally are, or, as in this case, just inverted. And we can expect a good deal more of that. Actually, the truth about the Taba Conference merits attention. That week, in one week in January 2001, that was the one moment in thirty years when the United States and Israel abandoned the rejectionist stance that they have maintained in virtual isolation until the present.

And that may suggest some thoughts about another familiar fairytale that you could read about a couple of days earlier in the New York Times, where the respected policy analyst and former high government official, Leslie Gelb, wrote that every US administration since 1967 has privately favored returning almost all of the territory to the Palestinians for the purposes of creating a separate Palestinian state. Note the word "privately." Crucial. We know what the administrations have said publicly. Publicly they have rejected adamantly anything remotely of the sort ever since 1967 -- ’76, when the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement on the international border, incorporating all the relevant wording of UN 242 -- it’s the basic diplomatic document to which Washington appeals when it’s convenient. The US veto -- it’s worth bearing in mind -- is a double veto. One part of the veto is that the actions are barred, of course. And it’s also vetoed from history, as in this case, so you’ll work really hard to find it, even in the scholarly literature.

Sometimes the public rejection of a separate Palestinian state is more articulate and considerably more extreme, so it takes a George Bush no. 1, who is reputed to be the most hostile to Israel of US presidents. In 1988, as you know, the Palestinian National Council formally accepted a two-state settlement, and the Israeli government responded. This was the coalition government of Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir. They responded by issuing a formal declaration that there can be no additional Palestinian state between Jordan and Palestine -- “additional” because for Shimon Peres and his Labor coalition, Jordan already was a Palestinian state. It’s a view that’s attributed to the right wing, but that’s mistaken. This is Shimon Peres. The United States reacted to that with what was called the Baker Plan -- James Baker, Secretary of State. The Bush Baker Plan endorsed Israel's position without qualification and went on to add that any Palestinian negotiators would have to accept that framework, namely no second Palestinian state in addition to Jordan. That’s Bush no. 1, the alleged critic of Israel, and the respected diplomat James Baker. Again, the truth is inconvenient, so virtually none of this was reported, and you’ll have to work -- search hard to extricate it from the web of self-serving propaganda that dominates commentary and reporting, of which Leslie Gelb's article in the New York Times is a typical, but not unusual, example.

Well, I’m not going to go on with that, but the diplomatic record is one of uniform rejectionism, apart from the week in Taba, and unilateral rejectionism, increasingly so. By now, virtually the entire world agrees on the two-state international consensus of the past thirty years, pretty much along the lines that were almost agreed upon at Taba. That includes all the Arab States, who actually go beyond to call for full normalization of relations with Israel. It includes Iran, although you won’t find that published here, which accepts the Arab League position. It includes Hamas; its leaders have repeatedly endorsed, called for a two-state settlement, even in articles in the US press. That also includes Hamas's most militant figure, Khaled Meshaal, who’s in exile in Syria. And it includes the rest of the world. Israel rejects it, and the United States backs that rejection fully, not in words just, but in actions.

Bush no. 2 has gone to new extremes in rejectionism. He’s declared the illegal West Bank settlements must remain part of Israel. That’s in accord with the Clinton position, expressed by his negotiator Dennis Ross, who explained that what he called “Israel's needs” take precedence over Palestinian wants. That’s Clinton. But the party line remains undisturbed. Facts don’t matter. Bush, Rice and the rest are yearning to realize Bush's vision of a Palestinian state -- somewhere, someplace -- persisting in the noble endeavor of the longtime honest broker.
Well, what’s happened in the past is -- of course, rejectionism goes far beyond words. It includes settlement programs, the annexation wall, closures, checkpoints, and so on. Settlements increased steadily right through the Oslo years, peaking actually in Clinton's last year, the year 2000, right before the Camp David Accords. And the story is now being repeated before our eyes -- shouldn’t surprise us.

So to take just one example, with the Annapolis conference approaching, Israel has just confiscated more Arab land to build a bypass road from Palestinians -- I’m quoting now -- “in order to push the Palestinian traffic between Bethlehem and Ramallah deep into the desert and effectively bar Palestinians from the central part of the West Bank." That’s part of the so-called E1 project, which is designed to incorporate the town of Ma’ale Adumim within Israel and effectively to bisect the West Bank. “With such policies” -- continuing to quote -- "With such policies enacted by the government, the famous Annapolis conference is emptied of all meaning long before it convenes." This is quotes from the Israeli peace organization Gush Shalom. All of this is backed by the honest brokers in Washington and paid for by US taxpayers, who, incidentally, overwhelmingly join the international consensus, in opposition to their own government. But that’s not what we’re going to hear.

Well, in fairness, it should be added that there is occasional public criticism of the settlement programs. So in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, there was a favorable review of a very important study, which has just been translated into English, Lords of the Land by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, which bitterly condemns the US-backed Israeli programs in the West Bank and the takeover of Israeli political life by their advocates. It’s a strong and important book.

The review, however, goes on with conventional fairytales. Among them, it tells us that within the Green Line in Israel itself, Israel is what it calls a “vibrant democracy” in which non-Jews have equal rights and, unlike the West Bank, there are no Arab villages made inaccessible, because their roads have been dug up by army bulldozers. Well, again, there’s a fragment of truth in the description. So take, for example, the village Dar al-Hanoun in the so-called Triangle, Wadi Ara, it’s older than the state of Israel, but it’s one of the innumerable unrecognized villages in Israel. So it’s true that there’s no road dug up by bulldozers, and the reason is that there’s no road. No road is permitted by the state authorities, and no construction is permitted. No services are provided. That’s not an unusual situation for Palestinian citizens, who are also effectively barred from over 90% of the land by a complex and intricate web of laws and administrative arrangements. Technically, that was overruled by the high court seven years ago, but, as far as I can determine, only technically. And we may recall that in the United States it took over a century for even formal implementation of the Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteeing equal rights to all persons, and actual implementation of it is still remote a century-and-a-half later.
Well, let’s turn briefly to the important question, the most important question: what can we do about it? Here, it’s useful to think about the apartheid analogy, and it’s useful to remember a little history.

In 1963, the UN Security Council declared a voluntary arms embargo on South Africa. That was extended to a mandatory embargo in 1977. And that was followed by economic sanctions and other measures -- sometimes officials, countries, cities, towns -- some organized by popular movements. Now, not all countries participated. In the United States, the US Congress did impose sanctions over Reagan's veto, but US trade with South Africa then increased by various evasions, along with concealed support for South African terrorist atrocities in Mozambique and Angola, which took a horrendous toll. It’s about 1.5 million killed and over $60 billion in damage during the Reagan years, the Reagan years of constructive engagement, according to UN analysis. In 1988, the Reagan administration declared Mandela's African National Congress to be one of the world's most notorious terrorist groups -- that’s 1988 -- while it described RENAMO in Mozambique merely as an indigenous insurgent group. That was after it had just killed about 100,000 people, according to the State Department, with, of course, US-backed African support. Thatcher's record was similar or maybe worse. But most of this was in secret. There was just too much popular opposition.

And the popular opposition made a difference. There was a very significant anti-apartheid movement decades after the global decision of the Security Council to bring apartheid to an end. In 1965, boycotts and other measures would not have been effective. Twenty years later, they were effective, but that was after the groundwork had been laid by activist, educational and organizing efforts, including within the powerful states, which is what matters in an ugly world.

Well, in the case of Israel-Palestine, the groundwork has not been laid. The quotes that I just gave are perfectly representative examples; you can fill them out in books, yeah. The kind of popular measures that were effective against apartheid by the late 1980s are not only ineffective in the case of Israel-Palestine today, but in fact sometimes backfire in harming the victims. We’ve seen that over and over. It’s going to continue until the organizing and educational efforts make real progress. It’s not just the United States; the European Union is hardly different. So, for example, the European Union does not bar arms deliveries to Israel. It joined the United States in vicious punishment of Palestinians, because they committed the grave crime of voting the wrong way in a free election. And there was very little internal protest in Europe. Populations support the international consensus, but they don’t react when their governments undermine any hope for its realization.

Well, in the coming weeks and the longer term, there's plenty of educational and organizational activity that will have to be carried out among an American population that happens to be largely receptive, though deluged with propaganda and deceit. And it’s not going to be easy. It’s never been easy. But much harder tasks have been accomplished with dedicated and persistent effort.

MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, speaking recently in Boston at a conference called “The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel,” sponsored by the Palestinian Christian organization Sabeel.
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Open Season on America's Last Wild Bison

2007-11-22T18:28:00.000-05:00

Montana's Buffalo Hunt Opens Without Any Buffalo in Montana
For Immediate Release, November 15, 2007
Contact: Buffalo Field Campaign, Stephany Seay 406-646-0070

WEST YELLOWSTONE & GARDINER, MONTANA - Today marks the opening day for Montana's bison hunt, authorized by the Montana Department of Livestock. Montana has issued 44 tags to kill members of America's last wild bison population that migrate out of Yellowstone National Park into Montana. It is expected that the Nez Perce as well as Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes will conduct separate buffalo hunts under treaty right. The state's hunt will continue through February 15, 2008.

There are currently no wild bison in Montana.

Glenn Hockett, President of the Gallatin Wildlife Association, a hunting organization that opposes the current bison hunt and is working to help restore wild bison in Montana had this to say, "Recent reports from Yellowstone National Park indicate there are no bison in the state of Montana for hunters to hunt. I think this points out the flawed nature of this shoot 'em at the border Department of Livestock led "hunt" with no year round habitat."

Wild American bison, while native to vast expanses of North America, are granted no year-round habitat in Montana. There is never a time that wild bison are allowed to be in the state without being subjected to harassment, capture, slaughter, quarantine, or shooting. Wild bison are ecologically extinct everywhere outside of Yellowstone National Park.

Montana's bison hunt is not authorized by the state's wildlife agency Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, but by the Montana Department of Livestock, an agency that promotes cattle interests.

"I don't think most people understand that only the Department of Livestock can authorize the hunting of wild bison in Montana, and their goal is no bison left standing in Montana," said Glenn Hockett.

"Allowing the Department of Livestock to have authority over the management of wild bison or any wildlife species is a clear conflict of interest," said Buffalo Field Campaign spokeswoman Stephany Seay. "They have no interest whatsoever in wild bison or their habitat, and you may as well put the fox in charge of guarding the hen house."

Fewer than 4,700 continuously wild American bison exist in the United States; all reside in Yellowstone National Park. A joint state-federal agreement signed in 2000, the Interagency Bison Management Plan prohibits wild bison from migrating to lands outside of the Park and maintains a zero population of wild bison in Montana in an effort to benefit cattle interests who claim they fear the spread of the livestock disease brucellosis from wild bison to cattle. There has never been a documented case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis to cattle.

Buffalo Field Campaign strongly opposes Montana's bison hunt as well as the Interagency Bison Management Plan. BFC maintains that wild bison should be allowed to naturally and fully restore themselves throughout their native range, especially on public lands, and must be managed as a valued native wildlife species by wildlife professionals, not cattle interests.

"Our position on the hunt is clear," said Buffalo Field Campaign's cofounder and subsistence hunter Mike Mease, "No habitat, No hunt."

2,018 wild American bison have been killed or otherwise removed from the remaining wild population in Yellowstone since 2000 under actions carried out by the Interagency Bison Management Plan, as well as state and treaty right hunts.

Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field, every day, to stop the slaughter of the wild Yellowstone buffalo. Volunteers defend the buffalo and their native habitat and advocate for their lasting protection. Buffalo Field Campaign has proposed real alternatives to the current mismanagement of Yellowstone bison that can be viewed at
www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/solutions05.html

For more information, video clips and photos visit: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/

Frank Zappa - censorship debate

2007-11-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

glumbert - Hilarious debate with Frank Zappa about censorship

rules

2007-11-14T09:12:00.001-05:00

ya know, we do actually have some rules in our house. Not exactly the same rules other people have in their homes, but rules nonetheless. One of these rules I been thinkin about lots lately. It's the one says that if you aren't having fun, find something else to do. We all agreed that was a pretty good rule to have. It works, too. Just sometimes we all need the reminder, probably me more than anyone else.

Flimix

2007-11-13T09:57:00.000-05:00

Flimix, my children tell me, is a talking spider who lives in our trash can (much like Oscar the Grouch). He has a pet dung beetle that eats the stinky stuff. I decided to move Flimix and his dung beetle outside to the larger trash can. When we saw this spider web on the eave of our house, with rainbows in it (the photo really doesn't do it justice) the girls said that maybe Flimix was responsible..

on this date in history

2007-11-12T06:42:00.000-05:00

November 12, 1969
Seymour Hersh, an independent investigative journalist, in a cable filed through Dispatch News Service and picked up by more than 30 newspapers, revealed the extent of the U.S. Army's charges against 1st Lt. William L. Calley at My Lai, a Vietnamese village.

http://www.berkeley.edu:80/news/media/releases/2004/10/11_hersh.shtml

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh spills the secrets of the Iraq quagmire and the war on terror
By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter

BERKELEY – The Iraq war is not winnable, a secret U.S. military unit has been "disappearing" people since December 2001, and America has no idea how irreparably its torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison has damaged its image in the Middle East. These were just a few of the grim pronouncements made by Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Seymour "Sy" Hersh to KQED host Michael Krasny before a Berkeley audience on Friday night (Oct. 8).

The past two years will "go down as one of the classic sort of failures" in history, said the man who has been called the "greatest muckraker of all time" and (paradoxically) the "enfant terrible of journalism for more than 30 years." While Hersh blamed the White House and the Pentagon for the Iraq quagmire and America's besmirched world image, he was stymied by how it all happened. "How could eight or nine neoconservatives come and take charge of this government?" he asked. "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military! So you say to yourself, How fragile is this democracy?"

From My Lai to Abu Ghraib

That fragility clearly unnerves him. Hersh summarizes his mission as "to hold the people in public office to the highest possible standard of decency and of honesty…to tolerate anything less, even in the name of national security, is wrong." He tries his best. More than any other U.S. journalist alive today, he embodies the statement that "a patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government," a belief defined by the conservationist Edward Abbey.

His country has not always thanked him for it — neocon Pentagon adviser Richard Perle has called Hersh "the closest thing we have to a terrorist," while his 1998 book on John F. Kennedy's administration, "The Dark Side of Camelot," cost him many friends on the left. But Hersh's reputation remains more bulletproof than most. The author of eight books, he first received worldwide recognition (and the Pulitzer) in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War. 1982's "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House," painted Henry Kissinger as a war criminal and won Hersh the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times book prize in biography.

Most recently, as a staff writer for the New Yorker, Hersh has relentlessly ferreted out the behind-the-scenes deals, trickery, and blunders associated with the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Back in May 2003, he was the first American reporter to state unequivocally that we would not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (A mea culpa from a Slate journalist who doubted Hersh on WMDs also inadvertently confirms his prescient track record.) And in April of this year, he broke the story of how U.S. soldiers had digitally documented their torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The several articles he wrote for the New Yorker about Abu Ghraib have been updated and edited into his latest book, "Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib."

"Bush scares the hell out of me"

Hersh came to Berkeley at the invitation of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the California First Amendment Coalition. His appearance in the packed ballroom of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union was the fitting end to a week of high-profile events in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement.

The Hersh event began only minutes after the second debate between President George W. Bush and John Kerry concluded. Krasny naturally asked Hersh — who had watched the debate at North Gate Hall stone-faced in the middle of a rowdy crowd — what he thought of the match.

"It doesn't matter that Bush scares the hell out of me," Hersh answered. "What matters is that he scares the hell out of a lot of very important people in Washington who can't speak out, in the military, in the intelligence community. They know in ways that none of us know, the incredible gap between what is and what [Bush] thinks."

With that, he was off and running. One could safely say that for the next hour, Hersh proceeded to scare the hell out of most of the audience by detailing the gaps between what they knew and what he hears is actually going on in Iraq.

While his writing is dense but digestible, in person Hersh speaks with the rambling urgency of a street-corner doomsayer, leaping from point to point and anecdote to anecdote and frequently failing to finish his clauses, let alone his sentences. His train of thought can be difficult to catch a ride on. This evening, it was a challenge for Krasny to slow him down long enough to get a word or question in edgewise. For example, here's a slice of raw Hersh on the current situation in Iraq:

I've been doing an alternate history of the war, from inside, because people, right after 9/11, because people inside — and there are a lot of good people inside — are scared, as scared as anybody watching this tonight I think should be, because [Bush], if he's re-elected, has only one thing to do, he's going to bomb the hell out of that place. He's been bombing the hell of that place — and here's what really irritates me again, about the press — since he set up this Potemkin Village government with Allawi on June 28 — the bombing, the daily bombing rates inside Iraq, have gone up exponentially. There's no public accounting of how many missions are flown, how much ordnance is dropped, we have no accounting and no demand to know. The only sense you get is we're basically in a full-scale air war against invisible people that we can't find, that we have no intelligence about, so we bomb what we can see.
And yet — despite the more than 1,000 deaths of U.S. soldiers and the horrific number of Iraqi casualties — Bush continues to believe we are doing the right thing, according to Hersh. "He thinks he's wearing the white hat," he said, adding that is what makes this administration different from previous ones whose hypocrisy Hersh has exposed. Bush and the neocons "are not hypocrites."

Enter the utopians

"I think it's real simple to say [Bush] is a liar. But that would also suggest there was a reality that he understood," explained Hersh. "I'm serious. It is funny in sort of a sick, black humor sort of way, but the real serious problem is, he believes what he's doing." In effect, Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and the other neocons are "idealists, you can call them utopians." As Hersh understands them, they really believe that the solution to global terrorism began with invading Baghdad and will end only with the transformation of the last unfriendly government in the Middle East into a democracy.

"No amount of body bags is going to dissuade [Bush]," said Hersh, despite the fact that Hersh's sources say the war in Iraq is "not winnable. It's over." As for Kerry's war plans, Hersh said he wished he could tell him to stop talking as if the senator's plan for Iraq could somehow still eke out a victory there. "This is a disaster that's been going on. It's a civil war, the insurgency. There is no 'win' anymore in this war," he argued. "As somebody said, 'We're playing chess, they're playing Go.'"

Later, Hersh shared something he had yet to write about. Sources were suggesting that the many acts of domestic terrorism in Iraq that U.S. officials have been attributing to suspected Al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are in fact a smokescreen set up by the insurgents. "They decided to wage war against their own population," he said. "It's a huge step, with enormous consequences.…The insurgency has simply deflected what they're doing onto this man. And we fell for it."

What is worse, he said impatiently, was that because U.S. forces had "privatized" so many of Iraq's institutions, it had decimated the job market in the country."This is why Bush can talk about 100,000 people wanting to go work in the police or in the army. It's because there's nothing else for them to do. They're willing to stand in line to get bombed because they want to take care of their family," he said.

Hersh has been accused many times of sympathizing with "the enemy," and told that his publicizing of incidents like the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib torture only fan the flames of anti-American sentiment around the world. He related that he's been asked if he feels guilty about the beheadings of two Americans who were wearing uniforms like those worn at Abu Ghraib. "As if the Iraqis needed me to tell them what's going on in that prison!" he responded. He also repeated a question often posed to him: "Was it immoral to go in … [T]he idea that Saddam was a torturer and a killer, doesn't that lend a patina of morality to going after him?" The answer to that one, he said unsmilingly, "is of course, Saddam tortured and killed his people. And now we're doing it."

In addition to adding more details to the woeful chronology of the Abu Ghraib scandal, in which the military stopped the abuse only after Hersh's story brought it crashing down onto front pages around the world — four months after it was first reported to the Department of Defense — Hersh speculated on why those dehumanizing techniques had been used. He was sure that they were not, as some have claimed, the "stress outlet" or other spontaneous recreational ideas of young soldiers from West Virginia. Instead, he said, they were the outgrowth of a massive manhunt for information, any information, about first Al Qaida, the Taliban, and then the Iraqi insurgency:

My government has a secret unit that since December of 2001 has been disappearing people just like the Brazilians and the Argentineans did. Rumsfeld decided after 9/11 that he could not wait. The president signed a secret document…There's a team of people, they fly in unmarked planes, they fly in Gulfstreams, they have their own choppers, they don't carry American passports, and they just grab people. And maybe in the beginning I can understand there was some rationale. Right after 9/11 we were frightened, we didn't know what to do …
The original idea behind the sexually humiliating photos taken at Abu Ghraib, Hersh said he had heard, was to use them as blackmail so that the newly released prisoners — many of whom were ordinary Iraqi thieves or even civilian bystanders rounded up in dragnets — would act as informants. "We operate on guilt, [Muslims] operate on shame," Hersh explained. "The idea of photographing an Arab man naked and having him simulate homosexual activity, and having an American GI woman in the photographs, is the end of society in their eyes."

And the fact that Americans had perpetrated such acts — and refused to take responsibility for it — ended America's role as any kind of moral leader in the eyes of not just the Middle East, but the world, Hersh railed. He talked about an Israeli, a longtime veteran of the troubles between his country and the Palestinians, who had emailed him to say, in essence, "We've been killing them for 40 or 50 years, and they've been killing us for 40 or 50 years, but we know that somewhere down the line we're going to have to live with those SOBs…If we had treated our Arabs the way you treated them in Abu Ghraib, the sexual stuff, the photographs, we couldn't live with them. You guys do not begin to understand what you've done, where you have put yourself in the Arab world."

"They just shot them one by one"

There was more — rumors of atrocities around Iraq that to Hersh brought back memories of My Lai. In the evening's most emotional moment, Hersh talked about a call he had gotten from a first lieutenant in charge of a unit stationed halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. His group was bivouacking outside of town in an agricultural area, and had hired 30 or so Iraqis to guard a local granary. A few weeks passed. They got to know the men they hired, and to like them. Then orders came down from Baghdad that the village would be "cleared." Another platoon from the soldier's company came and executed the Iraqi granary guards. All of them.

"He said they just shot them one by one. And his people, and he, and the villagers of course, went nuts," Hersh said quietly. "He was hysterical, totally hysterical. He went to the company captain, who said, 'No, you don't understand, that's a kill. We got 36 insurgents. Don't you read those stories when the Americans say we had a combat maneuver and 15 insurgents were killed?'

"It's shades of Vietnam again, folks: body counts," Hersh continued. "You know what I told him? I said, 'Fella, you blamed the captain, he knows that you think he committed murder, your troops know that their fellow soldiers committed murder. Shut up. Complete your tour. Just shut up! You're going to get a bullet in the back.' And that's where we are in this war."

The story seemed to leave Hersh sincerely, deeply saddened. While his critics may call him a "muckraker" and unpatriotic, on Friday night it was obvious that Hersh takes the crumbling of America's image, very, very personally.

"My parents were immigrants," Hersh said. "They came here because America meant something…the Statue of Liberty and all that stuff, because America always was this bastion of morality and integrity and a place for a fresh start. And it's right in front of us, not hidden, that they've taken this away from us."

Thunderbird

2007-11-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

as told to me by my Mom, well, kinda. I'm not as good a storyteller as she. Any mistakes in telling this story are mine, not hers.

A long long time ago, three children, a girl and her two brothers, were sent over the mountain to bring their grandmother a gift from their mother. Grandmother was ill and mother knew the right plants to help her heal. So the children took the plants over the mountain to the other side where Grandmother lived. Grandmother got well, and the children undertook the journey back home.

When they returned to their home, they found their village burnt to the ground, and all the people and all the animals slaughtered. The oldest son, who by tradition was responsible for handling the death of his parents was very distraught. He was able to make arrangements for the funeral, this he did not neglect, but his little brother and sister thought he should do something about those responsible for what happened, revenge.

Older brother was lost in his grief and unable to function following the funeral, he would just sit and stare into the fire, rocking back and forth. So Little Brother decided to go back up the mountain and ask Thunderbird to help him enact revenge against the tribe who destroyed their village. When he told Little Sister of his plans, she got it in her head to go with him, and nothing he could say would discourage her. They had nobody left but each other.

So Little Brother and Little Sister fasted and sweated and went back up the mountain to ask Thunderbird for his help. Thunderbird heard their prayers. He came to them in a fog (humans are unable to gaze upon Thunderbird without damaging their mind) and he said to them, "I will grant you some of my thunder to do with as you wish. But with it comes a warning. You are to use your thunder to bring peace to this land, otherwise it will destroy everything you hold dear."

nine years ago today

2007-11-07T08:36:00.000-05:00

Marriage Ceremony for Paul and Stacy

November 7, 1998

Opening Words:

We have come together to witness the union of Paul and Stacy. Marriage is an estate which embodies all the warm and precious values which grow from human companionship and love and should be entered into in all seriousness with the knowledge that love is both humanity's highest achievement and life's most precious gift.

Marriage symbolizes the intimacy between two people, yet this union should not diminish but strengthen the individuality of each partner.

In this spirit you can create a partnership which will strengthen both and give new hope and strength to all who love you.

Blessing:

Let me now ask all of you gathered here today:

Do you who know and care for Stacy and Paul, give them your blessings now as they enter into this new relationship, and do you aspire in the days and years ahead to give them your deppest love, understanding, and support during both good times and bad?

Response: We do.

Introduction to Vows:

Love is a living thing, waiting within each one of us for an awakening touch. In this ceremony, we will celebrate love come to life. May this love grow sure and straight and strong. We rejoice in its presence among us.

Let us all join hands. The hand offered by each of you is an extension of self, just as is your mutual love. Cherish the touch, for you touch not only your own, but another life. Be ever sensitive to its pulse. Seek always to understand and to respect its rhythm. Amen.

Vows:

Please repeat after me:

In reaffirming the relationship

we have been building together,

I Paul take you Stacy

to be no other than yourself.

Loving what I know of you,

trusting what I don't yet know,

with respect for your integrity

and faith in your abiding love for me,

through all our years,

and in all that life shall bring us,

I choose you as my wife.

In reaffirming the relationship

we have been building together,

I Stacy take you Paul

to be no other than yourself.

Loving what I know of you,

trusting what I don't yet know,

with respect for your integrity

and faith in your abiding love for me,

through all our years,

and in all that life shall bring us,

I choose you as my husband.

Ring Ceremony:

(Caitlin and Webb have the rings)

The circle is the symbol of the sun and the moon and the universe. It is a symbol of holiness and of perfection and of peace. In these rings is the symbol of unity, in which your two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle, in which, wherever you go, you will always return unto one another.

Take this ring, Stacy, and place it on the third finger of Paul's left hand, saying these words: With this ring, I thee wed.

Take this ring, Paul, and place it on the third finger of Stacy's left hand, saying these words: With this ring, I thee wed.

Pronouncement:

We acknowledge that Paul and Stacy are now joined; we affirm their choice to be together as partners in life.

Let us pray:
Eternal Spirit, in thy name we are met together,
to witness and to bless the union of these two lives.
May they be a blessing and a comfort, each to the other,
sharers of each others sorrows, helpers of each other
in all the chances and changes of the world.
May they grow in understanding and love,
and may faithfulness to the good of each
become the unfailing virtue of both.

Amen.

Presentation of the Couple:

You may now embrace and kiss.

It gives me great pleasure to present to you who are gathered here today Paul and Stacy as partners in life.

Go in peace. Our ceremony is ended, but their shared life together has just begun.

Biscuits!!

2007-11-05T10:31:00.000-05:00

so, too lazy to go to the grocery after some eggs, I decided to give xanthan gum one last try. I found this recipe online: http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipe/detail.php?rid=112 and actually followed the instructions (except substituting the same volume of different flours, well, and without buttermilk, okay, I didn't really follow the recipe all that much after all, but much more closely than I normally would). They turned out pretty good, though barely enough for this family of four. I'll double the recipe next time, and bake at just a tad lower temp.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Gluten Free Sweet White Sorghum Flour
1/4 cup Potato Starch
1/4 cup Tapioca Flour
1 tsp Sugar
1 Tb Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum
1/4 tsp Sea Salt
1/4 cup Butter
1/2 cup Buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450°F. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray, set aside.

Sift dry ingredients together in medium bowl. Cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles small peas. Stir in enough buttermilk to form soft dough that holds its shape when pressed together. (You may not need all the buttermilk).

Place the mixture on prepared baking sheet. Lay sheet of waxed paper over biscuit mixture and press to 1” thickness and about 6” x 6” square or circle. Remove sheet of waxed paper and cut into 8 or 9 round biscuit shapes using a 2” biscuit cutter or open end of glass. Remove uncut portions of biscuit dough and gently shape into 2” circles, or simply cut dough into 9 square pieces and spread pieces across baking sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Makes 9 biscuits.

Tear Dress

2007-11-01T18:37:00.000-04:00

So I was interested in perhaps making a tear dress, or something similar, anyway...

Found lots of neat information online. Doesn't seem so difficult, it fits with the way I sew already. But here's my problem. It's with this: "The Official Women’s Dress Of The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma" link There's a long list of rules!

Hope I don't upset too many people if I make my own version of these tear dresses, but don't follow all the rules. I mean, it never was authentic to begin with, fashions change, tastes change, and NOBODY tells me how to dress. I really love the style, it certainly looks easy enough, and most definitely comfortable! Plus, it would go nicely with my aprons.

you don't know me very well, do you?

2007-10-31T06:38:00.000-04:00

LOL! There's nothing like someone telling me to shut up to incite me to Sing louder. I'm honored that you would take your time to read what I blog about, and that it moved you to leave your comments. Thanks! What concerns me is your tone. I don't know what I ever did to upset you so. I'm not hurting anyone. My whole point in every one of my posts is that anything that hurts anyone else also hurts me. It seems so utterly obvious, this Golden Rule thing. It's all that really counts, you know?

here's how it works:
We start with what we know. What do I know? I know that I am a thinking thing. I know that I experience certain perceptions of things that exist apart from me. But I do not know that objective reality is actually there, all I know is that I perceive it to be. I see it, smell it, hear it, etc. But those perceptions occur subjectively, within that part of me that does the thinking. I know from experience, that I seem to interact with this objective reality. There appears to be some sort of cause and effect relationship. In order to most effectively interact with this objective reality, I must first assume that it is real, objectively, apart from myself. I take a leap of faith in believing this is how things are, but there is no basis for that belief other than expediency, pragmatism, because I have found through my experience that it is most useful to me to believe it is so.

With this in mind, I can now take a look at this objective reality, learn more about me through my interactions with IT. I see things that benefit me, I call them "good," and things that harm me, I call them "bad," but those things themselves are neither good and bad, that is just a label I give them, part of how my thinking me makes sense of the world. Good and Bad are judgments I make about things, as those things relate to me, personally.

Since I have chosen to believe that I am part of some objective reality, I must recognize that anything that hurts any part of this existence also hurts me and can thus be labelled "bad" - my experience verifies this to be true in every case.

I get to determine for myself what things I call "good" and which ones I call "bad" - not anyone else! Nobody knows better than I do what is good for me and what is not. I know to notice when things hurt me, and do something about it, so that my experience may be called a "good" one. In my own life, it is when I allow others to decide for me that I have a "bad" experience. If you are not liking the experience you are having, take a look at the choices you have made, or allowed others to make for you. Therein lies the answer.

the history of peace?

2007-10-27T09:02:00.000-04:00

Rice looks to history for peace effort
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is looking to the past for lessons on how to make next month's Mideast peace conference a success.

As she prepares to host the international meeting in Annapolis, Md., Rice has delved into the history of U.S. attempts to mediate peace in the region, plunging into the diplomatic annals and seeking out the major players responsible for both successes and failures.

"She's trying to draw on the historical record and the experiences of others to see what she can glean and how that may be applicable to the current day," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday, ahead of Rice's Nov. 4-6 trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, her second in three weeks to organize the Annapolis gathering.

Most recently, she met this week with Jimmy Carter, sitting down in her office on Wednesday for a talk with the former president who brokered the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt, the first between the Jewish state and an Arab nation.

Carter has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration's Middle East polices and wrote a recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," that some believe is anti-Israeli. McCormack said the differences in approach were not a subject of her conversation.

Rice has also spoken by phone with former President Clinton about his work on the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace deal. She discussed with both Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright the unsuccessful 2000 attempt in Shepherdstown, W.Va., to mediate an Israeli-Syrian agreement and their bid later that year at Camp David to forge an Israeli-Palestinian pact.

Others she has reached out to include former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and James Baker, and to one-time U.S. peace negotiators like Dennis Ross, who played a key role in the Clinton administration and the administration of former President George H.W. Bush.

In addition, Rice, whose background is in Soviet studies, asked the State Department historian's office to prepare a voluminous, and classified, compendium of its records on the U.S. role in Middle East peacemaking.

McCormack declined to offer details of her private readings and conversations or discuss any conclusions she may have drawn from them. But he noted that Rice, especially given her background as an academic, has intense interest in studying past diplomacy for clues about what might work as the Annapolis meeting approaches.

"We view the situation as qualitatively different than it has been, the history moves on, people change roles, situations," McCormack said.

"That said, you can take the lessons of history and apply them," he said. "She is a student of history and has a keen appreciation for how we can apply the lessons of history, what we can learn from those who have gone before us."

Rice faces serious obstacles in organizing Annapolis, with both Israel and the Palestinians far apart on a joint statement to be presented to the meeting that she and President Bush hope will launch the start of formal peace talks.

The two sides have fundamental differences over how detailed the document must be and whether it should contain a timeline for progress in the eventual negotiations.

The Israelis want the statement to be as vague as possible while the Palestinians are pushing for deadlines and specific references to the key issues in the conflict, among them the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of disputed Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Rice's last trip to the region, a furious four-day shuttle diplomacy mission earlier this month, produced little apparent progress on bringing the two sides together.

However, she did win at least public support for the Annapolis conference from Egypt and Jordan, two critical Arab allies of the United States that had both expressed skepticism about the utility of the meeting.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

this is a man's world

2007-10-23T11:17:00.000-04:00

wow! James Brown and Pavarotti...

holding my breath

2007-10-23T09:28:00.000-04:00

we might actually be done with diapers!! Little sister has been wearing "grown-up underwear" for two and a half days now. One accident, she fell asleep and when she woke up from her nap, she forgot she didn't have a diaper on. But she has decided she's ready, and does not need to be reminded to go to the bathroom. hip-hip-hoooray!

Tacenda Literary Award

2007-10-20T07:03:00.000-04:00

*Best Short Story that illuminates problems of social injustice*
link

Congrats Randy!

which possible future do you want to live in?

2007-10-18T06:31:00.000-04:00

We are at an amazing point in history. We are being given the choice between several (possibly more than several) possible futures. Which one do you pick? Or would you rather sit back and let someone else, say those lunatics in DC whose lives exist solely to support the war machine, choose for you? Inaction is as much a choice as anything you can do, and even when you do not act, you are still responsible for the result. It's up to you now, whatcha gonna do?

The People Have The Power

Thoreau (part two)

2007-10-12T08:53:00.000-04:00

link
I don't think I'll go and edit that post (like I normally would), I'll just start a new one and call it "part two"

Here's the rest of that first paragraph, which was the first quote in the previous blog post:

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

gonna skip ahead now, keep up... (I strongly urge you to read the whole thing yourself all the way through, at least twice. The first time, with a really good dictionary handy.)

Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

I have a moral obligation to do what I think is right, regardless of what any authority might be telling me to do.

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?

It doesn't make you a good person to unquestioningly do as you are told, it makes you a shadow of a person, a tool to be used by others to do their bidding.

In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.

A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.

(emphasis mine)

on the duty of civil disobedience (part one)

2007-10-12T06:44:00.000-04:00

What a fabulous essay by Henry David Thoreau. I highly recommend every citizen read this. But I realize how difficult that can be. So what I'm a gonna do is translate it for you. He packs so many ideas into each sentence, we'll have to plod our way through a little at a time. Since most normal folk just don't have copies of the world's great philosophical works in their personal libraries, here's a link for ya. Remember this was written in 1848 (according to my book. 1849 according to that website).

I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

in other words, the best sort of government has the least control over the people. He is saying that when people are ready to take responsibility for their own actions, to do what they know is right rather than be governed and always told what to do, they will have no need for government. He says that government is a tool, and if it's useful to us, all of us, we should use it. And when it becomes broken and would hurt us, we should throw it away and get a new one.

He says that the great deeds done in the name of our country were not accomplished by the government, but by People! The government sometimes slowed down the process or prevented the people from doing even greater things.

Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

This isn't so different from today. Big business, with lots of money in the bank, bounces over the obstacles the government puts in the way of trade and commerce. I'm not certain if he's calling the rich businessmen crooks, or the politicians who create laws that benefit them, I would say it's probably both.

on this day in history, Oct 11

2007-10-11T06:05:00.001-04:00

October 11, 1987

Nearly one million people flooded Washington, D.C., demanding civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans, now celebrated each year as National Coming Out Day.

Peace in 90 languages

2007-10-10T13:43:00.000-04:00

This website is, like, way cool, y'all!

a spring in my step

2007-10-08T06:57:00.000-04:00

Now I understand the above phrase.

I had so much fun at the powwow this weekend over at Audubon Acres. Friday, I did a lot of talking. Saturday, I did a lot of listening. Sunday, I danced and shared some stories. I stomped my feet and had a blast! I noticed something really strange. I noticed that if you stomp exactly in time with the drum, the earth bounces your feet back up and it's much easier. That's how those people out west can stomp all night long, the earth is bouncing their feet for them.

When you see someone walking with a spring in their step, it's because they are following the beat of their inner drum. When you see this big goofy grin on my face that's because it's so much fun!

Columbus Day protest in Denver leads to arrests

2007-10-07T05:43:00.000-04:00

Sat Oct 6, 2007 6:26pm EDT
By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - About 75 protesters, including American Indian activist Russell Means, were arrested on Saturday after blocking Denver's downtown parade honoring the Italian-born discoverer Christopher Columbus, an event they denounced as "a celebration of genocide."

Police loaded protesters onto buses after they refused orders to disperse. Most will be charged with obstruction of a roadway or disrupting a lawful assembly, Denver Police Lt. Ron Saunier said.

Police delayed the parade's start for more than an hour as they tried to head off confrontations.

American Indian groups and their supporters have disrupted the city's annual Columbus Day parade every year for nearly two decades, leading to clashes with Colorado's Italian-American community over the century-old celebration, the longest-running such commemoration in the United States.

Columbus Day, marked this year on October 8, is an official holiday for most U.S. federal government workers, many public schools, state and local agencies and the U.S. bond market. It recalls the October 12, 1492, landing of Columbus in the Americas on his search for a naval route to India, an event that spawned an era of European interest in the New World.

Means, talking to Reuters before his arrest, said Columbus was the "first trans-Atlantic slave trader" after landing in the Americas in 1492. He said Columbus started centuries of oppression of native peoples.

"By all accounts, Christopher Columbus was personally responsible for thousands of deaths of the original inhabitants of this hemisphere," Means said.

Parade organizer George Vendegnia of the Sons of Italy said his group would honor Columbus' legacy until the U.S. Congress changed the holiday's name. Some cities including Berkeley, California, have already changed the name to "Indigenous People's Day."

"It's a day for us to celebrate our heritage," Vendegnia said.

Parade opponent Glenn Spagnuolo, an Italian-American, said Columbus' legacy should not be celebrated.

"To honor someone who, by his own writings, was a slave trader, is immoral," he said. "I don't see any of my Italian culture in celebrating the occupation and destruction of native cultures."

What a Wonderful World

2007-10-06T08:40:00.000-04:00

By Louis Armstrong

I see trees of green........ red roses too
I see em bloom..... for me and for you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do
Theyre really sayin......i love you.

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
Theyll learn much more.....than Ill never know
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are there on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do
Theyre really sayin...*spoken*(I ....love....you).

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
*spoken*(you know their gonna learn
A whole lot more than Ill never know)
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself .......what a wonderful world.

durn it all! I can't get this video embed code to work!
check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU4vNoiOETU
Joey Ramone - What a Wonderful World

Pizza!

2007-10-03T07:05:00.000-04:00

So who says eating gluten-free means being deprived? The family thought I was nuts to take a picture of our dinner, maybe they're right! LOL

This was our dinner last night (and possibly breakfast this morning). The crust is my favorite biscuit recipe plus a packet of yeast dissolved in hot water. The toppings are typical, except littlest one is allergic to tomatoes, so I use spinach for the "sauce" instead. Black olives for kids, mushrooms for Daddy. yummmm...

Burma

2007-10-02T07:13:00.000-04:00

I have been inundated lately with forwarded emails, bulletins on myspace, friend's blogs, all detailing the plight of the Buddhist monks in Burma. I'm sure you have, too. But there's a skeptic in my head that keeps saying, "nobody in their right mind could possibly bash in the head of a Buddhist monk, NOBODY! These monks, they won't even step on a bug, you know?" And I think about how the media has lately been making a monster of China. The Chinese government is now the new bad guy, we aren't afraid enough of the "terrorist threat" and they need something even scarier. It smells of propoganda aimed towards our acceptance of a bigger badder war. A new kind of propoganda, perhaps much more effective than the mainstream channels.

Shall we allow them to use this as an excuse to make even more money from the massive slaughter of innocent people? Shall we, as world citizens, accept war, no matter the justifications for that war they offer us? Never forget that the war machine is a huge money-making venture. Those who profit from killing make money no matter which side wins, while everyone else pays the price in blood. Why should my tax dollars be spent on war technology? Technology that kills lots of people for no good reason other than to make the rich, richer; and the poor, poorer.

My prayers and Love goes out most deeply to Burma and Tibet, but also to the people in government who think they should get to decide who lives and who dies.

Osprey

2007-10-01T11:51:00.000-04:00

I would like to share with y'all this drawing of an osprey by my six-year-old daughter.

thank you

The Uman Song

2007-09-30T10:10:00.000-04:00

You'll have to check out Lazer Beams for yourself!

What if?

2007-09-22T06:52:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I blogged my own words. I'm feeling as though I have run out of words. I've said it already, anything I might have to say to you. So today, in advance celebration of the equinox tomorrow, let's suppose I'm right...

Imagine what the world might be like if all people chose to look within themselves for all the answers. Imagine a world without governments and wars, because each person would be self-governing. Each person would define for themselves what is right and wrong, and in so doing would learn to respect everyone else's autonomy. Just imagine! There would be no written laws, because the Law lies only in each person's heart. There would be no jails, no poverty, no abuses against humanity. Why is it that many people find this so hard to imagine? It's the only thing that really makes sense to me. I don't understand when people hurt people. I don't get it, why anyone would ever kill another person. There's no reason good enough. So what if I am right? What if everyone really does have the ability to know the difference between right and wrong, if they'd only look within and trust their intuition? What is stopping my dream from becoming reality?

Let's take this a step further. Let's imagine the above scenario is true. What would religion look like in such a world? What if religion were defined by each individual for themselves? What if nobody ever told anyone else what to believe? What not to believe? What if the fear were gone, and people were free to find their own Divinity, inside themselves? It would not be a godless world, as some philosophers have said. It would rather be a very magical world! Religion and spirituality would be as real and important to people's lives as the air we breathe or the water we drink, because nobody would make anyone else afraid to believe the truth that lies within.

What if?

FDA attacks...

2007-09-21T06:26:00.001-04:00

FDA CRACKS DOWN ON NATURAL HERBAL SWEETENER, STEVIA

The FDA, under pressure from the powerful sugar and artificial sweetener lobby, has issued a warning letter to Celestial Seasonings for using a popular natural sweetener in some of its teas. The letter indicates the FDA classifies the herb stevia as "unsafe", even though it is a main staple sweetener in countries like China and Japan and has been used without negative health effects by indigenous people for at least 400 years. In the FDA's letter to Celestial Seasonings, the agency aggressively condemns the use of the herb, noting that "enforcement action may include seizure of violative products". The FDA claims no evidence has been provided to the agency regarding the herb's safety, but federal records reveal the FDA has received over a thousand scientific studies regarding stevia, and all but one of them verify the safety of the herb. In sharp contrast, nearly half of the studies provided to the FDA regarding the artificial sweetener aspartame, previously owned by Monsanto, indicate serious health concerns, yet it is one of the most commonly used (and one of the most profitable) sweeteners in the U.S. The OCA has also verified the FDA has strengthened enforcement of stevia imports at the borders. Last week, the agency updated a document that mandates detainment of imported food products containing stevia.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7140.cfm

Spy Chief says:

2007-09-18T06:23:00.000-04:00

in the news this morning. I read this article.
So the "Spy Chief" says, Russia and China are spying on us, so that makes it okay for us to spy on everyone, even our own citizens??? And this was in testimony at a congressional hearing? Certainly our politicians aren't so easily swayed by fallacious arguments? Surely they have at least a rudimentary understanding of LOGIC! ...or, is it more a factor of the fact that they are secure in their knowledge that the typical public-educated citizen has no clue about how to think rationally? hm.....

"China and Russia are spying on the United States nearly as much as they did during the Cold War, according to the top U.S. intelligence official.

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, says in testimony prepared for a Tuesday congressional hearing that a law passed last month expanding the U.S. government's eavesdropping power is needed to protect not just against terrorists but also against more traditional potential adversaries, such as those two Cold War foes."

...

"Congress last month hastily adopted the Protect America Act just before it went on summer vacation, propelled by McConnell's warnings of a need to close a dangerous gap in U.S. intelligence law.

Some lawmakers are now having second thoughts as the complicated law — intended to make it easier for the government to intercept foreign calls and e-mails — has come under attack by civil liberties and privacy advocates who contend it gives the government broader powers than intended.

The Protect America Act allows the government to listen in, without a court order, on all communications conducted by a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States, even if an American is on one end of the conversation."

Marjorie Cohn

2007-09-16T04:48:00.000-04:00

I get all excited when Marjorie Cohn posts a new article on her blog! Not that I give one whit about lawyers or how law schools are run, but it's a really good article (as all of her writing is). Check it out! :-)

25 years ago today

2007-09-15T08:24:00.000-04:00

Did you know about the 1,700 (or more) men, women, and children who were slaughtered at the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra-Shatilla? I didn't. Never heard one single word of it. Not that I cared much for the news when I was 13, but you'd think someone would have said something about it, sometime, somewhere, in the years since then... link It's a heart-breaking article, but one I feel is very much worth reading and contemplating.

frankenfoods

2007-09-12T17:41:00.000-04:00

ALERT:
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUGAR TO HIT STORES IN 2008

American Crystal, a large Wyoming-based sugar company, who ironically have launched an "organic" line of their sugar,and several other leading U.S. sugar providers have announced they will be sourcing their sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets beginning this year and arriving in stores in 2008. Like GE corn and GE soy, products containing GE sugar will not be labeled as such. Since half of the granulated sugar in the U.S. comes from sugar beets, a move towards biotech beets marks a dramatic alteration of the U.S. food supply. These sugars, along with GE corn and soy, are found in many conventional food products, so consumers will be exposed to genetically engineered ingredients in just about every non-organic multiple-ingredient product they purchase.

The GE sugar beet is designed to withstand strong doses of Monsanto's controversial broad spectrum Roundup herbicide. Studies indicate farmers planting "Roundup Ready" corn and soy spray large amounts of the herbicide, contaminating both soil and water. Farmers planting GE sugar beets are told they may be able to apply the herbicide up to five times per year. Sugar beets are grown on 1.4 million acres by 12,000 farmers in the U.S. from Oregon to Minnesota.

Meanwhile candy companies like Hershey's are urging farmers not to plant GE sugar beets, noting that consumer surveys suggest resistance to the product. In addition the European Union has not approved GE sugar beets for human consumption.

Take action now to stop Genetically Engineered Sugar:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7031.cfm

HYPOCRISY QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
180 DEGREE TURN IN THREE MONTHS

May 2007:
"American Crystal Sugar Company, has no plans to grow GM sugar beets. Herbicide resistant varieties developed using biotechnology will not be allowed to be sold, given away, distributed, or planted in year 2007." (Source: Statement released by American Crystal)

August 2007:
"Here at American Crystal, we believe biotechnology is the current wave that will help feed the world." (Source: American Crystal President David Berg)

9/11 ....not!

2007-09-11T06:54:00.000-04:00

nuh-uh, not gonna talk about what happened on this date in history. Sorry. Nobody wanted to talk about Hiroshima or MLK, Jr. so I won't talk about 9/11/2001.

new hawk!

2007-09-08T07:35:00.001-04:00

So the red-shouldered hawks are migratory and they left our neighborhood but every now and then you'd see one of them. Now there's a new hawk, a big hawk, a red-tailed hawk hunting in my yard! She doesn't seem so much larger than the other ones when sitting still, perched in a tree, but her wingspan... Oh wow! What a beautiful animal.

We were talking about this new hawk, my husband and I. My oldest daughter said, "maybe it's because you have so much more magic now that you need a bigger hawk." I said in reply that a bigger bird doesn't necessarily have more magic, look at the tiny songbirds that come to our feeder, they have lots of magic, rather it's a different kind of magic.

Free Leonard Peltier

2007-09-07T06:38:00.000-04:00

link

The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee kindly requests that you please forward this annoucement in its entirety, please do not modify, edit, remove or add to this annoucement. Please refer to Note Section, after Leonard Peltiers' message for Leonard's address and additional information.
Respectfully,
Toni Zeidan-Co-director LPDCA

Message from Leonard Peltier:
Greetings My Relatives,
You know I was just thinking there should be a degree one could receive for having expertise on doing prison time. I think I would be called Professor Peltier, PhD. with 30 years tenure. A friend of mine said once, PhD where he is from stands for post hole digger. I think I would at this time, embrace being a post hole digger, although I don't relish the thought of fencing anything in after being fenced in myself for 30 + years.

On being imprisoned, I want to touch on that subject a bit. There are some who have voiced their opinion in one way or another, that I should give up after all these years of trying to win my freedom. Aside from the oppressors who put me here, some of them are people who were at times, part of theLeonard Peltier Defense Committee; others, on the fringes. My answer, to put it in a simple, colloquial phrase, that anyone can understand, .it ain't gonna happen! There are many reasons, both physical and mental, spiritualand social. The number one reason is that there aren't any women in here. That should cover the social. Eh!

Another reason, is that the struggle is not just about me. It's about life on earth, the struggle to survive, the onslaught of destructive technology, wealth mongering, by those who see the common man as nothing more than expendable beings to further their personal quest for power and affluence. I am here because, as a common man, along with other common men, I chose to try to stop the exploitation of my people. I know the Creator sent other common men at other times and other places and to other races to do the same. I am honored to be among common men. I know they tried to cause us to separate from alliances by color, religion, and geographic locale but our struggle is the same. It's against people taking more than they need. In my culture it is taught that you should not take more than you need. In Christianity, Buddhism, and Zen, as well as most other spiritual teachings, it is taught that gluttony is a sin. Violation of this teaching is the reason for global warming, and the reason for world wars, including the war in Iraq at this time.

Because of people who always seek to take more than they need, my people have suffered greatly. They are the poorest of the poor yet most still cling to the original teachings. They have fought for several generations for the exploitation of our land, illegal occupation of our land, unjust treatmenti n the U.S. judicial system, and most of all, government lies and liars that have led the American people to believe all this exploitation and violation of treaties is in their best interest. I watch TV from time to time, and I notice there are those who try to make the wars like a war between religions. I tell you my relatives, it is only a ruse to get young men to die for those who crave wealth and power over the common man.

If the many denominations of religions would stand together as one against the violation that jeopardizes life itself, it would make a major difference throughout the world. Today, more than any other time in history, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. I may, by now, have written more than you care to read. But, from where I sit myself, it's the best I can do. The Defense Committee that bears my name struggles to help enlighten people of events and needs of people in jeopardy. I don't use the word struggle lightly. Aside from trying to raise money for attorneys and office expenses, etc., we raise money for food and clothing for needy people on reservations in urban areas. In my world, the poor are common. I am honored to be one of them, to represent them from time to time, though it be from afar. We as Native People look to the Creator's greatest manifestation for teachings, Mother Earth and her system of nature, along with personal visions, from time to time. In that, we see grass though encased in concrete, pushing its way through the cracks. We see the trees and water break down the structures of man that imprison them. We see everywhere, all life trying to follow the original instruction given by the Creator. If Iwere a blade of grass, I would grow out of here. If I were water, I would flow away from here. If I were a ray of light, I would bounce off these walls and be gone. However, I am not and unless I, at some future time, receive my freedom that was unjustly taken in the same manner as was the freedom of so many Native People before me. I can only leave here through my paintings, written words, and some other forms of communication that are sometimes available. I am in my 60's now. If I end up spending all my days here, and my last breath rides on the wind, and the moisture of my body flows to the sea, and the elements of my being make the grass grow and the trees flourish, make no mistake they can kill my body but they can't kill me. I am a common man.

The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee will continue working on my behalf and towards my freedom unless you the supporters tell me to close down the Defense Committee. Having said all this, I wish to ask you, if you can in any way help us, meaning the Defense Committee, send any donation to :
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
3800 N. Mesa
A2
El Paso, Texas 79902

Pease do so, it is a common cause. If my case stands as it is, no common person has real freedom. Only the illusion until you have something the oppressors want. Back to being a post hole digger.. I'd rather be a free post hole digger than Professor Leonard Peltier, PhD.

May the Creator bless you with all you need.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, who never gave up

All my relations,
Leonard Peltier

Note: Sept 12, is Leonard Peltier's birthday. Supporters wishing to send Leonard a Birthday Card, we suggest that you send the birthday cards and letters NOW, thus allowing sufficient time for mail delivery.

Leonard Peltier's address:
Leonard Peltier #89637-132
USP Lewisburg PA
PO Box 1000
Lewisburg PA 17837

Leonard Peltier Defense Committe
Email: info@leonardpeltier.net
Website: http://www.leonardpeltier.net/
Phone- 570-524-0749

International Peltier Forum email:
IPF WEBSITE: http://users.skynet.be/kola/index.htm
ONLINE PETITION FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY http://users.skynet.be/kola/lppet.htm

Go Lindsay!

2007-09-05T15:51:00.000-04:00

Wow! That's some amazing woman, my cousin!

http://www.row2k.com/worlds/features.cfm?ID=1734

I like this photo better than the one they used for the article. :-)