Changing Places

Via Farrfeed, I came across this wonderful piece today:

Maven Productions

…One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires … causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these — to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both — are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

– Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.

John’s whole post is well worth a read, too. Heck, John’s whole blog is well worth a read, and he writes books, to boot.

On top of this lovely penthouse balcony overlooking English Bay.

Sigh. Must be nice to have that kind of money. The story I heard was that Leonard Nimoy used to live there. What a view that must have!

The building is interesting in its architecture. The story there is that it was designed by a heroin addict, and the front of the building appears to have a huge needle coming down the front.

We had an absolutely beautiful day and enjoyed exploring much of the west end and Stanley Park during our visit. Vancouver is amazingly green for a city, with many, many trees and little parks throughout. And Stanley Park is simply magnificent.

Other downtown buildings had large trees on penthouse balconies as well. This is a view taken from Granville Island (another amazing part of Vancouver):

Wow.

Even in Vancouver…

It was a great trip, chock full of salmon and beer! More pics and trip info later, but now, off to bed. (yawn!)

Every Year the Salmon Come Back;
silkscreen by Robert Davidson.
Photo: Haida Gwaii Museum at Qay’llnagaay

We’re headed off to Vancouver for a vacation (finally!) so posting will be light or non-existant for a week or so. Hopefully lots of pics when we get back!

Yum, salmon… going to eat like a bear all week! Well, probably cooked salmon not raw… and we’ll probably have salmon with beers, not bears…

American Airlines Statement Regarding The Path to 9/11 on ABC-TV: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

American Airlines Statement Regarding The Path to 9/11 on ABC-TV
Monday September 11, 6:03 pm ET

FORT WORTH, Texas, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — American Airlines today issued the following statement regarding the ABC-TV program The Path to 9/11:

“The Disney/ABC television program, The Path to 9/11, which began airing last night, is inaccurate and irresponsible in its portrayal of the airport check-in events that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

“A factual description of those events can be found in the official government edition of the 9/11 Commission Report and supporting documents.

“This misrepresentation of facts dishonors the memory of innocent American Airlines employees and all those who lost their lives as a result of the tragic events of 9/11.”

American said it will have no further comment beyond the statement at this time.

Lying to the world about 9-11, abusing Chinese workers.

Bad, bad mouse.

The Standard – China’s Business Newspaper

Guangdong factories producing merchandise for Walt Disney are still ill- treating their workers by underpaying them and making them overwork, according to a concern group.

A report released Sunday by the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, or SACOM, accused three factories in the province of gross violation of mainland labor laws and called for immediate action to halt the malpractices.

It said the workers, besides being underpaid and forced to work overtime, were also not offered occupational insurance.

The group made the findings after interviewing 50 workers from three factories in Shenzhen and Zhuhai in July and August – the second time it has investigated working conditions in factories producing Disney merchandise.

Last year it found workers at four other factories in Dongguan, Shenzhen and Zhongshan being exploited by their bosses.

As long as we’re making cartoon versions of history….

The cold war was fought between the Soviet Unicorn and the American Unicorn. It was called the cold war because the unicorns battled each other in the snow. The American Unicorn won by getting the Soviet Unicorn to go play in Afghanistan and spend too much money developing a better unicorn horn to attack with.

The End.

Hat tip for Unicorn photos to Archie McPhee via My Confined Space.

skippy the bush kangaroo

‘To the dead we owe only the truth’

It is not about the movie.

It’s not about polls or politics or the election of 2006.

It’s about them.

It’s about Christine Lee Hanson.

She was 2 1/2 years old and on United Flight 175 with her mother and father when the hijackers took it over.

She did not know that when President George W. Awol took office in January, he and his National Security Advisor Condi Rice would ignore the warnings presented to them by the outgoing administration and by counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke.

She did not know that for months Clarke and others attempted to issue warnings to Awol and Vice President Dick Cheney about a gathering threat.

She did not know that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft produced a budget to cut funding for counter-terrorism measures.

She did not know that when President Bill Clinton had attempted to kill Osama bin Laden, Republican Congressmen and media pundits denounced him for trying to distract what they saw as the more important investigation into whether a young woman willingly performed oral sex on him.

She did not know that on Aug. 6, 2001, a CIA briefer gave Awol a report entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.”

She did not know that Awol told the briefer he had “covered his ass” but Awol remained on vacation and took no action such as ordering increased security for airports or any other counter-measures to stop the attack.

All she knew was that she was on a plane with her mother and father.

The flight must have been incredibly rocky with the hijackers taking the jet into a power dive as they headed for New York City.

Her father was on the phone with her grandfather during those last moments.

Her father knew they were about to die.

Imagine if you will what it was like to be Christine’s father and mother. You know you are about to die with your young daughter next to you. Your dreams of growing up together with her, teaching her to read a book, watching her climb a tree, playing catch with her, sending her off to school, are about to end.

It must have been horrifying. Yet at the same time you probably fight to reassure her and reassure your father on the phone with you that it is all right because you do not want her last moments on earth to be terrifying. You probably want to fill them with love, with comfort.

Christine’s grandfather said later that his son told him, “Don’t worry, Dad. If it happens, it’ll be quick.”

One plane had already crashed into a Twin Tower.

Then the plane sped into the second tower.

Christine’s father said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” and her grand father heard a scream and he watched on television as the second plane flew into the World Trade Center.

Moments after Christine died, the president’s top adviser whispered in Awol’s ear.

Awol went back to listening to children read “My Pet Goat” to him.

Just six months later, Awol said he did not know where the man who masterminded the scheme to kill Christine was. And he didn’t spend that much time on him.

That is the sad truth we owe Christine.

DKos:

Hot on bin Laden’s trail, when his basic whereabouts were still known, and just months after bin Laden engineered the most devestating foreign attack on American soil in our history, this president gives up the chase to fight a bogeyman in Iraq who had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks. The basic reality of the situation was that George W. Bush just wasn’t all that interested in seeing bin Laden brought to justice, either in December 2001, or a few months later when he shifted focus to Iraq, or a year later on March 13, 2003 when he said these infamous words:

“And, again, I don’t know where he [bin Laden] is. I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.” — George W. Bush, March 13, 2003

We went to see Chris at his book signing in La Jolla this evening, and really enjoyed it. He’s a very bright and articulate person. I’m looking forward to more great journalism and books from Chris.If you haven’t gotten a chance to read “The Republican War on Science“, please pick up a copy, now in paperback. It’s a great look at the long campaign of the Republican party against scientific thought and progress in America.

The Intersection: A Big Day in La Jolla

Well, here’s the first dispatch from the road….This morning I will be on San Diego’s progressive talk radio, KLSD 1360 am, at around 11 am ET, 8 am PT. You should be able to listen live here. The station website is here.

This afternoon, as previously mentioned, I’ll be giving a talk on the occasion of my receipt of the “Preserving Core Values in Science” award from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. Then at 7:30 pm PT, I’ll be doing my first paperback tour talk at Warwick’s here in La Jolla. I am trying out a new talk for this occasion…we’ll see how it goes.

And then, if I’m still standing, it’s off to hang out with Drinking Liberally San Diego….the day sounds like a bit of a whirlwind, perhaps, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Let’s not turn doctors into cops and force girls to go to back-alley abortionists again. If you can’t talk to your parents about sex already, you surely don’t want your doctor calling and telling them you’re pregnant!

Sigh. How many times do we have to fight this battle for control of OUR OWN BODIES?

Young women of California, get out there and VOTE. Get registered HERE.

No On 85 » The Facts

While many parents rightly want to be involved in their teenage daughters’ lives, in the real world, some teens can’t go to their parents – a major reason why Proposition 85 is wrong for California. Also:

Good family communication cannot be imposed by government.

When laws make teenagers choose between talking with parents or having illegal and unsafe abortions, some will delay critical medical care, turn to self-induced or illegal back-alley abortions, or even consider suicide.

Doctors, nurses, and teachers strongly oppose proposition 85.

Supporters of Prop 85 – including the Traditional Values Coalition, Evangelicals for Social Action and Right to Life of Central California – are the same people who want to overturn Roe v. Wade and ban all abortions.

The real answer to teen pregnancy is prevention and strong, caring families – not new laws that endanger vulnerable young women.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’m having way too much fun following the Disney-ABC 9/11 controversy this week.

You know, there’s a reason we call things “Mickey Mouse” when we see that they are full of made-up, pretend excuses for reality. While Disneyland is a nice fantasy place, fun to spend a day at, we don’t want to live there, as neat and clean as the streets are and as fun as it may be. Eventually, it’s tiring, and we want to go home. I remember when my eldest son was about 18 months old, we went to Disneyland. I had him on a restraint since he liked to run off, and I didn’t want him lost, and people looked at me like I was the cruelest mom in the world. Perhaps these days, almost 20 years later in a land where the leaders try to make us constantly afraid, they would understand.

My son was watching the electric light parade around 9:00, so tired and sleepy he could barely stay awake. He sat on my husband’s shoulders, raisining his head each time the music told him another float was coming by, and watched in amazement until it passed, then rested his head again. Float after float, for 15 minutes.

I feel like that is what America is like now, the threat of terror every time we start to relax, and another big show moving past for a few hours or days to entertain and try to terrify us, or dazzle us with the lights and noise. And then, we are expected to go back to sleep, to not notice the reality of what is around us, and not care that it’s all just a show.

And I want to go home. I desperately want the six year long GOP mockumentary of American life to end, so we can get back, after a bit of a rest, clean up the mess from Dubya’s Circus, end this parade of failure and distraction and get on with solving our problems.

It’s time to grow the fuck up, America. Quit living in the fantasy world Disney-ABC-GOP wants you to live in. Let’s not go back to sleep this time.

Let’s walk out on this show, and go home again.

UPDATE:

pic courtesy xenophile via Eschaton.

Jerry Politex makes this excellent point today:

In “Path to 9/11″ we’re seeing one of the most blatant attempts in history to shape the facts to reflect a predetermined point of view, not just for the U.S., but for international consumption as well. As is so often the case in politics, we have to follow the money. Since there are no sponsors of the show (there are no commercials) one wonders how ABC is picking up the financial slack for presenting 5 hours of non-commercial TV on its commercial network. Not with distribution rights or unit sales, since ABC is freely providing both over the internet. Nothing has been said about the funding source in any of the many news and opinion reports published to date. Until we learn more about where the money for such an expensive undertaking is coming from, our experience of the workings of the Bush administration suggest that this Bush propaganda project is being carried out with corporation and government working hand-in-hand to change history for political ends. In other words, what we’re seeing is a classic case of fascism in action.

UPDATE UPDATE:

From the AP:

US network to re-edit ‘libellous’ 9/11 series
September 09, 2006
NEW YORK: The ABC television network in the US is frantically re-editing its $40 million mini-series about September 11 amid a blistering backlash over fictional scenes that lay the blame on the Clinton administration.

The docu-drama, The Path to 9/11, allegedly contains several historical inaccuracies, some of which have been described as libellous, and suggests Bill Clinton was too busy with the Monica Lewinsky scandal to fight terrorism.

Former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, who headed the September 11 commission and was a paid consultant on the mini-series, said some controversial scenes in The Path to 9/11 were being removed or changed.

But Democrats continued to demand that ABC cancel the two-part series, which a spokesman for Mr Clinton called “despicable”. The first part of the program is scheduled to be broadcast tomorrow night.

Mr Clinton’s lawyer sent Mr Kean a chiding letter expressing “shock” that a man so dedicated to accuracy had worked on a movie “that has been widely criticised for its libellous historical inaccuracies”.

And in a letter to ABC, Bruce Lindsey, head of the Clinton Foundation, said: “The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate, and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely.”

Of course, these scenes are already in the versions released to right-wing bloggers and media, so they will be spread around among the right wing and then it will be cleaimed they were “deleted” by the “liberal media”.

How convenient.

First to go was a made-up scene showing Mr Clinton’s national security adviser Sandy Berger hanging up on CIA operatives who were moments away from killing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. “You will not see that in that way in the final edition,” Mr Kean said.

The CIA was never steps away from bin Laden, nor did Berger hang up on agents in the field, Mr Kean admitted.

So the righties will claim “Clinton could have killed bin Laden, but ABC won’t show you THIS scene.

Watch and wait, it’s coming.

Via Economist’s View:

Provide Protections From Retirement’s Pitfalls

My research colleagues Gordon Mermin and Cori Uccello and I recently gathered hard facts on the boomer school of hard knocks. We found that more than 4 in 10 adults age 51 to 61 in 1992 were diagnosed with major new medical conditions — including heart disease, cancer, serious lung ailments, diabetes, strokes, and psychiatric problems — between 1992 and 2002. About one-third developed health problems so severe that they had to cut back on work or retire early. About 10 percent of married people became widowed; another 3 percent divorced.

Older adults also work in an uncertain job market as retirement nears. Almost one in five was laid off between 1992 and 2002. Remarkably, these jobs were lost during the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, when unemployment rates fell to historic lows. The next generation could approach retirement in far tougher economic times.

Combining all of these shocks, we found that about 7 in 10 adults age 51 to 61 in 1992 developed a health problem, lost a spouse to death or divorce, or became unemployed during the 10 years ending in 2002.

All those righties who think we don’t need things like social security, medicare, national health care, etc are idiots.

No real surprises for me to be Orpheus. I’ve done the whole logic and Plato thing before, been the Oracle for a while, too. Time to play, now.

Take the test here.

Via Watermark.

OKCupid! The Greek Mythology Personality Test

Orpheus

33% Extroversion, 66% Intuition, 100% Emotiveness, 76% Perceptiveness
You are an artist, an aesthete, a sensitive, and someone who has never really let go of that childlike innocence. To you, all of life has a sense of wonder in it, and the story of Orpheus was written about someone just like you.

When the Argo passed the island of the Sirens, Orpheus played a song more beautiful than the Sirens to prevent the crew from becoming enticed. When his wife died, he ventured into the underworld to charm Hades but, in his naivete, he looked back becoming trapped there.

You can capture your unique world view and relate it to others with the skill of a master storyteller. Your sensitivity and creativity make you a treasure to the human race, but your thin-skinned nature and innocence can cause you a lot of disenchantment and pain. What’s doubly unfortunate is that, if you try to lose those traits, you never will, and everyone will be able to tell that you’re putting up an artificial shell to prevent yourself from being hurt.

Famous people like you: Hemingway, Shakespeare, Mr. Rogers, Melville, Nick Tosches
Stay clear of: Icarus, Hermes, Atlas

Heh. Go to onegoodmove to see the video…. but then, I already knew Darrell Issa was a crazy motherfucker.

onegoodmove: I thought these things might be clues.

Real time with Bill Maher included a conversation on the subject of evolution. Here is my favorite exchange.

Representative Darrell Issa (R) California: “The real thinking people on this earth don’t know which to believe, and they think about both and lean toward one or the other.”

Penn Gillete: “Crazy Motherfucker!”

How wonderful that something this great can come from the massive liberal funfest that is Burning Man.

Let’s see the rich religious righties ever do something this cool.

THE BURNING MAN FESTIVAL / Hot spots at the burn
– Best camp: Camp Katrina

Katrina victims who were at Burning Man when the hurricane hit last summer and the burners who helped them recover built a museum-style display of their relief mission to the Gulf Coast.

Through pictures, words, video and artifacts — water-logged bedposts, chipped picture frames and other items collected in Katrina’s wake — burners learned the story of how artists responded to the devastation.

Using $40,000 and 7 tons of food collected at Burning Man 2005, a crew from Burners Without Borders and Burning Man Temple Builders flew to Biloxi, Miss., and rebuilt a Vietnamese Buddhist temple with donated construction equipment. In Pearlington, Miss., they rebuilt a home for a 71-year-old man who was left with nothing but the Harley-Davidson motorcycle he’d used to escape the rising waters.

By the end of their six-month stint, burners had provided $1 million worth of free demolition to homeowners, knocked down 60 homes, recycled tons of lumber into new homes, and fetched an untold number of runaway boats and sheds.

“It was a life-altering experience,” said Scott Stephenson of Jackson Hole, Wyo. “We shared gumbo with shrimpers whose homes we put back on their foundations.”

The work inspired Camp Katrina to try something new this year at Burning Man. They asked burners to skip the tradition of burning the wood from their camps and structures at the end of the event, and instead bring it to their camp so they could recycle it into low-income housing in Reno.

Thanks for Labor Day, guys! And thanks to all those working so hard today to improve wages for those who work so hard for so little, and who keep working to provide health care for the 40 million uninsured.

As in the 1880s and 90s, we’re at this point of needing to learn once again that everyone matters to our nation and its economy, not just the wealthy. Happy Labor Day.

“In the Beginning . . .”: A Knight’s Sacred Oath

In the beginning, God ordained that man should labor, not as a curse, but as a blessing; not as a punishment, but as means of development, physically, mentally, morally, and has set thereunto his seal of approval in the rich increase and reward. By labor is brought forward the kindly fruits of the earth in rich abundance for our sustenance and comfort; by labor (not exhaustive) is promoted health of the body and strength of mind, labor garners the priceless stores of wisdom and knowledge. It is the “Philosopher’s Stone,” everything it touches turns to wealth. “Labor is noble and holy.” To glorify God in its exercise, to defend it from degradation, to divest it of the evils to body, mind, and estate, which ignorance and greed have imposed; to rescue the toiler from the grasp of the selfish is a work worthy of the noblest and best of our race.

You have been selected from among your associates for that exalted purpose. Are you willing to accept the responsibility, and, trusting in the support of pledged true Knights, labor, with what ability you possess, for the triumph of these principles among men?

Source: Illustrated “Adelphon Kruptos”: The Secret Work of the Knights of Labor as quoted in Peter J. Rachleff, Black Labor in the South: Richmond, Virginia, 1865–1890 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), 135.

David Sirota in SF Gate today:

U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige labeled one “a terrorist organization.” Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called them “a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.” And U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., claimed they employ “tyranny that Americans are fighting and dying to defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan” and are thus “enemies of freedom and democracy,” who show “why we still need the Second Amendment” to defend ourselves with firearms.

Who are these supposed threats to America? No, not Osama bin Laden followers, but labor unions made up of millions of workers — janitors, teachers, firefighters, police officers, you name it.

Bashing organized labor is a Republican pathology, to the point where unions are referenced with terms reserved for military targets. In his 1996 article, headlined “GOP Readies for War With Big Labor,” conservative columnist Robert Novak cheered the creation of a “GOP committee task force on the labor movement” that would pursue a “major assault” on unions. As one Republican lawmaker told Novak, GOP leaders champion an “anti-union attitude that appeals to the mentality of hillbillies at revival meetings.”

The hostility, while disgusting, is unsurprising. Unions wield power for workers, meaning they present an obstacle to Republican corporate donors, who want to put profit-making over other societal priorities.

Think the minimum wage just happened? Think employer-paid health care and pensions have been around for as long as they have by some force of magic? Think again — unions used collective bargaining to preserve these benefits. As the saying goes, union members are the folks that brought you the weekend.

If you’re off work today, or any weekend, thank a union worker.

Harold Meyerson, in the Washington Post:

Ours is the age of the Great Upward Redistribution. The median hourly wage for Americans has declined by 2 percent since 2003, though productivity has been rising handsomely. Last year, according to figures released just yesterday by the Census Bureau, wages for men declined by 1.8 percent and for women by 1.3 percent.

As a remarkable story by Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt in Monday’s New York Times makes abundantly clear, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of gross domestic product since 1947, when the government began measuring such things. Corporate profits, by contrast, have risen to their highest share of the GDP since the mid-’60s — a gain that has come chiefly at the expense of American workers.

It can’t continue. Just like in the 1890′s, we need our Knights of Labor again. And all of us need to help them. We can’t wait for the profiteers to suddenly become generous, that isn’t going to happen. It comes from all of us refusing to deal witrh companies that exploit their workforce – stop shopping at Walmart, stop frequenting those places where you know they don’t treat the “help” very well. When they begin to feel it in their pocketbooks, we’ll start to see changes made.

My family is fortunate, we’ve done well. But what kind of jobs can our kids get these days? Minimum wage at a fast food restaurant until they finish college? And then what? How will they be treated in the workplace, even if they follow their dreams to be engineers like their parents are or scientists? We can’t afford to send them to Ivy League schools, and they wouldn’t want to go there anyway. We’re the lucky, lucky upper middle class right now. I hope they don’t have to leave this country to find a decent place to work.

Me, I’m planning to head to Vancouver in a few years if America can’t change its attitudes. I’ve had enough of the selfish, heartless rich bastards that run this country and its corporations.

Global Warming and terrorism are dangerous, dangerous threats. But, roasted and peeled tomatoes are kinda neat. So, everyone ought to stop driving around to buy tomatoes, grow their own, and roast them for salsa. We wouldn’t need all that oil and we could get out of the middle east. Then, we would all have salsa instead of global warming and terrorism! Yay!

The Examining Room of Dr. Charles

Which tomatoes will be deemed the Largest, Most Disgusting, Most Sensuous, and Most likely to raise public awareness of global warming and then defuse the global threat of terrorism? Much is at stake. Each winner will receive a free copy of my next book, due out this fall, for his reading enjoyment. Each winner will also receive a virtual trophy to be displayed proudly on her website, or discarded quickly into her desktop recycling bin.