Changing Places

Today’s Reading, “Safe Sex in the Garden“, by Thomas Leo Ogren.

Residential and commercial landscapes are loaded with male-only trees and shrubs since they are litter- and therefore maintenance-free. But given a choice, what would you rather do—sweep or battle hay fever? The fact that our urban forests have been propagated with male-clones is a crime on two counts: male plants are the pollen-producing offenders, and without female plants to absorb pollen, allergenic pollen counts are on the rise nationwide. In SAFE SEX IN THE GARDEN, horticulturist Thomas Leo Ogren explores this safe sex issue (plant sex, that is!), as well as many other allergy-related topics: organic gardening, protecting pets against allergies, handling allergy-related stress, and global warming’s affect on allergies.

The very first example was about mulberry trees. My husband has complained about all the crap our fruiting mulberry can drop, so I made him read the first few paragraphs about how much pollen the male trees drop, and how badly it affects people’s allergies, and told him never to complain about our fruiting mulberry again.

Heh.

Plant more females! Save your noses!

What Chiarscuro says.
The Broad View: The Age of Sphincter Failure

The men who imagined the Declaration of Independence and forged our Constitution and Bill of Rights were proudly liberal in the best sense of that word. They considered themselves, literally, enlightened and set out to make manifest the most revolutionary principles of their age.

Our nation today is scarcely worthy of such forebears. The Age of Reason has been overtaken by the Age of Sphincter Failure. The Enlightenment has ceded to the Apotheosis of the Ignoramus.

A friend writes to me that those of us who have been writing and speaking out against this administration and the Republican congress are finally having an effect “among thinking people.”

I replied that I can’t get very excited, even with the tenuous prospect of Democratic victory at the polls next month. Sadly, tragically, too many people are still not thinking. We have scarcely thought about anything except fear and revenge for a long, long time. Greed and indulgence occupy whatever remaining spare thoughts we can manage.

In this, we’ve been led by the Republicans and it didn’t start with the attacks on 9/11. It was happening through WWII and its aftermath of the Cold War. As a nation, we’ve been betraying the vision of the Founders since then, with every McCarthy, Nixon, Thurmond and Bush we’ve elected.

We’ve built up as impressive a history of bed-wetting, quivering fear over Japs, Commies, blacks, hippies and, now, “Islamofascists” and “libruls” as any primitive tribe cringing from comets or cowering under an eclipse.

We can trace the waves of rising fear throughout our history. We fought a Civil War to beat back the worst of our fears, those fed by racism, change and greed.

The fear-mongers of the authoritarian rightwing have been aided and abetted every step of the way by religious leaders more akin to carnival barkers — holy rollers from hell eager to build their congregations and coffers by offering up the “Other” to the pits of hellfire in every Sunday sermon.

All too often in our recent history, elected Democrats have been just as susceptible — both in their cringing behavior and their demagoguery. I can count on one hand, practically, the elected Democrats who have stood up to the Republican bullies and thugs in Congress.

People like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and almost every big-name Democrat has gone along to get along. Every compromise of liberal and Democratic principles has diminished them and their party. Every act of cowardly self-preservation — “Please God, give me another term!” — has been a betrayal of our better selves.

But the Republicans can’t avoid the lion’s share of institutional blame. Since gaining control of Congress in 1994 they have set about stimulating and exploiting every ugly tendency of the American id.

With the installation of the Uber-Thugs Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in the White House and Pentagon, Republicans have accelerated our screaming dive into gibbering national insanity. The inmates truly are running the asylum.

They have turned whatever was left of the organs of American government into the spoils of a putrefying corpse up for auction to the highest bidder. They have scoured the Bill of Rights like an attic of rickety antiques, reducing our most sacred laws to a box of soiled rejects, pushed to the curb of a national yard-sale.

The next batch of red ale… almost done brewing!

Contaminated Minds, by UB40

Some people search for the holy grail
Run round in circles and chase their own tails
But you can’t really blame them for clutching at straws
For wanting some truth in our morals and laws

Some people say that revolution will descend
On this madness, end this confusion
But we’ve all heard the privileged boast and preach
And the promised land we want is still out of reach

I once knew a man who wore self-righteousness
Like a medal on his inflated chest
He hated all people for breaking his rules
Looked down with distaste on the cowards and fools

He lived like a king in his castle of stone
And sneered at the man who worked hard for his home
He knew all the right words and who to defend
And would be with conviction the working mans friend

Contaminated minds play judge and jury too
But contaminated minds are blind to truth
Contaminated minds speak with loudest voice
But not everybody has the luxury of choice

Via Americablog:

But, you’re not gay….

Well, okay, but just so you know —
IF YOU WERE GAY
THAT’D BE OKAY.
I MEAN ‘CAUSE, HEY,
I’D LIKE YOU ANYWAY.
BECAUSE YOU SEE,
IF IT WERE ME,
I WOULD FEEL FREE
TO SAY THAT I WAS GAY
(BUT I’M NOT GAY.)

– Avenue Q

Come out, come out. wherever you are, Charlie!

Right now!

whiskey river

“Obake, the Japanese “ghost,” is exactly what its name suggests: o is an honorific prefix, while bake is a noun from bakeru, the verb meaning “undergo change.” Japanese ghosts, then, are essentially transformations. They are one sort of thing that mutates into another, one phenomenon that experiences shift and alteration, one meaning that becomes unstuck and twisted into something else. Obake undermine the certainties of life as we usually understand it.

Centuries ago in India, the Buddha taught that nothing in this world is stable, no form of existence is anything more than a wandering through flux. People may think they have a self, and may strive to build an ego, or worry about their personal consistencies or reputations, but these concerns are delusions. A “self” is an imaginary construct; and so, in a sense, “transformation” is actually the truest manifestation of being. Obake, the ultimate transformers, point up the folly of our human security in the unchanging status of things, and obliterate our proud sense of understanding the structure of the world.”
- Toriyama Sekien
Tim Screech, Mangajin Issue 40

We often feel strange when we are undergoing change or transformation. Perhaps the strangest I’ve ever felt was in that period of time when I had my breakdown, and literally felt disconnected from the world, as if I were a ghost observing the world around me. Everything seemed strange and different, as if I were seeing and hearing things others could not experience around me. I saw what they could see, and then also saw the “secret” messages I was seeing, and laughed at how little they could see.

We think the mentally disabled are less able than we are, but, in that brief time, I saw what they see, and it was more than I see day to day, more than I can now remember. In those “insane” moments of my life, brief as they were, I saw the illusion our lives really are. And laughed.

If there are ghosts and spirits, they laugh at us. No wonder we are afraid.

skippy the bush kangaroo

republican candidate for the us senate from new jersey, thomas kean junior, just released his tax returns for 2005.

here’s what republican candidate for the us senate from new jersey, thomas kean junior, said about taxes when asked about his personal income taxes:

“i think my tax burden is too high. i think everybody’s tax burden is too high.”

here’s how much money the republican candidate for senate from new jersey, thomas kean junior, received as income in 2005 (we can’t say “earned” as income because he’s a trust fund baby): $202,488

here’s how much the republican candidate for senate from new jersey, thomas kean junior, paid in income tax for the year 2005: $8,146, an effective tax rate of 4%

junior kean thinks his tax burden is too high because he pays a whopping 4% on his $200,000 income.

he also voted against raising the state minimum wage when the bill came before the legislature.

projo.com | Subterranean Homepage News

Habeas corpus suspended:

“…it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration…. freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected…” — Thomas Jefferson: First Inaugural Address

New York Times editorial (A Dangerous New Order):

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step….

Denver Post editorial: Detainee bill a step backwards:

The legislation signed by President Bush providing for trial of suspected terrorists by special military tribunals should be challenged in court, and the sooner the better.

Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 law in a fit of pre-election cowardice, three months after the U.S. Supreme Court found that the administration was violating protections in U.S. and international law. The new law gives the president broad powers to “interpret the meaning and application” of international standards for prisoner treatment.

That’s bad enough, but the new law also allows the indefinite detention of scores of detainees. It allows hearsay evidence during trial and prohibits detainees from having their cases reviewed in a U.S. court, a fundamental protection of U.S. law.

Keith Olbermann, MSNBC: ‘Beginning of the end of America’: Olbermann addresses the Military Commissions Act in a special comment. Transcript and video at MSNBC (one page transcript) . Mirrored, with other video choices, at Crook and Liars.

…And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant” — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?…

Yes, anyone can not be “disappeared” at the pleasure of the President. This abrogation of the most basic right to challenge the legality of your detention is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court must overturn it.

How did America come to this point, where we watch a most basic human freedom be dismantled by something innocuously called a Military Commissions Act? The terrorists did not do this to us. Our own President has done this, with the acquiescence of a Congress that does not challenge him:

Senate Approves Detainee Bill Backed by Bush — (The Senate vote)
House Approves Bill on Detainees — (The House vote)

Americans have a chance to change this Congress at the polls Nov. 7.

I’ve gotta agree with Billmon – I haven’t done enough to oppose this administration, this war, the travesties created in America’s name, the abuse of power like the goddamned bill Bush signed this week.

We all ask ourselves what more could we do, and of course, there is more we could do. We all have our comforts we don’t want to give up, and our families to think about, and all that goes with it.

But the answer is not to despair, to wish we had done more. The answer is to keep fighting our fight, to raise the awareness of those around us, and to know in our hearts that Americans can change this, we will turn it around, that we can get off this dark course of American history. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it now. Not today, not tomorrow, but in the next few years. I am saddened and heartbroken every day that so many die. Not only in Iraq, but in Darfur, and the other dark places of the world America has created or ignored. Of course we are downhearted, of course we despair, daily. But. We go on.

Yesterday, I played my music loud, sang my songs of protest and freedom along with the radio, reggae music it was yesterday, and smiled at the little freepers sneering at me with their stupid yellow ribbons on their cars. I’m happier than they are. I’m prouder of myself and my actions than they are. I’m more aware of the world around me and its problems than they are. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is, I annoy the hell out of them, and they don’t know why. They’re figuring it out, but they still don’t know how much they’ve given up of the real American spirit, of the real America they still think they love.

They’re learning, and we are their teachers.

What is a good man?
A teacher of a bad man.
What is a bad man?
A good man’s charge.
If the teacher is not respected,
And the student not cared for,
Confusion will arise, however clever one is.
This is the crux of mystery.

Tao Te Ching, 27

Our students may not respect us, but we must care for them. When they finally get it, we do not say, “I told you so.” We say, “Welcome back to reality. Welcome back from that dark path. Join us, celebrate life with us and not this path of death you supported.”

We cannot change the world all by ourselves. We can only change ourselves, and how we react to the world. Is that enough? no, it never is. But, it’s what we can do.

Whiskey Bar: Down the River

For someone in my shoes, though, hopelessness can become an excuse for not thinking about unpleasant truths. But there was something about Riverbend’s quiet despair that forced me to think hard about my own moral responsibility as an American for a genocide caused by America — because of a war started in my name, paid for with my taxes.

I’ve opposed this war since it was just a malignant smirk on George Bush’s face. I’ve spoken against it, written against it, marched against it, supported and contributed to politicians I generally despise because I thought (wrongly) that they might do something to stop it. It’s why I took up blogging, why I started this blog.

But the question Riverbend has forced me to ask myself is: Did I do enough? And the only honest answer is no.

Moon and stars sit way up high
Earth and trees beneath them lie
The wind blows fragrant lullaby
To cool the night for you and I
On the wing the birds fly free
Leviathan tames angry sea
The flower waits for honeybee
The sunrise wakes new life in me.

And every hour of every day I’m learning more
The more I learn, the less I know about before
The less I know, the more I want to look around
Digging deep for clues on higher ground…

The fishes swim while rivers run
Thru fields to feast my eyes upon
Intoxicated drinking from
The loving cup of burning sun
In dreams I’ll crave familiar taste
Of whispered rain on weary face
Of kisses sweet and warm embrace
Another time, another place…

And every hour of everyday I’m learning more
The more I learn, the less I know about before
The less I know, the more I want to look around
Digging deep for clues on higher ground…

– Higher Ground, UB40

Sigh. As usual, Stirling ggets it. Sometimes I wonder why I read anyone else. Or bother to write anything. ;^)

Our last great American development was our computing ability and the Internet, and I’m proud to have been a part of creating that. I’m truly saddened that America hasn’t valued education enough to train our kids to do much else these days, and that our economy has been used to fatten the wealthy pigs instead of sharing the wealth so others could move up as well. We’re left with so few people in this country who can truly create and innovate, and drive new development and investment. Our leaders value wealth over creativity, and it’s going to kill our economy. It may take a while, but some of us, like Stirling, and like me, are already seeing it start to happen.

Waste, Fraud and Abuse | TPMCafe

The housing boom was the last popular thread upwards, it provided construction jobs – that is, jobs for people who don’t want to work in an office and are good with their hands – and it provided a way for middle class people to cash in on the inflationary monetary policy. Take this away from the US economy, and we never really left recession, and we’ve had inflation on top of it. Stagflation is never popular, and yet that is exactly what most Americans have seen – a massive shift of earning power away from them, and to other people.

In economic analytic terms there is a simple reason for this, most of the American economy is no more productive than it was 20 years ago. The real productivity of much of what we do has been just slightly ahead of zero, particularly when you take out Wal*Mart’s wage reduction strategies and the offshoring to China. The reason Americans aren’t being paid more – is because we are doing the same things, in more or less the same ways – that we did 20 years ago. No improvements to labor and capital, no productivity rises. American wages are not going up, because American labor is not getting better, and certainly not getting better relative to the rest of the world.

Americans haven’t come to a full awareness of the fact that China and India are catching up to 1980, and doing so quickly. It will take another decade before they have equalized large chunks of their economies – but that will mean that there will be more middle class people in China, than there are people in the US. More middle class people in India, than there are people in the US. The challenges that India and China face are large, but they are also known – the are following what Europe and the US-Canada economic areas have already done.

What they do know is that the last ladder out of steerage just got pulled up. And water is coming in from the sides.

Damn, that’s a scary word, isn’t it?

These are statistics that today became very important to me:

Colon cancer survival rates*
Stage Survival Rate
I 93%

There are over 130,000 cases of colorectal cancer diagnosed in the United States each year, and over 50,000 deaths. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths. In almost all cases, however, this disease is entirely treatable if caught early by colonoscopy.

Of the tissue that was removed in my surgery last week, some of it was squamous cells, pre-cancerous. Only a microscopic bit was positive for cancer. But. Now, I get “surveillance”. I’ll have to get checkups and screenings.

And I’m grateful, oh yeah. Very grateful that I have insurance and good doctors. Very grateful that someone was watching out for me to catch this in time. Grateful that I drink green tea.

I thought I would have to worry about diverticulitis or colitis, not this. But this – this is, life-changing.

And I’m grateful to have the chance to do something about it.

Get those colonoscopies done, people. It might save your life. It has mine.

Go here for a progressive voter guide if you’re in California….

Speak Out California! – The 2006 General Election Voter Guide

Election day, November 7th, is fast approaching. Our voter guide for the 2006 general election is newly expanded, featuring seven groups endorsing a slate of statewide candidates, and ten groups endorsing on the ballot initiatives. For more details on each group’s endorsement, click on the name of the group in the table, and for details about the ballot campaigns, click on the proposition link on the left hand side of the table and scroll down to read our research summaries.

Woo hoo!!!!

So, when is the rest of this corrupt gang of thieves and liars leaving?

Make sure to vote the bastards out in November!

Ney Pleads Guilty Over Abramoff Bribes – New York Times

Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty Friday in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in a scandal that has stained the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration.

Standing before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements. He acknowledged taking money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.

The 52-year-old lawmaker faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Huvelle said prosecutors had agreed to recommend a term of 27 months, and said federal guidelines suggest a fine of between $5,000 and $60,000.

For once, some good news. I’ve contributed to several of these kind of programs, inculding this one. The ones I contribute to these days are pretty much specifically targetted towards women.

A great idea, and a great honor for Yunus, well deserved.

Microloan Pioneer and His Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize – New York Times

Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their pioneering use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.

Through Yunus’s efforts and those of the bank he founded, poor people around the world, especially women, have been able to buy cows, a few chickens or the cell phone they desperately needed to get ahead.

The 65-year-old economist said he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million award money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor. The rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh, he said.

OK, so in my case, this is literally true this week. I had some minor surgery Monday to get rid of some abnormal cells in the anal/rectal area. My reason for posting about this today, after four days of pain ranging from moderate to intense, is because what keeps going through my mind are all the comments the idiot Republicans made about anal assaults being simply “fraternity pranks” and not torture.

Kids, this is torture. Even knowing how much this surgery would hurt, it simply didn’t occur to me that it would hurt continuously for days on end. I’ve had surgeries before, and usually, the drugs are pretty good, and can do a fine job of knocking out pain most of the time. With this, everything hurts. Sitting, standing, movement of any kind, lying down, it doesn’t really matter.

If anyone, anyone, ever tells you that this kind of assault isn’t painful torture, please – kick them in the balls for me. While their pain will be brief in comparison, it will make me feel so much better.

Thanks.