Told Ya

To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious. -Samuel Butler

That is a sweet little mantra, right there. I was thinking, just yesterday afternoon, that sometimes it's just as productive to sit and daydream as it is to try to get something else done.

Just to let you all know, if you don't already, Buchanan defended his decision to can Bill Ayers from speaking on the UWYo campus last spring again yesterday, claiming safety as top priority. (Even though afterward he said the guy could come talk on Prexy's if he wanted to, right out in the open without police backup or anything.) ack.

He also said he will not institute a speaker policy on campus, and he is fully backed by the Board of Trustees. Hellz, that's great; keeps things wide open for him to deny someone again in the future, without a piece of paper for dissenters to point to him having signed saying he won't do that kind of thing.

Whatever. Politicians are politicians. Not that there aren't some cool ones out there, like Anthony Pollina and, right here in Wyoming, Chris Rothfuss. And others, too, but I don't have the time or inclination to go looking them up this morning. I mean, the FFM is right, even though he hates the peoples, in general, politicians get into that business for the power and money, not to serve in some civic capacity. God help us all. Oh, shite, sorry about that. I shouldn't talk about God in the context of American government. badbadbad

Church

It's that time of year, people, when I get really maudlin. You know, wistful and thinking about where I have been in life and where I might be going- or not- and then wondering sort of what it matters anyway and am I pleased enough where I am right now that if someone hit me in the face with an axe tomorrow, I would be OK with croaking?

I guess I am not alone. I went to see the Judge yesterday, and he was reclining in his recliner thinking pretty much the same- although with 50 more years than I behind him. And the FFM told me later on that Ebony had been "ruminating," to use the Judge's word, over similar, on the realization that she has been in LA now for two years.

So, she went to church to sing. I love to go to church to sing, too, and don't do it often enough probably, so bless you, girl, for getting up on a Sunday and doing it.

Instead, I went to the senior center here in town and helped serve brunch from 10:30-12:30. That's like my church, I told the FFM. And it is. I felt about 7K times better when I got there and started doing the community service thing. Yeah, I mean that I do that because I enjoy it, and I had been missing that element of civic life and feeling pretty selfish.

I read an article last week about the Student Senate here at UWYo voting against making community service a requirement. Yay! Jerbus, life is not necessarily a prison. Just get out and try helping other people on a regular basis because you want to. You may be pleasantly surprised. And for those of you who believe in karma, hell, it can only do you good.

p.s. I might have scammed the photo here. I think I am supposed to pay for it, but hey, it's no larger here than it is on the search site, so thanks, whoever.

And Justice for All

Wow; aside from the fact I woke up from an intensely long, but far more interesting and instructive than moving boxes for hours (and definitely as cool as running through a line of zombies at Burning Man while wearing longjohns), dream in which I plucked a perfect drop apple from the brick steps of a little courtyard autumn night garden on my way through, loving Boston and taking a sweet bite- and peeps, remember I still have braces- so now I am running behind because this one required lying in bed and recounting for a half hour...

Last night I learned something about a new friend that just gets me going: why he is disenfranchised, forever at this point unable to vote in an election in this country. I've thought about this subject often and really got fired up to do something about it finally. But what? You tell me. Here's the situation: In the man's own words:

"I pulled a string of auto thefts and burglaries in the 80's (my late teens) which resulted in a lifetime of exclusion from the political process, though it's been more than 20 years since then and I've lived right since. It's difficult when you're politically passionate.Thanks for asking!"

My reply:

"Dude, you know what? That just pisses me off. It's like the students I used to work with, mostly homeless, or transient, so they did what they had to do, and one of them ended up getting a criminal record for selling pot. Never could get student loans when she decided she would like to go to college and find a career. Thanks to... one of the Bushes, I think? I can't recall, but that is a load of horseshite. A person makes a mistake and has to pay forever? WTF!?

"I am so sorry. There has to be a way to push this one so people can vote. I have thought of that often, of people coming out of the prison system with a record and wanting to go out and be part of their community again and actually do it without crime, and we automatically shove people aside and say, 'You're not good enough.' You got me all fired up now! I am so sorry. That sucks for you.

"And p.s. I am glad I own a Saturn; though you probably would have stolen... I don't know how old you are, but I am guessing, either my sweet red Duster with the black hardtop and leaking sunroof that I bought for 200 bucks, or my favorite car ever owned, the super sweet little red Golf GT. heheh!"

After dealing with my dream, I got up thinking about how actually someone did steal that Golf, from right by one of the satellite cop shops in Lowell, while Dave, Tomas, Uncy and I were enjoying a friend's band at a club nearby. The car showed up a few days later on the river bank a couple miles away, closer to where we lived on another side of the city. There were empty 40 bottles in there and it was pretty trashed, had been taken for a little joy ride and left for dead... felt like a violation, to be sure... Who were those ass-jacks? And maybe they deserved a little jail time. Or at least if I'd ever caught them myself, I would have made them share their beer, right? Kidding. It was a disrespectful and crappy thing to do, to steal our car for a little fun.

But people make mistakes. Yeah! It's true! Like this girl with whom I worked at the shelter in Burlington. She'd got caught selling pot and got a record. Then, when she'd made a serious choice to enroll in community college and start working toward a degree, she learned that she would never be able to receive financial aid because of her record at 17, even though now she was 19.

And my friend is smart, politically passionate, as he says here, socially aware, a responsible adult student at the university here, with a long-term GF and two little daughters. But HE CAN'T VOTE.

It is high time for that rule to change. It has been for a long time. I mean, crap, look at all the guys who've made it big in the financial sector while regular people make less and less, proportionally, and are losing their jobs on top of that, and these guys not only vote, they have key posts in the government. Again, WTF!?

So, this governor of Texas in the article I posted last evening, thanks to the FFM, who is the one who had both the moving boxes and the zombie longjohn dreams, BTW- imagine what it's like here when we wake up at 3AM and start comparing stories... Anyway, this governor, back in the early 90s, said: “You don't have a clue what is going on and neither do the American people because if they did, there would be a revolution in this country.” - Former Texas Gov. John Connally to Gerald Celente, 1992

That's what it's all about. It's time to revolt and take back this country. Let smart people who actually have served some time and made some mistakes for which they were held accountable be part of the decision-making process when it comes to electing and serving. Yeah, I said serving. It's called a civic duty, and it's time for those who are privileged enough to be placed in legislative, executive and judicial positions to do their jobs.

Got Some Iraqis on My Side

By now we've all heard the news that some Iraqi journalist threw his size 10 shoes at Bush this weekend and called him a dog. This was practically the only news reported, aside from the important stuff about sports stars cursing and speaking rudely, accusing officials of cheating and so on. (One of the contributers to this month's Vanit Fair said when asked what she is hoping for this holiday season: "That Obama will be about to begin his presidency." Huh? He is so ready! I personally hope that We the People quit making sports stars immortal.)

So, speaking of presidents and the shoes and all that, I love this Facebook-Getting-Back-in-Touch-with-People-from-Long-Ago-and-Far-Away thing. This morning I set my status as: is wishing she could throw a shoe at Bush, too, but even if she missed on purpose, it would get her locked up! Suddenly, friends all over the place were commenting:

--That guy had quite the arm.

--I'd throw a shoe at Bush, and there's no way I would miss. (Unless the secret service took the hit for him.) But I think more coffee first.

--You go girl!!!!

--I would throw a shoe too (but not one of the new Manolos :-)

--I would pitch in for bail if you did. Hopfully you would be wearing heels.

--I would like to see Toby Keith put a boot up his ass.

--and after you've walked though the barn..sacrificed for a good cause

--yeah sick Toby on him...

Peeps, I know these fine Americans carry the Republican, Democrat, and Independent party labels on their little voter registration cards; oh, yeah, it's so time for a change. Obama can't do it on his own; we all have to do our part.

And while we are at it, what's this bullshite: "Executive pay limits may prove toothless-
Loophole in bailout provision leaves enforcement in doubt"?! That's crap. Let's not let "may prove toothless" become "are toothless," huh?

"...at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

"Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28232631/?ocid=MSNToolbar130

Thanks, Zoriah, for the photos:

http://www.zoriah.net/blog/2008/11/goodbye-george-w-bush.html

It's Not Over Yet

I got an e-mail the other day from Don Siegelman saying the 11th Circuit Court of Atlanta will hear his appeal on December 9. Remember him? Former Governor of Alabama that the Bush Administration sent to maximum security prison? Siegelman says, "The hearing will begin at 9:00 A.M. My case may not be the first case to be heard but we are confident it will be over before noon.

"As you know the 11th Circuit Court let me out of prison pending the outcome of my appeal, saying that there were 'substantial questions of law and fact likely to result in a reversal.'

"While we are hopeful, please say a special prayer that the 11th Circuit will rule favorably and that this horrible legal ordeal will finally come to an end.

"Thank you so much for helping to get us this far down the road to freedom: freedom from the Bush administration, freedom from war and racial prejudice and freedom from injustice.

"I am especially grateful for all you have done for my family and me over these past several months and grateful for your help in keeping Congress focused on digging for the truth."

It's not too late to go to http://www.contemptforrove.com/ to encourage your Congresspeople to hold Karl Rove accountable.

That said, we all know that over the last 8 years, the President and the Executive Office of our government have assumed extraordinary powers that place our system of checks and balances in danger. I won't go into detail here. On Saturday night the FFM and I were up late watching Book TV on C-Span 2 (Haha! Yes! I was not the lone geek in this!) Two authors spoke from the Miami Book Show, Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," and Jeremy Scahill, who wrote “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army." These two talked, among other subjects, of the need to hold current political leaders accountable for the crimes they have committed, before they are able to sneak out of paying for their actions (if they haven't already set forces in motion to make sure they are able to get away scot-free.)

Then, yesterday on a hike, a new friend questioned whether or not it is worthwhile to pursue these people, or whether we the American people should simply look ahead. I am not one to seek revenge, but the idea of allowing people in such power positions to set such dangerous precedents for some reason just really doesn't appeal much to me. Besides, crap, if we can bail out a bunch of richy-rich money guys who screwed up and made bad choices (which they knew they were making) with hundreds of billions of tax dollars, surely the next administration can forego a couple quail-and-lamb suckups, I mean suppers, for the leaders of 20 powerful and up-and-coming nations, to take care of the matter of putting the right people behind bars.

http://www.contemptforrove.com/

http://www.change.gov/

http://www.congress.org/

Still Spitting

First, if you go to change.gov, you will find everything in order there. I don't know why the other day I got the "unavailable" message, but that evening, despite aforementioned hesitation, I went on the site and shared my vision, and as Stephen Colbert might say, "I shared my vision, and so are you!" (Or maybe not)

Second, I just learned that my good friend Kathy had to put her dog Shadow to sleep on Veterans Day. Shadow was more than 15 years old and had lived a quality life until very recently. Kathy chose Tuesday because Shadow was a veteran dog. I didn't mention anything about honoring the veterans who have served this country on Tuesday, so I will do so belatedly. Veterans Day is traditionally set aside to recognize those who have served in a military capacity, and I for one am thankful that there are people who sign on to protect and defend us and abhor when those who wield political power put those men's and women's lives on the line for less than necessary reasons.

When I consider the term "veterans", I also think of other veterans, for example myself, a battle-scarred veteran educator who has gone into certain other trenches, and I believe those people, who have served the country's citizens and future, deserve recognition as well. It set me on edge to be working in the prep station at the museum the other day and to watch the young man in the General Biology class spit down from the balcony rail of the second floor onto the first floor where we were working, where people were milling around the exhibits... I'm wondering still, who raises a child to do such a thing? And don't forget who has to work with those kids, encourage, motivate, teach, coach, them for a good part of the day, with very little in the way of recourse anymore for addressing behavior like I saw.

It's like asking teachers to be Jesus, turn the other cheek, then watch the world burn down around because people have no respect.

OK, next and last subject for today: I just got the November BlogCatalog newsletter. Read this, and please check out the site and help spread the word:

Bloggers Unite For RefugeesOn

Monday November 10th, the BlogCatalog community came together like never before. According to BlogPulse, blog posts about refugees nearly doubled. According to Google search, more than 12,000 bloggers wrote about Bloggers Unite For Refugees. More than 2,500 included our program partner Refugees United (refunite.org), which provides refugees with an anonymous forum to reconnect with missing family.

With the average contributing blogger reaching 200 readers, the plight of refugees may have reached as many 2.5 million readers, many of whom took action on Monday by writing letters to government officials and making donations to several worthwhile nonprofit organizations. The volume of posts also attracted the attention from Ode Magazine in California to the blog of Raju Nrisettiof, who writes for the The Wall Street Journal in India. This excludes the ongoing coverage of refugees by traditional media, which has been covering the estimated 100,000 refugees currently trapped in the Congo.

Today's pic is of Rocky Mountain National Park, as promised.

It's Called a Representative Democracy

OK, so I'm back, with about a million things to say, but I'll stick to one this morning, in the interest of time. However, I will whet your appetite quickly first. Coming soon: Aubergine House Take II- the Japanese depiction; Rocky Mountain National Park- pictures; and much more!

A friend of mine, a very smart but generally relatively quiet friend, sent the following message this morning:

"I don't usually get involved in things like this, but I am for once.
"There's a website which is asking everyone to make suggestions for the new government:http://www.change.gov/yourvisionI don't know if they will actually pay attention, but they might, and I haven't seen a lot said about this; I happened on it in a blog, and I think it's worth telling people about. "

Immediately, I had mixed feelings. I'm glad we have a President-Elect who really, and I do believe this, believe it or not, cares what We the People want and need from our government. (Though every time he calls me the Middle Class, or America in general the Middle Class, I get a little closer to wanting to discuss the definition of "middle class" with him.) Our President should care.

However, here is the meat of this sticky situation, as I returned to my friend:

"That's a tough one... the idea of suggestions for the new government. I mean, aren't we supposed to elect people to go represent us, and aren't those people supposed to represent our suggestions? For the most part? Having been involved in government at several levels, I know it's sometimes hard; I've had to make decisions I was certain were for the best of everyone down the road at the expense of the immediate gratification of my block of constituents, but..."

And there it is, peeps. We live in a big country in many smaller but still big states, with bigger populations, and all of that larger than when the Founding Fathers wrote our Constitution, and the bottom line is, for the most part, at the federal level we are supposed to be electing ladies and gentlemen from our states of residence to go to Washington DC to talk about our common problems and needs and what works and what doesn't and how our Government can take care of those common areas of interest that we cannot undertake on our own, individually, or as smaller governmental entities, ie. at the state or local level.

Amongst all this is our President, the head of the Executive Branch of our Government, and that person, also being part of the process, should care and ask the people what their problems and suggested solutions are, but there are inherent difficulties in doing that via a website.

First, we are stepping out of 8 years of a Presidential administration that assumed far more authority than would normally be allowed under the system of checks and balances that were set forth for this country, sometimes subversively, sometimes covertly, sometimes with outright disregard for the law of the land. The President does not actually wield that much power- or is not supposed to. In setting up a website in which the people go directly to the President with their gripes or alternatives to the way things are running now, is inviting that level of authority to continue, at the risk of our representative democracy and carefully crafted system of three branches of government.

This is not to say that I think Obama intends to or would assume the dictatorial stance that our outgoing President has done, but this move encourages the people to continue to think of the President's role in their lives as more important than anyone else's in government. Which leads me to:

Second, and possibly most importantly, if the people continue to view their government as one in which the President is Boss, this lessens the role of the people they are supposed to be assembling in Washington to represent them. And those people will continue to be held less and less accountable in matters of government. People, Senator Stevens of Alaska being voted in for another term hot on the heels of seven felony charges for which he was found guilty? WHAT?! As the polls show over and over the contempt, or at least lack of favour for Congress by the American people, I can't help but wonder why those same people keep electing those they feel do not represent them and they don't trust, to office? And why Americans don't get more involved and consider running for office at some level as their own civic duty? And that brings me to my concluding thought:

Actually, maybe it's a complete wash anyway. When I think of this website the President-Elect's office has set up (which I checked out and is not yet available), I imagine countless Sarah Palin supporters and laypersons who would like to define for all of us when a human actually becomes a human giving their opinions on how government should work next, and I shudder. I think Mr. Obama has better things to do with his time, given the current state of our Country, than check the suggestion box every day at breakfast.

Government as Religion?

At risk of alienating a large part of my fan base, I would like to ask those of you peeps out there who bristle at Barack Obama's suggestion that he would include faith-based initiatives in federal policy were he to be elected President: Is that really any worse than asking the federal government to assign tax dollars to charity or social assistance? People fear the blending of church and state, when in actuality, faith institutions for ages have taken care of people in the community at least as well as government agencies, in many instances, and people have been served, and the notion of State has not been compromised.

I know, I know: They will give you help if you will convert to Their Religious Convictions. And you don't want to be told what to believe. But if you want the government to dispense the soup, you could be waiting a long time. And I'm not saying our tax dollars shouldn't be spent on that kind of thing instead of killing our young people, and innocents, in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Those of you who know me know I am passionate about where I think the money and effort should go, if we have to rely on government. I'm suggesting that we think carefully about to whom or what we assign a higher power in our lives and why.

Government, ideally, is about the public welfare. But the people in government don't represent a large number of us, it seems to me. Of course, that's my opinion. I've heard more than enough people claim to be versus various federal decisions, including continuing to throw money and people at war, to feel justified in maintaining that bias. Meanwhile, there are people out there on a non-profit and non-governmental level, offering food and shelter and assistance to those who are in need, for whatever reasons, including that the government has ignored socio-economic divides in this country and perpetrated a decreasing budget to the government agencies and programs designed to help those who are facing economic adversity, making charity closer to home more and more necessary, like back before the government offered up in the first place.

Jesus wandered around a lot of area with little if anything he owned personally, at least according to the stories we have read and heard. He dispensed charity and healing to those in need at the same time. Even if you don't believe in miracles, surely you can extend creative thought to imagine he found the resources somewhere, whether through sweet talking diplomacy or outright trickery of the bloated. Was he really trying to convince people to believe in God the Father, some giant human figure hanging around in the skies waiting to smite us or bring us home to sit on clouds and strum harps? Or was he preaching a message to not be selfish and help each other out? We have the power to decide for ourselves, regardless of what people of various religious faiths insist. In the meantime, we are asked- expected?- over and over again to trust a bunch of people in positions of power to make decisions in our best interest. Presumably they will do so because we voted for them, elected them, assigned to them that power. I'm hard-pressed to see how this situation is less threatening to my personal liberties than asking me to believe in God. Not a lot has happened lately there that has been something I would have decided, personally.

However it happens, there are plenty of people out there in our own country, right now, who need a little help. And I, for one, am made a little more comfortable to see people reaching out, whether they do it through their churches or in their non-profit, third sector work, or through their commitment to civic duty. I am not holding my breath for the latter; I don't trust us as people in the guise of Government much. In fact, sometimes it would be easier to believe that God Himself, the fatherly figure with a beard and bushy eyebrows, might decide to come out and sit at my table and have a conversation with me than that anyone I vote for might walk into office and work with other similarly inclined people who have been elected, to change the fact so many of us are ignored.

Burma Cyclone

The following is from a thread posted on Facebook by my dear friend Nickie of the US Campaign for Burma, who is losing sleep and working pay volunteering for a cause close to her heart:

"We are taking in donations to purchase water purification tablets. For all of you that know Curt and Cathy this is their program and they are headed back asap. Thirst Aid staff have multiple entry visas to get back into Burma whereas this is a hold up for alot of the aid distribution. This is their website and they will be back in by the weekend. http://www.thirst-aid.org/Tax deductible donations can be made to World Aid. Please write checks with "cyclonerelief" at the bottom and send to 2422 S. Ferdinand Street, Seattle, WA98108. You can email local Burmese activist, Pwint Htun at pwint.htun@gmail.com and let her know how much you sent for sake of time. There is no overhead (ie ALL of your money will be used for water purification). Currently we are organizing to have people be able to donate online through US Campaign for Burma website too (earmark your donation for First Aid). Clean water is essential fast. It is reported that a bottle of water is 1 1/2 days normal salary. In solidarity, Amy, Seattle Burma Action Group"

If you want to do something to help the people who have been affected by the cyclone recently, you can donate to thirst-aid, or, as Nickie suggests, "You can write your congress folk in Wyoming (or wherever you live) asking to be generous with aid effort, and to support organizations that do not channel funds through the Burmese military government."

That's all for tonight. Still trying to catch up. (Bizzy baksun)

Postal Service

In case you didn't know, I learned the following from a talkative postal employee at the counter in Laramie today when I went in to mail a package and buy postcard stamps:

-- On May 12, postal rates will rise again, to 42 cents for a first class stamp and 27 cents for a postcard stamp. (I remember when first class stamps were less than half the price of a postcard stamp.) Not only will rates increase on May 12, but this will be an annual occurrence, so expect it and be prepared.

-- The government is selling off the postal service in bits and pieces, privatizing the institution. Did you know that the US Postal Service does more business in a day than UPS and FedEx do in a year? And that there is no way that any one business can take on and carry out the logistics that the USPS does on a daily basis? So, what will happen is that many smaller private businesses will take on various aspects of postal service. What this means, in part, is that we will no longer receive our mail at home; we will have to "go to a store to pick it up."

-- You can contact your Congresspeople and tell them you don't want this privatization to take place. The employee who instructed me today does not believe this will happen because he thinks the American public are basically lazy. I told him I think people are mostly uninformed; he agreed and suggested that someone should do a blog to get the word out. I told him I would put the news on mine.

I have done my civic duty. Now you can do yours.