Tag Archives: Family

They Don’t Care and the jumping mouse

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Rodent member of endangered ecosystemMighty Mouse or Mighty Myth? asks The Gazette of their readership today and yesterday in quarter page announcements in their paper. “Does the Preble’s Meadow Mouse really exist?” (Or did that evil environmental movement make it all up?)
 
The editorial board over at our loony local rag really is brain dead when it comes to environmental affairs. Just weeks ago they were also running an editorial expressing doubts about whether global warming was real. (Or did the evil environmental movement make the whole thing up?)

The announcement suggesting that it was all “mighty myth” that another wild animal was endangered, was part of the announcement to invite people to a Right Wing think tank presentation at the U. of Colorado-Colorado Springs campus, all designed to push for the virtual annulment of the Endangered Species Act. So I headed over there at noon to show my support for the jumping mouse and Yogi the Bear vs the real estate and construction magnates. Nature vs more crappy development was my message. It’s not just about the jumping mouse. It’s about whether we destroy all nature’s natural habitats or not.

Well, it turns out that my sign saying,
—They don’t care
—Developers just want to pave over nature and
—DAMN THE WILDLIFE!
provoked some interest as I parked myself inside next to some buffet items as the developers broke for lunch.

First, I was berated by some of the overly dressed crowd for having missed the morning presentations by the all Right Wing panel. Actually, they had one lonely environmentalist who had not made it yet from Denver. But how dare I have an opinion about the mouse without hearing all their important commentary?!!! My response was to just shuck it off. I told them I thought the whole thing was about the spotted owl, and I had heard enough about that rare bird already while living in Washington. Jesus, you tell me I came all this way about a mouse?

It turns out that some of the developers took my sign personally. So I had to discuss whether they were evil people or not. And then the two campus cops showed up, and I thought I might get scanned to see if I was a threat to Homeland Security. But Professor Null, jefe of the Right Wing think tank sponsor, said that he would vouch for me, and even offered me lunch. I thanked him, but told him I wasn’t sure whether their food was organic or not. But that I might come in and listen to their accumulation of proof that nature’s wetlands really were no longer necessary to preserve. Full speed ahead!

I only stayed 2 hours. I did get to hear the last panelist, the liberal who could make it from Denver. I also got to shake hands with Craig Manson, Bush’s creep who had formerly been put in charge over “our nation’s critters” to dismantle the Endangered Species Act. He was still working on it as I could see. Nobody quite like him since James Watt had been in charge. He was definitely the big wig invite for sure. I told him that I was sorry I had missed his work in the morning, but that I had read some interviews he had done online, and that “they were quite interesting,” as I politely and sarcastically put it.

One of our CS city councilman recognized me from the city council picnics we sometimes do together. We had a nice cheerful talk about torture, in which he told me that he believed that it did not exist. Then, ala Cheney, he told me that he was for it, except it did not exist! lol…. These White Men speak with forked tongue. He told me that he had family in the military, so that was why he had forked tongue. I will withhold his identity in order to protect the guilty.

I did have a few who came up and whispered that they were in agreement with my sign. But they kind of looked worried that they might get fired for fraternizing if done too openly. So was I too hard on the hard working real estate developers, as some of them had told me? “We’re not all bad.” Well, look at this list of the folk on the board of the Right Wing think tank co-sponsor of this event with The Gazette. Scroll down and check out the many developer folk at The Center for the Study of Government and the Individual

Dr. Dobson flip flops

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The week started out with a ‘weepy’ Doctor Dobson pledging to be part of the national evangelical team to rehab the now much gayer, Teddy Haggard. But within one day, Pastor-Doctor Dobson found his work schedule to be ‘too busy’ to stay with the spiritual counselling team assembled. A shame, too, since he was the big CS local authority on deviant sex, besides Haggard himself, of course. Ted will now have to depend much more on telephone spiritual counselling by a more long distance prayer team. So why did Dobson bail out on this medical case? lol…….. Can’t gays be reformed into good heterosexual family men by the power of modern day medicine welded to such strong spirituality that Dobson surely has in hand?

It’s not just me that is interested in the firm character or lack thereof of Doctor Dobson. The Gazette has printed 2 letters quite upset at our Focus on The Evangelical Family leader, and one gets the impression that they had thousands more in their offices that they could have published if the paper had just been there in sufficient enough quantities. Did Doctor Dobson jump the spiritual Titantic that Ted ran aground due to his own personal fear? Fear that all that nonsense he has preaching through the years about homosexuals just being full of sin that could be tossed aside just like that, was nothing more than total bunk. Pastor Dobson, in his soul, knows that he has been preaching a lie, I think. And he fullly expects Ted to continue with ‘sin’ once agin.

Well, even the best friendships go astray when one’s career becomes endangered. Dobson thought that distance was the best part of valor. And as distant he will try to get. Speaking of not so distant…. Mexico.

All those ‘gay marriage’ proposals that got sunk in the states, and now the Mexican people have decided to legalize gay marriage in their capital. Satan pulled a fast one, it seems. Juan Gabriel, go for it! We need more gay mariachi music up North, so we hope to see you again in Santa Fe after your honeymoon! Viva Mexico!

Let Ted wed Mike- looking at gay marriage

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Everybody has been following the hypocrisy of Ted Haggard and his wretched followers, but few have actually been putting this scandal in any sort of real perspective. Let us ask ourselves, would Ted Haggard have married a woman and had children if he had been allowed the prospect of being a respected part of the community as a person in a same sex marriage? Would Mike have turned Ted in as being a married homosexual then? There is a huge community of closeted gay men in marriages to straight women out there now, and religous hypocrisy is a great part of the reason for that. The fundamentalists say they oppose homosexuality, but actually, they just drive it underground. Who really suffers most? It is the children of these often, sordid, deceitful, and superficial matches.

We need to stop bashing openly gay men and women. They deserve the same rights and privileges that heterosexual men and women receive. Respect them for having the courage to confront a hostile world with openess and honesty. But what about those of the homosexual community that try to play it both ways? They often resort to deceit and hurt those who become intimate and close to them. They are encouraged by the heterosexual others in their liives, to be deceitful to both themselves and to their significant others in relationships. Usually the motivation is their own conservative religious beliefs, and also because of the negative encouragement and pressures of their shamed, heterosexual, religious relatives who often try to hide reality away.

I have known and been friends with several gay married men in my lifetime. And I have seen the destructiveness to themselves and others, as they have tried to play it straight. Gay men want family, even as they desire sex with the same sex. Allowing legal same sex marriage is one way for mainstream society to say to homosexuals that it is possible for all to have families that love them, and that they should be accepted by their biological families as well. It might help put an end to shunning some of our society who have been made most vulnerable to abuse.

Strikingly, nobody has much mentioned the family of Ted Haggard. How much did the wife know of his sexuality? And how much did the children know? The paper had pictures of the fundamentalist congregation carting into their church box after box of tissue papers to cry with. How preposterous and superficial these crippled people are. It is the children that need these tissues, if there is something much to cry about? The congregation should simply go to Hell, and start to put a stop all their self-absorbed shame. The real shame they have is actually to have their religous hypocrisy now so exposed to view. But they seem determined to continue on as before and we should have little compassion for such.

Those who need the most counselling are the children of Ted Haggard. In a way, they have been emotionally abused by his pretense and dishonesty. Here is a great site to help them, and other children of gay homosexuals, examine and understand some of what has happened to them through the actions of their mothers and dads. Though it is written primarily for married homosexuals and their spouses, certainly this is also a much better resource for the children involved in these matrimonies than all the Dr. Dobsons and like clones will be providing.

Haggard not guilty of sexual immorality

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Scolding Richard DawkinsIn light of the revelations that Ted Haggard is a homosexual who has been paying for sex and drugs, the gay community is offering words of sympathy and support for their erstwhile Evangelical opponent and his family. For his part, Haggard demonstrates he can keep gay-bashing while he’s going down. “I’m guilty of sexual immorality” Haggard wrote to his flock, “of degrading, unspeakable acts,” etc.

The local news toed the line. HAGGARD GUILTY OF SEXUAL IMMORALITY. Well that’s not the objective take, is it? Haggard says he’s guilty of sexual immorality, that’s the story. Haggard is guilty of sexual pandering and using banned controlled substances. Haggard is guilty of lying and being a hypocrite. Haggard is contrite but shouldn’t get to slime homosexuality with the ick factor of his fall.

Ted Haggard had an opportunity to come clean, in the therapeutic sense, embrace what he is, and move his flock out of the stone-throwing age. Why should being gay keep him from being an inspirational preacher and natural leader?

Instead Haggard chose to be a martyr to Satan’s call. Haggard’s congregation heard his apologies and instantly empathized and forgave him. He’s now his own poster boy for the lure of evil.

There’s something inherent irreligious about Evangelical Christians. Forgiving oneself is practical, forgiving one another is neighborly, but expecting forgiveness while advocating the condemnation of others, is too short of divine. And carrying on with transgressions is by definition unkind. Most religions teach do good. Evangelic belief says believe in Jesus, that’s good enough.

It will be interesting to see if Ted Haggard can resurrect his band of pitchfork and torch bearing bigots. He may. In their eyes Haggard has proven he is as flawed as the worst of them. And maybe having to keep tabs on their homosexuality-inclined leader will open their hearts to acceptance of homosexuals who are not in the incarnation of their leader.

My bet is that New Life Church will fold. It’s big, it’s a machine, I know. But it’s a cult of personality with morons for adherents. I don’t care that Haggard has been a terrific delegator of responsibility. The snake has been beheaded, and all the kings horses have never yet performed a successful head transplant.

How the city council ‘Supports the Troops’ and their families- adding insult to injury

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The Gazette today headlined their Sunday Metro section with an update about how a local family was doing with their lawsuit against the city. It is a case where a single dad was having a nervous breakdown and was breaking out the windows of his apartment in the nude, and his three children fled the apartment and called the police to get help for their dad. This was on May 2, 2003. And like so many of the cases where relatives have called the police in cases of this type, the help they asked for turned out to become their personal nightmare. The police came and murdered their dad.

Enter the sister of the dead single father, who took in the three children even though she was already caring for 8 of her own, PLUS caring for her mother who had a stroke shortly thereafter. She had a husband, but he was off in Iraq being paid to help destroy another people’s country. Still, despite all the work she already had piled up on here, she went out and sought justice for her murdered brother, and his now parentless children. She initiated a lawsuit against the City of Colorado Springs, whose police officers had so absolutely mishandled their work, work they are paid to do by our tax money.

Enter Mayor Lionel Rivera and the Colorado Springs city council. Rivera was elected just one month previous to this event. Rivera likes to pose himself as supporter of the troops. Here he had a chance to walk the walk, and not just talk the talk. What has he done for this military family and the 3 children now being raised by their aunt? Nada. He is in charge of the Colorado Springs police, and it was the police that murdered this man. Instead of assisting to right a terrible wrong, he has had the city fight the lawsuit on behalf of these children! And the entire city council has sat by, too.

Enter the settlement. The aunt, Carolyn Moore, decided that she had to settle rather than continue to fight for justice. She says that the settlement is an admssion of the police’s guilt, and she is right. What did the city of Mayor Lionel Rivera payout to the three now fatherless children? A grand total of $19,500! Well thank you Rivera! You know, as well as the entire city council does, that that amount for the wrongful death of one’s dad is an insult, and little more. Carolyn Moore says that it is not enough even to pay for the attorney fees. First, you head up the police force that caused the ‘injury’, and then you preside over the ‘insult’ of throwing peanuts out to the children. You think that quite generous, no doubt, since you have even tried to do less. And how gracious you are in helping out troubled families of our US soldeirs. Not. Instead, it is rather evident that you are merely a cheerleader for the corporations that make their profits off the misery that the Pentagon speads. When it comes to assisting the troops, we have to count you out.

Even now, Rivera, you have the ability to right this wrong. Prove us wrong about how we have stated your character as being. And The Colorado Springs city council as a whole, has the ability to right this wrong, instead of hiding in Rivera’s shadows. I don’t think that one can easily put monetary amounts to compensate for the wrongful death of a family member. But certainly, the amount should be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, and not just $19,500 for three aggrieved children to supposedly get, instead of being raised by their dad. Have you guys no shame? Do the right thing now, and move to have these children compensated in a more just manner for their unjust loss.

No doubt, our representatives are just hoping that this issue goes away. Luckily for the injured children, there is a decent reporter at The Gazette newspaper that has followed up on their actions of denying recompense for this murdered man’s family. Once again, I would like to think our local paper for doing the right thing and publishing this report. Write to the city council and the mayor and encourage them also to do right, instead of continuing on their current sinful path. And write to the papers and show concern for this family. They deserve your help.

War on Terror- the boardgame

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At last, an up to date replacement for our family’s RISK game. We were beginning to tire of this stodgy old war game almost as out dated as chess itself. The last time we called it quits after only some 8 1/2 hours, so when we heard about this awesome new game, we went a little bananas. And this fabulous game of stealth and strategy is actually coming out just at the perfect time! It is, in fact, the perfect Christian Christmas gift! Mail one to friends and family, along with a fruitcake. You can play like the pros do, too! So have some fun, and go play

Let the dead bury their dead

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I know it’s Monday and I should be toiling away at my job, thinking about bringing home a large rasher of bacon, double-checking the kids’ Halloween costumes, deciding what to do about the brand new fake fingernails I bit off in a weekend fit of pique.

For some reason I am perseverating on the subject of death, especially the death of a child. I watched an interesting film last year about how Americans handle the dead bodies of their loved ones. I, of course, had never questioned how we do things until I saw this film and realized that we are one of the only cultures that whisks away our corpses, tags ’em, drains ’em, pumps ’em full of some other liquid, gives ’em a bad hairdo, an even worse makeup job, dresses them in their least favorite outfit, sticks them in an incredibly expensive and garish casket and dumps ’em in the ground really really quickly. In short, we turn our dead over to complete strangers, nearly instantaneously, and by the time we lay them to rest, still firmly in the denial phase, they bear no resemblance to the one we’ve known and loved. We give ourselves no real opportunity to grieve, to come to terms, to “give up” the body and take hold of the spirit.

Other cultures allow the deceased to take up residence in the living room. Propped up, perhaps, in their favorite chair, dressed in their normal clothes. Friends, colleagues, family are able to hang around, to view the body, to hold the hand, stroke the hair, feel the pain and the loss. I understand that after a few days, as the cheeks and eyes have become sunken and there is no sense of life whatsoever, those of us left behind are able to make peace with the fact that this body IS NOT our little boy or girl or father or mother or sister or brother. This is, in fact, a shell. An earthly vessel. We have time to grieve the loss, to let go of the body and embrace the spirit.

Of course, the funeral business, just like the wedding business or any of the other “ritual” businesses that are so ingrained in American culture, doesn’t want us to consider anything besides the norm. Five thousand dollar caskets are expected because, after all, we loved Uncle Joe and want only the best for him. What a fucking scam.

Note to anyone who knows and loves me……When I die, please choose a very simple pine casket, perhaps lightly distressed just for effect, dress me in my flannel pajamas, put my hair in pigtails. Give people a few days to come by to look at me, hold my hand, tell me how they’ve loved me, how they’ve hated me, whatever they’d like to say.

When everyone has had enough time to comprehend that the body is not me, that I’m waltzing with Jesus, or dirty dancing with Satan, or whatever people do in the afterlife, dump me in a hole that you’ve all dug together in the back yard. That would make me happy.

Activism home grown

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My siblings and I frequently talk about our “activist” upbringing. We grew up with parents who walked their talk. Our mom hung out with the radical nuns protesting around Rocky Flats. And I can’t remember a single Thanksgiving where we didn’t have a couple of homeless men sitting at our dinner table. Our parents introduced them by name and we were expected to be gracious and make interesting conversation.

Then there was Robin, a retarded young man who was obsessed with a pair of moccasins that we had in our front closet. My mom made a rule that the front door be always open so that Robin could come in for his moccasins any time he wanted. As a mother, I question the wisdom of this now but, at the time, we just accepted that at any time Robin might walk in and open our front closet. It wasn’t anything we worried about….just another one of mom’s people.

At the 1975 fall of Saigon, Divine Redeemer, our home church with hundreds of families, decided to sponsor a family fleeing Communist oppression. They asked that someone step forward to host a family of 8 people for several months. Guess who stepped forward? Much to our horror, my mom and dad did. We had 6 of our own children, aged 6 to 15, living in a small house and suddenly we had 16 people living under the same roof. They didn’t speak a word of English. We certainly didn’t speak Vietnamese. Our mom and their dad were able to communicate in broken French.

We reminisce about how our mom used to read little kid books to them, VERY LOUDLY, as though she could make them understand English if only she shouted. They used to stare at us and we back at them while she did this…all of us trying hard not to laugh.

Because my dad had been a part of the war in Viet Nam and a number of families we knew had been widowed during that war, we lost friends because of the choice we made to support this family. I didn’t understand this at all at the time. It’s taken many years for me to understand that to stand for something, anything, is to risk the wrath of those who don’t agree.

As kids, we remember it as crazy fun. We made Chef Boyardee pizzas and they chopped off the heads of weird little fish and made carrots look like flowers. We were all about the same age, they dressed weird, we dressed weird….we laughed and figured out how to communicate even without words. They showed us martial arts. We taught them to hula hoop. We laughed our asses off day after day.

Once, the 10-year-old girl, incredibly beautiful, her name was Ngoc (pronounced Nop), and I sat on the swing in the front yard. She placed her hand in front of my face, put up her index finger and said “Mot.” “Mo,” I said, knowing that she was counting. “Hai.” “Hi.” “Bah. Bon. Nam. Sau.” After she taught me to count to ten she grabbed my hand and rushed me into the living room where 15-20 people sat, always at the ready, listening to the Vietnamese singing American anthems, which was both lovely and hilarious since they didn’t really understand the words. “Ma cunry tis a vee. Swe lan a liverty.” Ngoc got everyone’s attention and suddenly 20 people were staring at me, a 14-year-old, not exactly at the age where I wanted a lot of scrutiny, and she said, encouragingly, “Mot.” I felt like throwing up but I understood that the stakes were high so with red cheeks I recited what I just learned. When I finished a loud roar went up….I swear there were even a few tears from the Vietnamese parents.

This family went on to become a success story. Ultimately, the boys, Phat, Dat and Loi, became Tony and Billy and Joey. They went to DU, studied engineering. Mom and Dad opened a successful restaurant on Federal Boulevard in Denver. The girls married Vietnamese men and carried on Vietnamese tradition on their new soil. Oddly, my two brothers married Asian women, one Vietnamese, one Thai.

This family had another baby after they came to the United States. They wanted to choose an American name to honor the country that had given them a second chance. They chose Helen. My mother’s name.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two decades “wasting” my time doing things that may or may not ever register on anyone’s radar. One of my inspirations has been Margaret Mead who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” That’s what my family taught me….what I’d like to teach my own.

Afghanistan, where cowardly US military is deliberately murdering children

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Every week now, it seems that the US puppet president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is ‘investigating’ another tragic ‘accidental bombing of civilians. He demands that these ‘accidents’ stop. But these are not accidents, and Karzai knows this well, as every other Afghan must now know it well, too. An accident occurs once or twice, but an intentional strategy of targeting civilians becomes constant, as have become the US bombings of Afghan civilians in the more remote regions of that country.
 
The strategy is ‘to destroy the sea that the guerrilla fighter must swim in’, as it was once explained in the Vietnam War era, years ago. In short, the quickest, easiest way to combat the enemy, is simply to target his wife and family, including the kids. So the cowardly US-led NATO army of occupation in Afghanistan, is systematically doing that instead of engaging the enemy on the ground, where politically dangerous casualties might occur. Bomb the Afghan women and children in their homes from up high, if there is even the remotest military resistance to US forces in their general neighborhood.

This is the same strategy that the US government formerly used in SE Asia, some 35 to 45 years previously. It is the same strategy that the NAZIs used when they pushed into East Europe against the Russians during the Second World War. In their pathway, they razed to the ground villages, towns, and even entire cities. It is even the same strategy that Mafia gangsters use against their opponents. It is the same strategy that the US fed Colombian death squads use, too. They go into villages with chain saws, and cut people up before their own family members. Basically, this is government sponsored terrorism against civilians, and the US is committing internationally recognized war crimes by targeting civilians instead of the armed combatants they face. The strategy, is to target the families of combatants, and not those who might actually be able to inflict return casualties upon the invading and occupying, barbarian armed forces.

see Hamid Karzai orders investigation

We expect this cowardice from the cowardly US military commanders and chiefs, like Dubya and Dick Cheney, Donald and Alberto, who all get great glee out of torturing US-held POWs. And we expect it from the US grunts, too. They mainly just want to get out alive, and don’t much care who gets hurt, as long as it is not themselves. Innocent children bombed as they play, or as they sleep? Well who cares? Not the uniformed soldier cowards, nor their leaders. They are much like the Israeli troops, another cowardly group of soldiers, that distributed hundreds of thousands of cluster bombes in the last 3 days of their Lebanon vacation. Early Christmas for the children? Well the uniformed forces of occupying armies don’t care. They are simply cowards who want to get back home whole, and they will follow cowardly orders, from cowardly leaders.

But what of the press? The press barely even reports Afghanistan these days to US readers. And when they do, they cowardly hide away the nature of what they are reporting on. To the US press, the Afghanistan fighting is a NATO conflict, and they will report whole articles without even once using the letters, ‘US’ or ‘USA’! Let’s keep our jobs, and let’s keep the whole Afghanistan issue away from the American public, who are too cowardly to actually think about what they are doing to that poor country.

And what about the US peaceniks’? They are cowardly, too. 99% of them vote for the Democratic Party, and talking about Afghanistan is too embarrasing to the top party hacks. So, shhhhhh….. Keep quiet. The recent AFSC tour of their ‘Eyes Wide Open’ exhibit was basically a ‘Mouths Tightly Closed’ exhibit of their AFSC political cowardice when it comes to Afghanistan. They should remember and be ashamed of this, when the Quaker leaders are inside the voter booths pushing the levers for the Democratic Party candidates. They could have put boots out for the US soldiers killed in Afghanistan. But they didn’t. They could have placed out shoes of Afghani civilians killed by US and allied troops, but they didn’t.

But the other liberal peaceniks from the other liberal churches are equally as cowardly. When was the last time one saw a sign saying, Get Out of Afghanistan Now? All the talk is of Iraq instead. The liberal megawebsite, commondreams, carries bumperstickers calling for Get out of Iraq, No war with Iran, and even No War with Syria. But Get Out of Afghanistan? Not a chance! More political cowardness. It would push the Democratic Party hacks too hard. Yet our country is now deliberately bombing civilian children in that country, and doing it routinely, too.

It is political cowardice to bomb huts full of empoverished women and children noncombatants, rather than fight on the ground below against the men. But that’s what an imperialist army is full of. They are full of cowards who want to kill people like they are playing some video game back in the suburbs at home. But it, too, is cowardly for the US Peace Movement not to demand that our government get its troops out of Afghanistan with the same force we demand it get out of Iraq. We are betraying the children of that country, who are being slaughtered down like cattle. Yes, we have a cowardly antiwar movement in the US that wants only to concentrate on ‘Iraq’, and getting their cowardly Democratic Party leaders elected to office once again. Let’s hope that liberals can grow some backbone, and start opposing this war, too. Otherwise, the peace crowd is just as bad as ‘our troops’, who mainly want to kill from afar and from up high, with no possilbe repercussions to their cowardly, uniformed selves. Those that don’t mind killing innocent children, just so that they can claim a high ‘enemy’ body count.

Halloween and What Would Doctor Dobson Do?

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I have just been visiting over at the Focus on Family website and am relieved to find that Dr. Dobson approves on allowing children to go Trick or Treating in the neighborhood. As long as they don’t go as black cats, witches, devils, or Satan himself. Nothing occult, he says. And certainly don’t allow your little ones to go in drag.
 
This is a relief to me, since too many of our kids have been finding themselves shuffled off to shopping malls and churches, on what used to be the best kid Holiday of them all. Just finding a neighborhood with Trick or Treating kids on the prowl has become increasingly more difficult for parents with kids. So thank you, Dr. Dobson, for taking this particularly controversial stand. Next we know, you’ll be encouraging parents to play penny ante poker with their kids, and teaching them to dance with the other sex without a Bible in hand. Praise the Lord!

David Schultheis, World Class Dickhead

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David Schultheis of Colorado Springs, Colorado State Representative of District 14, is a world class dickhead. Just four days after a family loses 3 children and has a fourth one severely injured in an automobile wreck, Schultheis wrote off to the Greeley Tribune, demanding to know if the the severely injured driver had proper documents or not. He inquired about her drivers license, insurance, and car registration, too, and all on the same day the third child died at the hospital!
 
You see, the family had a Hispanic last name, so that justifies this dickhead Anglo, in his own dickhead mind, to grill them publicly like that.

Schultheis was supported by Pastor Joy, of the Greeley for God ministry, no Spanish language services available, along with some other local Greeley folk allergic to Latinos. But the Hispanic community was appalled, along with any one else with even a speck of humanity about them.

Schultheis must be a student and associate of the so-called Jeff Henry (no relation to Patrick we are sure), local CS jefe of the racist Minutemen group. Speaking of that, a picture is worth a thousand words. I refer to the one picture, with Mayor Rivera passively sitting alongside Jeff Henry, that The Independent had in its previous edition. Beautiful shot, Indy! Rivera heads up a city council that allowed this hate group leader to hold a recruitment rally in a Colorado Springs police substation some few weeks back. So that’s why he is so content sitting next to this thug at a meeting about immigration ‘reform’, of all things. Jeff, can Rivera stay? You and David need to get togerhter and check out his papers first. lol… But I bet Lockheed will vouch for him.

David Schultheis, you got some stiff competition in the competition for Colorado Springs most eligible dickhead. But you win hands down. What a dickhead! Did you pay all your taxes and behave with your Page, Dave?

Blather

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I sometimes read what I’ve written the night before and wonder why I have any friends at all. What a bloviator I am. I think that I have Multiple Personality Disorder (which is nothing to be ashamed of, Sybil). I feel like I’m writing from the heart and the next day I wake up, full of hope and good cheer, and I think “Who is this weird, arrogant, angry person who’s taken possession of my body and mind?”

The truth is that I have small boobs and a big butt; I’m way too old to be a MILF; I barely make ends meet every month; my hair looks terrible every other day; I love my kids’ cute little school and all the lovely and caring teachers that adore my children and tell me as much every chance they get. I’m not overly fond of government control and I don’t like the war but, if the truth be known, I don’t even hate Dubya nearly as much as I should. I think he’s sort of sweet and boyish and he’s married to a very nice woman which elevates him in my eyes. He loves his cute daughters and gets along with mom and dad and cares about his siblings….all the things that I strive to engender in my children.

The truth of the matter is that my life is a daily grind, just as yours is. My lofty goal each day is to stay on track, to keep a whole lot of people sane and healthy, to counsel them and love them and instruct them and pray for them. To cook and clean and do laundry and pay bills–to try to work in a little exercise, a little charity work, an occasional shower. My nights are filled with homework and sporting events and bathing, toothbrushing, Halloween costumes…it never ends. Nor do I want it to.

I am my best self when I am giving to my family, my community, loving my people and my God. It’s hard for me to care that much about the war, about poverty, about abortion. I don’t have a lot of spare time to think, less even to act. So, late at night, I let my alter ego come out and say whatever she’d like. I get up early to make breakfast and send the kids off to school and when I read what she’s written I think to myself, “Please shut up now and make me some coffee.”

An Inconvenient Truth; Al Gore in the Balance

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This last Friday I headed over to see a herd of well-fed liberals that rodeoed themselves into the Unitarian Church for a free showing of the film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. The corral was packed and after we were informed that a pastor was on the way from Denver to moralize to us later, the film began to roll. Another showing of ‘Al Gore, the Intellectual Politican’ was under way. Hey, it kinda of reminded me of the repeated US`showing of ‘Jimmy Carter, Born Again Liberal Christian’, too. Holy Mackeral. Why buy a used car from the other guys, when we got such a sincere team over at Slick’s Used Cars Emporium?

My daughter was one of about 5 church-like kids dragged into the Unitarian Church that evening. And she lasted only 30 minutes, and then I had to go. She had to go that is, since I actually kind of wanted to stay. The film had a ‘Don’t Feed the Bears’ ambience to it, that made me feel like I was watching a Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo Bear rerun from my youth. Plus, it had that feel of those professional ‘Why You Need to Join Your Local Union’ stuff the AFL-CIO occasionally puts out. But my daughter was demanding that I rent her some obscure foreign film from over at Toons Video instead of staying and watching more of the freebee.

So how the Hell can I review a film when I watched only 30 minutes of it? Easily. I have been watching Al Gore for much longer than just the 90 minutes the film lasts. Here is Mr Environmental Guru as I have seen him over the years.

1) Supported Poppy Bush’s so-called Desert Strom that resulted in the deployment of Depleted Uranium radioctivity across the region. It also led to further environmental catastrophe as Hussein retaliated by incinerating the oil refineries of Kuwait.

2) As VP, he later went on to head up an Adminstration that deliberately targeted Yugoslavia’s civilian infrastructure through a US bombing campaign. As a result, the Danube was totally polluted with highly toxic waste. He also supported 8 years more of continued bombing of Iraq during that time, which certainly did not improve the ecology already destroyed by US warmaking he had supported even when a Republican had been directing the effort.

3) He supported the invasion of Afghanistan, which has left entire regions there decimated by so-called ‘bunker busting’ weaponry. Hardly a major ‘green’ effort on the part of Gore.

4) Gore has sat quiet as Israel bombed a civilian installation in Lebanon, which is a country invaded with total Bush support and complicity. Result?… a tidal wave of petro pollution that is the worst spill ever experienced in the Eastern Meidterranean. It will take decades to repair the damage, yet ‘Green’ Al Gore is silent.

5) Al Gore holds large number of shares in Occidental Oil, the company that polluted the Love Canal in New York State. It is also a company heavily invested in Colombia where Gore has helped have tons of isecticide dropped onto rural areas under the guise of waging a Clinton made ‘drug war’. The company sold off its holdings from the area after their drilling in U’wa tribal lands came up negative. Despite U’wa protests against this drilling, the Gore family held its shares in the company. Too bad the U’wa’s note to Gore was not part of the movie.

We could go on, but why should anyone believe Al Gore is doing anything other than image restructuring for himself, and the Democratic Party? If you are depending on him to be pro-environmental, then I got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. If you are depending on the Democratic Party to stop the Pentagon (which is the main danger to global environments), then you should have your head examined.

White Mountain

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Hitch your horse to this manservantWhite Mountain met its match last night, at their homecoming football game. The idea usually is to pick an opponent to beat at your homecoming festivities. Later you might visit a fellow school on their homecoming weekend and lose to them in return. But “South,” the underprivileged shoe-in with half the athletic department and budget, would not play ball. And that was the good news.

There was a distinct home advantage, the bigger, better lit bleachers, the multiple cheerleading squads, the band, the fireworks, everything uphill and upwind from the diminutive visitors stands. But the Indians got whooped by the visiting Pueblo South Colts, and maybe expected it. It felt like a surprise to most, and it was pretty dark out there. Add to that the anonymity of shiny football helmets under high school stadium lights, but if you looked closely you could tell it was darker on the south side of the field. The Pueblo South High School players were black and hispanic.

White Mountain gets its name because there are no children of color there. Well, there are the occasional adopted black children, and the whitish black children of privilege, but few others. Cheyenne Mountain is very very white. Nothing wrong with that, it’s an affluent neighborhood and welcomes all who can afford to be there.

But at the base of Cheyenne Mountain is a racism more overt and the children of White Mountain pass it everyday. Cheyenne Mountain Resort is a terribly exclusive country club with amazingly expensive membership fees and golf tee fees. And all the attendants there are black. It’s the Pullman porter valet concept with plantation era uniforms. They look like lawn jockey figurines. Thin black people in pure white clothes. Smiling black faces, happy to be there. Nothing illegal about the hiring standard, here’s how it works:

Cheyenne Mountain Resorts applies for an immigration waiver to hire international workers. They claim the jobs which resorts offer cannot be filled by the local labor force. The pay’s not enough, the career prospects are not enough, and true enough, the local populace is not enough either. Too fat maybe, poor work ethic, have social problems perhaps, and locals have their own transport to bring or fetch complications for the resort. Locals bring too much financial baggage to the table.

On the other hand, imported laborers are housed at company apartments. They’re shuttled to and from work. When they’ve finished their three month stint they are sent home. Deliriously uncomplicated and cheap. Cheyenne Mountain Resorts does its hiring in Jamaica. Know any white people in Jamaica? Well, they don’t appear to sign up to work across the sea, away from their home and family, on a rich man’s plantation.

The Broadmoor takes advantage of the same immigrant labor waiver to staff its hotel and restaurant, except they hire exclusively in Eastern Europe. I’m not sure that’s not racist to another extreme. The slavic labor force is the least expensive in the world, in the world of white people. There are no colored peoples there.

The immigrant labor waiver is an unfair means for local employers to escape contributing to a sustainable and healthy local community. It’s a foreign aid program of sorts, but at the expense of what could be local jobs. And when it’s racially segregated, it’s ugly. I plan to ask around if White Mountain prefers its golf jockeys all black. If they can’t say it with a straight face, they should stop it.

This isn’t about racism, it’s about economic justice. If we want to believe in the notion that the American dream is available to people of all shades and heritage, we must not teach our children that racial differences dictate social status.

Jarts

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JartsDo you remember the good ol’ days when we were reckless and free? Unencumbered by good sense and family responsibilities? When we were able to get together with friends on a sunny day, have some hot wings and cold beer, and play a dangerous little game called Jarts? Yard darts, lawn darts, whatever you recall, were steel-tipped weighted mega-darts that one hurled gleefully into the air toward a yellow plastic circle across the yard. It was truly a “team” sport because everyone at the party had to pay close attention to the action to avoid being impaled in the temple. The wayward dart was most likely tossed by the belle de jour in a polka dot sundress (oh! how we laughed!)…the “new girl” once again brought by Ashton Chase, our friend with connections to Chase-Manhattan. Dammit, Ashton. Stop it. Think about us for a change.

We were the only people with a kid at the time…a preschool-aged boy. I know for a fact that one of his fondest childhood memories (oddly, he remembers this in slo-mo) is of 6 adults dropping full beers in unison and racing across the yard to body check him into a fence to save his life. Kind of a boozed up backyard version of Swan Lake. Without the tutus. Well, except for Ashton.

Sadly, they have made the game of Jarts ILLEGAL. I don’t know who “they” are. Whose job is it to troll back alleys, looking for young people having fun, and then steal our toys and jump up and down on them in black Gestapo boots while we hold our blankies and our beers and sob aloud at the spectacle? Yes, them. They took our darts and our plastic rings and left us with no way to amuse ourselves.

That’s when we starting smoking pot. Dang it! They’ve got us here too. Not only have they made our harmless little substance illegal, they’ve made pretty little glass sculptures with rubber hoses and small pieces of very thin paper off limits as well. What a bunch of fuddy duddies. Puh-lease. Let us have our fuuuuunnnnnn! We are functioning members of society, doctors and lawyers and brokers and developers and financial analysts, all of us. Now we can’t smoke pot and play jarts in the privacy of our own yards? Well, then we quit. We are all going to go on welfare and stop paying our mortgages and and mowing our useless lawns and wasting our time volunteering with the PTA.

Actually, I have a better idea. I was on eBay this morning trying to buy a set of illegal lawn darts and I noticed that, instead of the $14.99 I remember, a used (vintage) set of crappy darts is going for more than $200 (and are to be used for nostalgic display purposes only). And, pot. Well, we all know what a nice sticky bud of Wowie Maui is going for these days (okay, I’ve dated myself and revealed that I don’t actually smoke pot but I still like it conceptually). Perhaps we should walk away from the rat race and make our fortunes selling reasonably harmless illegal things! Yes! We could each play a role in the family business. I, the CPA, could count the beans and file the tax returns (oh, wait, tax free! ha!). Tad, the broker, could invest the profits and set up retirement accounts for each of us. Ashton, the banker, could fund our start up costs. Betsy, the attorney, could get us out of trouble and Dave and Tim, the doctors, could act as money launderers. Chris, the developer, could find us a place to grow our inventory. The only thing we need is a horticulturalist to help us with the hydroponics. Horticulturalists? Any takers? Why don’t we know any horticulturalists? Dang.

Come to think of it, I think we’ll start manufacturing and selling yard darts as well. At $200 a pop, it won’t take long until we we’re ready to retire en masse and move to gentler climes. Sipping mai tais, swimming with dolphins, playing limbo. Just like the good ol’ days.

I hope they outlaw beer pong as well. Bora Bora, here we come.

The Golden Rule in world religions

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What kind of christianity is it we’re practicing with our tortures and war?

Islam
622 AD		 No one of you is a believer until he desires
for his brother that which he desires for himself.
      Sunnah
Christianity
27 AD		 Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
      Luke 6:31
Taoism
200 BC		 Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain,
and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
      Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien
Confucianism
500 BC		 Do not do to others what you would not like
yourself. Then there will be no resentment
against you, either in the family or in the state.
      Analects 12:2
Zoroastrianism
600 BC		 That nature alone is good which refrains from doing
another whatsoever is not good for itself.
      Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5
Buddhism
600 BC		 Hurt not others in ways that you yourself
would find hurtful.
      Udana-Varga 5,1
Judaism
1300 BC		 What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman.
This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.
      Talmud, Shabbat 3id
Hinduism
1500 BC		 This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others
what you would not have them do unto you.
      Mahabharata 5,1517

From ChristopherNewsletter through TeachingValues through ThomasMC.

Gay marriage

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Lovely coupleWho says gays and lesbians can’t marry? Of course they can marry. They absolutely can. They simply have to marry EACH OTHER! C’mon gay men, admit it, a large athletic woman around the house would come in DAMN HANDY! Lawn mowing, house painting, lightbulb changing…not to mention protection from would-be muggers. And you dykes. Fashion advice? Culinary prowess? Feng Shui? Sounds brilliant to me!

Things in the boudoir won’t be that thrilling you say? Oh, grow UP! Even straight couples get bored after a year or two. Is sexual incompatibility enough reason to deep six an otherwise beautiful union? I think not.

Surely I jest. Take heart! You’ve made some headway here. A majority of the American public supports the idea of legal civil unions for gay and lesbian pairs. Civil unions would give you many of the rights and responsibilities associated with traditional marriage. The sticking point seems to be the idea of full-fledged “marriage.”

Once again, falling back on my handy Catholic upbringing, I’ll shed a bit of light on this. Marriage is considered by many to have spiritual significance in addition to its legal ramifications. To most it is a sacrament which, in Latin, means “something holy.” It is a visible sign, in the form of a religious ceremony, of invisible grace–God’s protection and favor. Christians, most notably Roman Catholics, believe that all seven sacraments were instituted by Jesus in the New Testament.

True or not, this explains why, according to a recent poll, 54% of Americans favor gay civil unions while only 35% support gay marriage. Most Christians, and fully 84% of Americans identify themselves as Christian while 60% identify as “committed Christian” (the scarier ones) are not going to be easily convinced, if they can EVER be convinced, that God is prepared to confer his special favor on a homosexual union. They are okay if the state confers a little of ITS protection and favor…but God Almighty? NO WAY.

So I’m sorry, gays and lesbians, I know that you would love to feel that God approves of your lifestyle…but asking me to give you a legal/spiritual rite of passage is actually asking for MY approval. There are quite a few who, like me, don’t feel comfortable speaking for God. So please don’t ask us what he thinks. Take it up with him privately. If he’s the God that I think he is, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Now, in the spirit of cooperation, I have something to ask of you too. Would you please STOP TALKING about gay marriage already! Especially in an election year. You are scaring people right into the big flabby bosom of the GOP by allowing them to portray the Democratic party as the gay marriage party! The anti-family values party! You’re taking the focus off of the war in Iraq, off poverty, off education, race relations, welfare reform, healthcare, global warming…the crazy cowboy in the White House. Let me tell you, the Republicans are lovin’ you for it! So please please please take civil unions for the time being and shut the hell up.

Mexico’s election and ours, the different and the same

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Across the US political spectrum it is now widely understood that the US government does aggressively intervene in Latin America, no matter whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House. So no matter what political stripe your average Joe and Jane neighbor may be here in Colorado Springs, you are not too likely to have one deny that the US has historically intervened South of The Border in some form or another; militarily, economically, and culturally. The neighbor leaning Left might say that this has been negative for those countries, while the Rightist will most probably sing interventionism’s praises. The memory of Reagan’s Central American wars of the ’80s remains strong, because some of these wars were so widely covered in the press.

There is one caveat to mention here. The belief that the US is intervening, and has intervened in the past in Latin America, is mostly confined within opinion by the American public, that this is so only south of Mexico. Why? The answer is in that the US press as a whole, treats mention of US interventionism in Mexico and its politics as its grand taboo. Despite the fact that Mexico is a huge and populous country and is where the Third World meets the US to our South, the US press does all it can to keep Americans just as ignorant about Mexico as they can be made.

As one example, just how many non Hispanic Americans can name the Mexican states that border the US? How many of these same Americans know that Mexico is divided into states even? But how many of these same folk yet have strong and basically uninformed opinions regarding immigration from that country? The sum total of belief the US non Hispanic public has been taught by the English language US press, is that Mexico is poor and that many want to live here because of that. Further information is kept back, and the widespread Anglo public view is that Mexicans run their own country and the US has nothing to do with that. Unfortunately, that perception is totally false.

To illustrate the point that the US in fact has a major role in directing Mexican life, let me just mention a few facts about Walmart in Mexico. This American company is Mexico’s largest private employer with over 100,000 employees and over 800 stores there. It now is entering into the countries banking structure as a major player, too. It is just ridiculous to imagine that the Walton family of Arkansas is just standing to the side when political and economic decisions are being made, whether in Spanish, or not.. They have an agenda, and push it just as hard in Mexico as they do in the US. Their agenda, in short, is to make profits in that country and to move those billions to Bentonville, USA.

I don’t want to pick on Walmart here. They are just one of many prominent examples of US presence in Mexico, and exploitment of it. They have high level company officials, as other US companies and the US government itself do, that interact with the Mexican elites themselves to maintain a ‘good business climate’. What existed before the year 2000, was the longest running one-party dictatorship in the world. Both Mexican and US elites decided was that this was not good for business at that time. Previously, they had agreed that this dictatorship was absolutely just the thing for business and US government support for the PRI dictatorship was kept solid. And the US press’s silence about this ran solid for decades, too.

In the last 2 US presidential elections, the results left many believing that fraud had carried Bush into office twice. At any rate Bush received less votes (called popular votes, as if that made them insignificant) than Al Gore did in 2000, and yet got the office! Gore realized that though he had won the vote count and that the Republicans had fraudently purged voter lists of largely eligible Black voters, that he was not as popular amongst the US elite as Bush was at the time. So he laid down his claim for the presidency, and conceded without a struggle! And America has been as it has, ever since.

Mexico had its presidential election about 10 weeks ago. News of it was kept quiet in the US daily press, as if it was of no real concern to Americans. Pretty strange behavior for what bills itself as the ‘free press’, but not real shocking if we consider how the US press has been largely lap dogs in support of Bush’s multiple invasions, occupations, and wars. Not much coverage of Bush in Haiti these days, neither. How much real examination has there been of whether the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had roots in the White House?

But what came out of this election south of us was a fraudulent result that will possibly impact the US as much as Iraq now does. After all, the US and Mexico are intertwined on the North American continent, and neither country will ever become an island into itself,no matter how hard it is tried. I could go into the many details of why the results were fraudulent, something that is now being denied in US daily editorial after another. That would seem arcane and boring to most readers though. What counts, is that about half of the Mexican population is certain that the results are fraudulent and the official president stands with little legitimacy in their eyes. And the US supports that man, as do the Mexican church, government, and economic elites that have long impoverished that country.

What really is fearful to the US media, is that the official ‘loser’ of the Mexican presidential race, Antonio Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), has chosen a path completely in contrast to that of our US loser of the past, Al Gore. He has decided to struggle against the fraud rather than to meekly surrender to it. Despite the effort to reconstruct Gore’s image amongst the US public as Mr. Ecology, he will probably go down in history as the goat that led to the construction of the Bush Administration. Mexico’s ‘loser’, AMLO, may well go down to being seen as a hero in the struggle against US control of his country, and the destruction of its national integrity.

The situation in Mexico now is quite complex. The country’s highest court just put a man in office, that even with fraud in his favor, gathered less than 40% of the votes! The south of the country went for AMLO, and the north went more to Calderon, now the official ‘president’. About 30% of the country stuck with the PRI, party of the no supposedly defunct one-party dictatorship of the past. Fact is, that both Calderon’s party and the PRI have been acting in conjunction with each other, as if they were but 2 wings of one corporate party. Does this ring a bell for some Americans?

Our government and institutions should not fall into line accepting Mexican electoral fraud as they are now doing. The fact that they have done so bodes poorly for our own embattled system. Neither country can afford to continue where only elites make decisions that effect all of us. Neither country needs Tweedle-Dee/ Tweedle-Dumb governance. That way leads to national insecurity for both nations.

Private philanthropy

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I was recently introduced to a young couple, both 21 years old, proud parents of a month-old baby. They live in low-income housing, dad works a joe job. . .mom stays home, no friends or family nearby, to take care of baby.

Is this an untenable situation? YOU BET IT IS! American society requires that we become rugged individualists. . .nuclear families reign supreme and exist in a vacuum of our own making. In the days of yore, mother/grandmother/sister were omnipresent. . .helping with practical matters but, more importantly, providing guidance and wisdom and support in navigating life’s tricky waters. WHERE IS MY RED TENT?

Wanna make a difference? We have lots of opportunities. We can bankroll large ventures that help people help themselves. We can write and protest and travel the world looking for the downtrodden. . .hoping to shine some light on injustice.

But another option is to look a bit closer to home. Speak some kind words, bring a dinner, offer to babysit, share your experiences, your wealth, your time. I BELIEVE in private philanthropy. I believe that anyone who comes across my path presents a challenge to me, an opportunity for me. Maybe it’s all my years spent in uniform as a Catholic girl but an old song keeps playing in my head. “All that I am. All that I do. All that I’ll ever have I offer now to you.”

Atrocity damage control

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AbirThis is 14-year old Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi’s ID.
From Al-Mahmudiya. She is the young girl who was gang raped by five American servicemen who killed her family, and incinerated her body once they were done.
 
The press reported that she was an Iraqi Woman. When pressed, Army spokesmen admitted that her age might fall anywhere between 26 and 14. Abeer’s ID was already confirming her true age for the International Press. Even a week after the military admitted the rape victim’s age had been 14, American papers were still reporting the story as the rape of an Iraqi young woman.

White Native Americans

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A branch of our local library is hosting a discussion about a recent work of popular fiction, One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. I’m thinking of stopping by to puke.

The novel begins by alluding that its unspeakable historical premise has factual merit. ALLEGEDLY the author’s great great aunt, a “May Dodd”, left a journal about her life experience, hidden all these years in shame by her family. The author takes it upon himself to tell her repressed tale, and because it is the untold fate of 999 nameless more, we infer it to be one of the dark secrets of the American national identity.

The story concerns 1000 white women who were traded to the Indians in exchange for resettlement and peace. One thousand white women. The title does grab you. It has undeniable where-the-white-women-at? appeal.

Another prominant White IndianThe phenomena also shares something with the White Indian Series by Donald Porter. That’s a western series for readers who couldn’t be bothered to know about the lives of the Native Americans unless they were WHITE Native Americans. These readers can’t sympathize with Indians as victims, unless they are white Indian victims, and then preferably of course they should be white Indian victims of Indians.

The mythic white Indian abounds on film, and it’s not just Indians. The story of The Last Samurai had to be about a white man in Japan (Tom Cruise) or who would care?

Here you have the fate of 1000 women sold, sacrificed or let loose down the river to become Indian squaws. One part romantic fantasy, several parts feminist grudge, (1000 parts rape fetish?), all at the hands of red heathen.

To be fair, the author does provide a disclaimer that 1000 white women never changed hands. Fergus implies however that an original Cheyenne proposal to be given 1000 white women was real and asks readers to ponder, what if?

If true, it’s a piercing lesson on the embarrassing legacy that can come from sarcasm.

How deeply insulting is it to suggest that Indian tribal leaders would have asked the army negotiators for white women? And as a condition of laying down their weapons? I think it’s indescribably racist to be susceptible to thinking that Indian fathers and braves sought white mates with whom to raise new generations of their tribe.

Neither in-breeding nor poor education are excuses enough for this prevalent self-centered bigotry.

Zidane is not a son of a Harki

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What did you say?Harki is Algerian for collaborator. Zenedine Zindane has publically refutted the accusation before.
 
“Zizou” Zidane could not even speak the word on TV when asked what taunt had provoked his now infamous headbutt in the last ten minutes of the World Cup. He would only say that Materazzi had insulted his mother and sister, three times.

The western press has suggested that the term was “terrorist” whore. Doesn’t make sense, does it? What kind of traction do your mother’s combat boots have anymore? Zidane is the son of Algerian parents who emigrated to France after Algeria gained its independence.

But there’s a word in France that still burns every Frenchman. Collaborator. Use your imagination what it means to insinuate that your mother and sisters were collaborators.

While it still raises a Frenchman’s blood pressure to accuse his family of having collaborated with the Nazi occupation. There is sympathy as well for those accused. Quite a few French families did collaborate or had no choice.

The term that Zidane refuses to repeat, even in defending his action, was in his words, “a grave insult.” His parents speculated that the term might have been Harki. (If you Google: algeria +grave +insult, you get Wikidedia’s definition of Harki.) Harki is the name for Algerians who collaborated with the French against Algeria’s fight for independence. It is a term with which Zidane has a history.

Boy oh boy do I imagine the western press does not like to deal with insults being thrown at colonial sympathizers. At a time when the Iraqi people are trying to fight their American invaders, and Palestinians are trying to throw off their Israeli occupiers, and each repressive government is trying to recruit turncoats for their cause. There on television we’re shown the profund visceral resentment of being accused of betraying your own people.

At the World Cup Final on TV we saw that a person could forego the unblemished legacy of his sports career, even jeopardize the World Cup match for his team, just to repudiate the suggestion that his family slept with the enemy. The enemy being the West.

Ironically, the western press chose to translate Harki as “terrorist.” It wouldn’t seem to be much of an insult at all, unless it accurately referred to the French paratroupers use of state-sponsored terror to thwart the Algerian struggle.

Just as Iraqi resistance fighters are being called insurgents and terrorists. There will be a word to describe those Iraqis who collaborate with the brutal US occupation. Maybe that word will mean “terrorist” after all.

Making Iraqi soldiers

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Iraqis have mastered rocket scienceUS troops are training Iraqis to be soldiers? Is that a laugh? Iraqi soldiers are already some of the most experienced in the world, many of them veterans of the ten year war with Iran and the Gulf War.
 
Iraqi fighters have shown their mettle against the overwhelming superiority of their American occupiers, twice. What do soft bellied Americans have to teach to seasoned Iraqis?

Indoctrination would be more like it. Inoculate them with vaccines, get their pledge of allegiance, record their identifying marks and family records, start a file on them, arm them with cast-off assault rifles, teach them our weapons systems I suppose, though I’m guessing not.

What ARE we teaching them? Is the timetable needed to train an Iraq security force really the time it takes to just assemble one? To convince enough Iraqis that they aren’t signing up for just one paycheck because that’s the only payday they’ll experience before they are summarily disgorged from an army bus and executed? Are Iraqi men given the choice of conscription or Abu Ghraib?

No Gun Ri

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The killing of Korean women and children by Piccaso
A letter has come to light, written by the American ambassador to Korea in 1950, which details the American intention to shoot Korean refugees should they approach American troops. This letter not only led to the next day’s massacre of hundreds of civilian at No Gun Ri, but documents what can now be understood as a systemic policy of shooting civilians. The US Army shrugged off such accusations at the time. This letter was declassified thirty years later, and was overlooked in the department review fifty years later.

Shall we extrapolate about the US military’s actions these days?

Most recently we’re learning about the US massacre of 24 civilians in Haditha: family members being executed at point-blank range by a handful of enraged marines. First there was a coverup, then a denial. Now the atrocity is being described as isolated. The press is even playing along -backhandedly- by asking if Haditha will become Iraq’s My Lai.

Such a comparison would be correct if we remember that My Lai was actually one among many US atrocities in South East Asia. Such massacres of civilians were policy in Vietnam. The Wintersoldiers tried to tell us about it then, we now know about Tiger Troop and their death squad missions.

American Iraq War veterans are already telling us about the common military response to IEDs: shoot at everyone and everything in the vicinity. Unembedded reporters have been recording since the invasion began about American soldiers breaking into houses and shooting the men, women and children inside. As was done in Haditha.

Real partisan lines

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Many people who I’ve tried to enlist in this or that effort talk about not wanting to appear “political.” This is such a regretful argument because it reflects I think their ignorance of what all of us are up against. Anyone who is seeking to tackle societal problems at the source has to recognize that the causes are certainly political.
 
As opposed to “partisan.” Political activism has nothing to do with partisanship. Trying to improve our representation in government is not a liberal issue, nor progressive. Those who consider themselves conservative have the same need for representation and voice than anyone, especially it seems if you are a fiscal conservative!

And partisan lines drawn as between Democrats and Republicans are also hardly applicable. As the divide between have and have nots increases, both major parties have proven themselves champions of a single side: the tax-break class.

Not until we have congress people who are not multimillionaires, who have relatives facing employment and health insurance woes, who have children in the public school system, who do not owe their reelection to corporate lobbyists, will our interests have a chance in Washington.

Is this the old harang about class warfare? It most certainly is. People think perhaps that the different between the haves and have-nots is largely academic. It is not.

Do you have enough money that you can live off the interest without having to do a lick of work? No? Then you have not.

Is your neighborhood and family protected from the rising incidence of crime and drugs addiction? Then you have not.

Are you secure that you will always have a job, health insurance, retirement, education, leasure? Then you have not.

If you have twenty, fifty, one hunded, one thousand, one million times the annual income of your fellow man, then you are a have.

And you didn’t get it by robbing it from someone else who had too much. You took it from those twenty, fifty, hundred, thousand, or million persons who now have to make do with less.