My Sacred Places: कोलुम्सिल्ले

Today, just after noon I took some personal time for reflection. Thank The Old Ones for providing a Sacred Space nearby for much needed meditation and reflection.

I needed to get back in tune using my harmonics which were barely audible within me, at this point. I don't know why I've waited so long to do this, but I now know it's happened just at the right time. The 'nick' if you will...

When I got home I lit the Dreamcatcher Candle near Greenman and offered my collection for the New Year.
3 simple leaves and an acorn shell.
The symbol of Tetragrammaton if you please...
The candle burns brightly and the scent is sweet and permeates the household.

Here are a few pictures I took along the way...

I love sharing.

You can click for the big pic...

As the wind was answering my questions walking along the paths, I took it all in... the energy of the Earth & Sky before me, and the melody within myself which harmonized without. Hawks & Crows soaring on the last Autumn breezes. I found my answers in the falling leaves... The Trees still proud before me, baring limbs receding... [:::]

I have no one to blame but myself for letting this happen to me.

Things may have happened to me - terrible things - things from my past which will forever haunt me, things that were done to me because of hate, greed, jealousy, and all the other negatives that may be encountered; but it was all due to my own reactions to these negatives, that I lost my way.

I will remember not to let that happen again.

Thanks to my very special friend for helping me see this. You are a blessing to me. You know who you are, Beautiful One - and I'm getting reacquainted with me because of you. You helped me see what was missing in my life and recapture it for a glorious fleeting moment in time - I am forever greatful and in your debt. [:::]

The last three pictures had to do with the glowing aura I get from this place. "Thor's Gate" is the name of this spot, and it really is like St Oran said:
"The way you think it is may not be the way it is at all."
I can't remember the rest of the thought which comes after - at present, but it's equally as enlightening.

St Oran is a 'Christianization' of Merlin to me, from the time of the Book of Kells.

This was my humble offering today to the Earth & Sky...
...The Trees shimmered as I spelled out in Rocks and Acorn Shells "World Peace" not only Outer Peace but Inner Peace for all as well.
Every Living Thing.

I remember St Oran's quote always when dealing with things that might be bothering me at any given moment. Maybe I just need another reference point or perspective view. I try to look at a problem I'm having from different angles to see if I will come to the same conclusion each time... [:::]

This last spot was the place I felt most at ease today. I sat down yogi style under a great fir tree on a large rock and took in the sight of Mother Nature in all her splendor at this most wonderful time of the year, tuning myself back into the sound of the Universe - not that I ever left, but it certainly felt like I finally came Home.

Happy New Year...
ॐ

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AIRWAVES INCLUDE:

"SHINE" - JONI MITCHELL (2007)

"SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND" - GENESIS (1973)

"THE CROSS OF CHANGES" - ENIGMA (1994)

"JOURNEY IN SATCHIDANANDA" - ALICE COLTRANE (1970)

"PEACEFUL WORLD" - THE RASCALS (1970)

________________________________

Happy Samhain

SPIRITUAL KATANA

Going through the stats, this is one of the most requested images here. ...All year long.

Thought it might be appropriate to repost it again...
Came from a Quiz a while back...

There are some Absolutely Fabulous Hallowe'en Links over at PaxRomano's for the cynics and skeptics and believers alike...

Cul.One gives us "THE TRUE MEANING OF HALLOWEEN".

Have a SPOOKY HOLIDAY.

BOO!

____________________________________

IN THE AIRWAVES:

"TAM LIN" - FAIRPORT CONVENTION (1969)

-SANDY DENNY--

FAIRPORT CONVENTION lyrics

6th January 1947
- 21st April 1978

Rare Live Archive from YouTube (no video)
____________________________________

Celebrating GLBT History Month: 31 Days. 31 Icons.

ABOUT EQUALITY FORUM

Equality Forum is a national and international GLBT civil rights organization with an educational focus. Equality Forum coordinates GLBT History Month, produces documentary films, undertakes high impact initiatives and presents the largest annual international GLBT civil rights forum.
For more information, visit:
www.equalityforum.com

GLBT History: Leonardo da Vinci

b. April 15, 1452
d. May 2, 1519

"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence."

Leonardo Da Vinci was the archetypal Renaissance man. His curiosity and genius led him to make observations, experiments and breakthroughs in a variety of fields including engineering, architecture, math, anatomy, optics, astronomy, geology, biology and philosophy. His artwork and inventions, many of them advanced far beyond normal innovations of the time period, continue to earn him wide acclaim.

Artist Andrea del Verrocchio hired Da Vinci, at age 15, as his apprentice. While working with Verrocchio in Florence, Da Vinci learned a broad range of skills including painting, sculpting and drafting. In 1472, he was accepted into the painters' guild in Florence. Da Vinci lived mostly in Florence and Milan for the rest of his career while working on commissioned art. "Mona Lisa," "The Last Supper" and "Madonna of the Rocks" are a few of his most famous paintings.

Da Vinci left behind a collection of 40 notebooks, of which 31 still remain. He filled these notebooks with diagrams and records of his observations and research in the fields of painting, architecture, mechanics, human anatomy, geophysics, botany, hydrology and aerology.

Da Vinci’s documents demonstrate that he conceptualized helicopters, tanks and calculators long before construction of these devices became feasible. He also envisioned solar power and developed a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics.

Da Vinci's professions included civil engineer, musician, military planner and weapons designer. He worked as the court artist for the Duke of Milan. From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome. He developed a close relationship with Niccolò Machiavelli and mathematician Luca Pacioli, with whom he helped write "Divina Proportione" (1509).

No evidence suggests that Da Vinci had relationships with women. His closest relationships were with two of his male pupils, Melzi and Salai.

A project of Equality Forum

For You Chris: Dreams can come true...

Especially when they're shared with someone special...

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

.......SMOOCHES & HUGS

Ralph Nader Sues Democrats

AP

(Washington) Consumer advocate and 2004 independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party on Tuesday, contending officials conspired to keep him from taking votes away from nominee John Kerry.

Nader's lawsuit, filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, also named as co-defendants Kerry's campaign, the Service Employees International Union and several so-called 527 organizations such as America Coming Together, which were created to promote voter turnout on behalf of the Democratic ticket.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Democratic National Committee conspired to force Nader off the ballot in several states.

"The Democratic Party is going after anyone who presents a credible challenge to their monopoly over their perceived voters," Nader said in a statement. "This lawsuit was filed to help advance a free and open electoral process for all candidates and voters. Candidate rights and voter rights nourish each other for more voices, choices, and a more open and competitive democracy."

Among other things, the lawsuit alleges that the DNC tried to bankrupt Nader's campaign by suing to keep him off the ballot in 18 states. It also suggests the DNC sent Kerry supporters to crash a Nader petition drive in Portland, Ore., in June 2004, preventing him from collecting enough signatures to get on the ballot.

The lawsuit seeks "compensatory damages, punitive damages and injunctive relief to enjoin the defendants from ongoing and future violations of the law." It was not clear how much money Nader is seeking; his attorney, Bruce Afran, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

DNC spokesman Luis Miranda declined comment on the suit, citing a policy on pending litigation.

It's That Time Of Year Again...

GLBT History: Billy Sipple

b. November 20, 1941
d. February 2, 1989

"My sexual orientation has nothing at all to do with saving the President's life, just as the color of my eyes or my race has nothing to do with what happened in front of the St. Francis Hotel."

On September 22, 1975, Billy Sipple (far left) lunges at shooter Sara Jane Moore during an assasination attempt on President Gerald Ford.


A native of Detroit, Michigan, Oliver “Billy” Sipple served in the United States Marines in Vietnam. A piece of shrapnel left him disabled. While living in San Francisco on disability pay, he became active in local causes, including the campaign of Harvey Milk, an openly gay candidate for San Francisco city supervisor.

On September 22, 1975, Sipple was standing among a group of people waiting to see President Gerald Ford as he exited the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. As President Ford emerged, Sipple noticed the woman standing next to him raise a .38-caliber pistol at the President. Instinctively, Sipple lunged at the woman, deflecting her aim as she fired the pistol. The bullet missed the President by five feet. Police arrested the woman, Sara Jane Moore, who received a life sentence for the assassination attempt.

Following the incident, Sipple shied away from media attention. However, gay activists in San Francisco cited Sipple’s actions as a positive example for the movement. Harvey Milk said about Sipple, “For once we can show that gays do heroic things.”

Legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote about Sipple, including his sexual orientation. Several newspapers across the country picked up the story, and the news reached his Michigan-based family, who were unaware of Sipple’s orientation.

The family became estranged for a period of time. Feeling wronged by the media, Sipple filed suit against the newspapers that outed him. The case was ultimately dismissed. Sipple’s experience remains an ethical debate in law and journalism schools.

Sipple became reclusive and his health worsened. He died from pneumonia in 1989. Among the personal items collected from his apartment was a framed letter hanging on the wall, which read: “I want you to know how much I appreciated your selfless actions last Monday,” signed, “Jerry Ford.”

A project of Equality Forum

Update: Recently more information has been brought to my attention on the subject of Sara Jane Moore. Find it HERE

Paul Krugman Wishes Everyone A Happy Hallowe'en...

The New Boogeymen

It's primary season. Be afraid. Be very afraid.


Fearing Fear Itself

By Paul Krugman

In America's darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror." But that was then.

Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president - including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination - have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran "as soon as it is logistically possible."

Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the "main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11." The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world "shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes." Indeed, "Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia."

Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?

For one thing, there isn't actually any such thing as Islamofascism -it's not an ideology; it's a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn't. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 - in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let's have some perspective, please: we're talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden's.

Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees - and bombing is the only option, since we've run out of troops - is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There's every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

Mr. Podhoretz, in short, is engaging in what my relatives call crazy talk. Yet he is being treated with respect by the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination. And Mr. Podhoretz's rants are, if anything, saner than some of what we've been hearing from some of Mr. Giuliani's rivals.

Thus, in a recent campaign ad Mitt Romney asserted that America is in a struggle with people who aim "to unite the world under a single jihadist Caliphate. To do that they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us." He doesn't say exactly who these jihadists are, but presumably he's referring to Al Qaeda - an organization that has certainly demonstrated its willingness and ability to kill innocent people, but has no chance of collapsing the United States, let alone taking over the world.

And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, "I'm not sure we'll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country's ever faced in Islamofascism." Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power - which aren't even allies - pose a greater danger than Hitler's panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.

All of this would be funny if it weren't so serious.

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was - an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary - the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.

Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration's rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up - perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base's older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.

And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.

Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself - the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America's two great political parties.

Hat Tip to cul.one

More Than One Hundred Thousand Protest Iraq War Across US

VIA: COMMONDREAMS
And now... (Drumroll please) - A story you've not heard from corporate media.

by Jason Dearen

SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown on Saturday, chanting and carrying signs that read: “Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die” or “Drop Tuition Not Bombs.”

The streets were filled with thousands as labor union members, anti-war activists, clergy and others rallied near City Hall before marching to Dolores Park.

As part of the demonstration, protesters fell on Market Street as part of a “die in” to commemorate the thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens who have died since the conflict began in March 2003.

The protest was the largest in a series of war protests taking place in New York, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, organizers said.

No official head count was available. Organizers of the event estimated about 30,000 people participated in San Francisco. It appeared that more than 10,000 people attended the march.

“I got the sense that many people were at a demonstration for the first time,” said Sarah Sloan, one of the event’s organizers. “That’s something that’s really changed. People have realized the right thing to do is to take to the streets.”

In the shadow of the National Constitution Center and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a few hundred protesters ranging from grade school-aged children to senior citizens called on President Bush to end funding for the war and bring troops home.

Marchers who braved severe wet weather during the walk of more than 30 blocks were met by people lining the sidewalks and clutching a long yellow ribbon over the final blocks before Independence Mall. There, the rally opened with songs and prayers by descendants of Lenape Indians.

“Our signs are limp from the rain and the ground is soggy, but out spirits are high,” said Bal Pinguel, of the American Friends Service Committee, one of the national sponsors of the event. “The high price we are paying is the more than 3,800 troops who have been killed in the war in Iraq.”

Vince Robbins, 51, of Mount Holly, N.J., said there needed to be more rallies and more outrage.

“Where’s the outcry? Where’s the horror that almost 4,000 Americans have died in a foreign country that we invaded?” Robbins said. “I’m almost as angry at the American people as I am the president. I think Americans have become apathetic and placid about the whole thing.”

In New York, among the thousands marching down Broadway was a man carrying cardboard peace doves. Some others dressed as prisoners, wearing the bright orange garb of Guantanamo Bay inmates and pushing a person in a cage.

Chicago police said about 5,000 people marched through city streets to protest the war.

Police spokeswoman JoAnn Taylor said three protesters were arrested before the march started. They face charges including resisting arrest, failure to obey a police officer, criminal damage to property and aggravated battery to a police officer.

In Seattle, thousands of marchers were led by a small group of Iraq war veterans.

At Occidental Park, where the protesters rallied after the march, the American Friends Service Committee displayed scores of combat boots, one pair for each U.S. solider killed in Iraq.

Associated Press writer Bob Lentz in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

GLBT History: Florence Nightingale

b. May 12, 1820
d. August 13, 1910

"I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results."

Florence Nightingale exploded into public consciousness during the Crimean War (1853-1856). Serving as the superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London from 1853-1854, she learned of the horrible conditions soldiers faced during Britain’s Crimean War with Russia. Using her friendship with politician Sidney Herbert to gain official approval, Nightingale trained 38 nurses and traveled to Turkey, arriving at a hospital in Scutari (modern day Istanbul) in November of 1854.

The Scutari hospitals had the highest mortality levels in the region. Overcrowding, defective sewage systems and poor ventilation contributed to soldiers’ illnesses and death. Yet while a sanitary commission sent by the British government took over six months to arrive, Nightingale and her nursing crew cleaned up the hospital and delivered an unprecedented level of nursing care. By the time she left, Nightingale had earned the military’s admiration. She returned to Britain as a hero in 1857.

Confined to bed by fever upon her return, Nightingale refused to let her illness diminish her work. She helped establish the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army and wrote its first report, a document that facilitated an overhaul of army medical care and record-keeping. "Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not," her instructional guide published in 1860, continues to influence nursing schools across the globe. Nightingale founded The Nightingale Fund and the Nightingale Training School. Nurses she mentored and trained spread throughout England and Australia and conducted pioneering work in America and Japan.

A brilliant mathematician and writer, Nightingale used a unique ability to simplify complex statistics to communicate her findings to government officials. Historians consider her book "Cassandra" (1928) a major feminist work.

Queen Victoria awarded Nightingale the Royal Red Cross in 1883. In 1907, Nightingale became the first woman to receive the Order of Merit.

Hospitals, foundations, and other organizations in her name continue to advocate for improved health care. The Florence Nightingale Museum in London commemorates the life of the modern world’s first great health care provider.

A project of Equality Forum

GLBT History: John McNeill

b. September 2, 1925

"Jesus…opens the possibility of bringing gay relationships within the compass of healthy and holy human love."

One year after John McNeill published "The Church and the Homosexual" (1976), a book offering a new theological look at homosexuality, he received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. Religious authorities ordered McNeill, an ordained Jesuit priest, to halt public discussion on the topic.

McNeill’s book reveals original text from the New Testament detailing Jesus’s ministry to homosexuals. McNeill argues that the original Greek text of Matthew 8: 5-13 narrates Jesus’s healing of a man’s sick gay lover. The Latin translation of this passage describes Jesus’s healing of a master’s servant.

In compliance with the order from the Vatican, McNeill kept a public silence while he ministered privately to gays and lesbians. The Catholic Church, in 1998, submitted a further order to McNeill to relinquish his ministry to homosexuals. When McNeill refused, the Church expelled him from the Jesuit order.

McNeill enlisted in WWII at age 17. German forces captured him while he was serving under General Patton in 1944. He spent six months as a POW before the war’s end.

After graduating from Canisius College in 1948, McNeill entered the Society of Jesus. In 1959, he was ordained a Jesuit priest. Five years later, he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy with honors and distinction from Louvain University in Belgium.

McNeill began teaching in the combined Woodstock Jesuit Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in 1972. He co-founded the New York City chapter of Dignity, an organization of Catholic gays and lesbians. In addition to his teaching duties, he served as Director of the Pastoral Studies program for inner-city clergy at the Institutes of Religion and Health.

An accomplished author, McNeill’s works include "Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays and Lesbians, Their Lovers, Friends and Families" (1988) and "Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians and Everybody Else" (1995). He has also published influential articles in The New Dictionary of Spirituality and The Journal of Pastoral Care.

McNeill led the New York City Gay Rights Parade as Grand Marshall in 1987. He has received numerous awards, including the National Human Rights Award in 1984, the 1997 Dignity/USA Prophetic Service Award, and the People of Soulforce Award in 2000.

A project of Equality Forum

GLBT History: Cole Porter

b. June 9, 1891
d. October 15, 1964

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking but now, God knows, anything goes."

Cole Porter grew up wealthy – his grandfather, James Omar Cole, was a prosperous coal and timber speculator. Porter began musical training during his early childhood. Despite his musical talents, however, Porter’s grandfather envisioned an attorney’s career for him and sent him to Yale University.

At Yale, Porter expanded his musical repertoire and composed 300 songs, including two football fight songs, “Yale Bulldog” and “Bingo Eli Yale”, which are still played today. After one year at Harvard Law School, Porter chose to follow his true passion and transferred to Harvard’s School of Music.

Porter enjoyed brief success in 1915 with his first song in a Broadway musical. A year later, his first full production, "See America First," closed after only two weeks. After several other failures, Porter moved to Paris. The songs he wrote there, including “You Don’t Know Paree” and “I Love Paris”, reflected his affection for the city. In 1928, his first big hit, “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love,” appeared in the musical "Paris."

Porter lived in an era of strict homosexuality taboos. Public knowledge of his sexuality, Porter feared, could compromise his success. Like many gay public figures, Porter married a woman for convenience. His wife, Linda Lee Thomas, may have been bisexual. The arrangement helped both Thomas and Porter. Thomas remained a socialite with a high-profile husband, while Porter hid his sexuality under the guise of a marriage.

Porter had relationships with talented men, including Boston socialite Howard Sturgess, architect Ed Tauch and choreographer Nelson Barclift, the inspiration for “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home to.”

A horse riding accident in 1937 badly crippled Porter’s legs. His condition left him in constant pain and required more than 30 surgeries. He continued to write songs, though his prominence waned until 1948, when he wrote "Kiss Me, Kate," one of his most famous works. The production earned the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Porter won the Tony for Best Composer and Lyricist.

His physical and emotional condition quickly deteriorated with the loss of his mother in 1952, his wife in 1954, and his amputated right leg in 1958. Porter never wrote again, and remained in relative seclusion until his own death, at age 73, in 1964.

A project of Equality Forum

Fave Foto Friday@ Pax Romano's

PaxR always finds the best Pictures...

"LOVE IS BLIND" - the theme...

Here's one for the History Books. Very Pre - DADT...
Don't know who these gentlemen are, but it looks like something from the "Gay Nineties". Find more here. Have a great weekend everyone.

GLBT History: Carolyn Bertozzi

b. May 19, 1966

"Hopefully people can look at me and realize that it's okay to be open in their lives and be themselves and do great work and make contributions to the world as scientist."

Carolyn Bertozzi is the youngest scientist to receive the MacArthur “genius” award. A Professor of Chemistry and Molecular Biology at Berkeley, she oversees a cutting edge research lab. She has a reputation as an outstanding professor and mentor.

The daughter of a physics professor, Bertozzi worked summer jobs at MIT. Her early interests included sports and music.

Bertozzi found her niche in organic chemistry during her sophomore year at Harvard University. She graduated summa cum laude and received an award for best senior thesis. She completed her graduate studies at University of California, Berkeley, receiving her Ph.D. in 1993.

In 1996, Bertozzi joined the UC Berkeley faculty. Her research focuses on the glycobiology underlying diseases such as cancer and inflammatory disorders. Believing she can link sugar molecules’ structures with the presence or absence of disease, Bertozzi developed a unique system to track cell development. Her research team has published over 98 articles. Nature and Angewandte Chemie, an influential chemistry journal, have praised Bertozzi’s work.

Co-editor of "Glycochemistry: Principles, Synthesis, and Applications," Bertozzi is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. In 2001, UC Berkeley honored her with its prestigious Distinguished Teaching Award.

A project of Equality Forum

Study: Gay Men Face More Discrimination Than Lesbians In Workplace

(Durham, New Hampshire) Gay men working in management and traditional blue-collar, male-dominated jobs make less than straight men because they are discriminated against by their employers, according to new research released Wednesday by the University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business and Economics.

Lesbians, however, do not experience similar discrimination in the labor market, according to Bruce Elmslie, professor of economics, and his co-author Edinaldo Tebaldi, former assistant professor of economics at UNH now at Bryant University.

Their research appears in the Journal of Labor Research in the article “Sexual Orientation and Labor Market Discrimination.”

According to the authors, gay men who live together earn 23 percent less than married men, and 9 percent less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman.

Discrimination is most pronounced in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as building and grounds cleaning and maintenance; construction and extraction; and production.

The authors also found that lesbians are not discriminated against when compared with heterosexual women.

They conclude that while negative attitudes toward lesbians could affect them, lesbians may benefit from the perception that they are more career-focused and less likely to leave the labor market to raise children than heterosexual women.

According to their study, 18.1 percent of lesbians have children, compared with 49.4 percent of straight women.

“Employers could reasonably infer that a lesbian applicant or current employee will have a stronger attachment to the labor force than will a heterosexual woman,” the authors said.

The authors note that previous studies of attitudes of heterosexual men toward gay men and lesbians shows that the bias against gay men is much stronger. Other studies show that gay men are more likely to be the victim of violence because of their sexual identity than lesbians.

The authors cite a number of possible factors as to why gay men experience labor discrimination and lower wages in certain industries. There is strong evidence indicating discrimination is tied to employer and employee bias.

“Employers may disapprove of gay lifestyles and act on this bias in making hiring decisions,” the authors said. Employers also may discriminate against gay men in response to the desires of the majority of employees. If employers consider mixing heterosexual and homosexual employees distracting and detrimental to productivity, the authors said the employers may consider it profitable to discriminate.

Gay men also may experience labor market discrimination because customers may not want to interact with them, thus influencing hiring practices. “If customers prefer to interact with heterosexual employees, the owner will act on the customer’s taste for discrimination,” the authors said.

Finally, discrimination may occur as a result of anti-gay attitudes associated with AIDS and misunderstanding as to how HIV is transmitted. Previous research shows that people with HIV/AIDS have higher rates of absenteeism from work. The authors theorize that biased employers may be reluctant to hire gay men because they are concerned about a loss of productivity if a worker becomes infected with HIV/AIDS.

“If employers perceive one group to be generally less productive or more costly than other groups, individual members of the negatively perceived group will receive lower wage offers regardless of their true characteristics,” the authors said.

In this study, employee/employer bias was the most prevalent and overwhelming indication of discrimination against gay men. If the discrimination was consumer-based, the discrimination would be more evident in the services industry where there is direct interaction between employees and customers. If the discrimination was tied to AIDS/HIV status, the distribution of discrimination would be more uniform across industries.

The authors analyzed labor and wage information from more than 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples collected by the U.S. Census March 2004 Current Population Survey.

It's about time a study like this was done...
I've known this first-hand for fucking years.
After losing a few jobs because I'd been honest about my sexual orientation, you'd think I'd have learned to keep my big mouth shut, but no...
And 'activists' wonder why nobody comes out at work... sheesh.

GLBT History: Zhou Dan

b. January 19, 1974

"Law and policy always involve compromise and sometimes being a progressive means taking things one step at a time."

One generation removed from the persecution of gays under the People’s Republic of China, Chinese gays encounter different obstacles than their American counterparts. Many Chinese believe that homosexuality exists only in the western world. The absence of legal protection and the threat of social isolation keep most Chinese GLBT individuals in the closet.

GLBT activist and attorney Zhou Dan came out to his friends in 1998 and the media in 2003. A champion of GLBT rights in China, Zhou writes articles on Chinese gay and lesbian Web sites. Although many GLBT Chinese use pseudonyms, Zhou uses his real name. After revealing his sexuality to a Shanghai newspaper in 2003, Zhou appeared across China in newspapers and magazines and on television. Earlier that year, he established the Shanghai Hotline for Sexual Minorities.

In 2004, Zhou attended Yale Law School’s China Law Center as a visiting scholar. In 2006, he taught China’s first graduate class on homosexuality at Fudan University in Shanghai.

As a lawyer, Zhou fights for the GLBT community and people living with HIV/AIDS. He successfully lobbied the Ministry of Health not to bar HIV-positive people from government jobs. Zhou founded and currently serves as Executive Director of Yu Dan, the first Chinese organization promoting the recognition and acceptance of gay rights throughout mainland China.

In 2005, Zhou was featured in Tetu, a French gay and lesbian magazine. He was also profiled in TIME Magazine as China’s gay pioneer. In 2006, Equality Forum named Zhou the recipient of the "11th Annual International Role Model Award."

A project of Equality Forum

Who makes up the Republican® Party ?

The Ten Types Of Republicans

An Opinion Shared...

Dead Men and Women Walking
by Dave Lindorff

The Democratic Party in Congress, and indeed the leading candidates for the party's presidential nomination, are all dead men and women walking.

They look alive. They may even think they're alive. But their political futures are close to moribund.

Faced with grave moral issues--a criminal and unpopular war that is costing the country the lives of thousands of its young people, and hundreds of billions of dollars a year, a president who treats the Constitution like so much toiletpaper, and an economy that is being hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin, these Democrats are doing nothing.

Repeatedly offered chances to stand up and act, they have ducked each time instead. Twice already, President Bush, himself backed by only one in four Americans today (a lower level of public support than even Nixon had after his resignation in disgrace following the impeachment vote against him by the House Judiciary Committee) has come to Congress requesting another more than $100 billion in funding for his war in Iraq, and Congress has rolled over and given it to him.

Bush has responded to the resignation in disgrace of his lying, cheating attorney general, former White House lawyer Alberto Gonzales, by nominating a man, former Federal District Judge Michael Mukasey, who refuses to condemn torture and who insists that the president is not bound by the Constitution or the law. Congressional Democrats could, and should, refuse such an outrageous sycophant to power for the nation's top law enforcement office, but instead, they look like they plan to okay him for the job.

Over the summer, the President asked for legislation retroactively sanctioning his illegal National Security Agency wiretapping program, which has enlisted the help of the nation's telecom firms to help them spy on you and me and hundreds of thousands- perhaps millions--of Americans. Congress could have said no and won the respect and gratitude of Americans across the political spectrum, who are alarmed at the dramatic erosion of American liberty that has occurred in seven years of Bush/Cheney administration Constitution trampling. Instead, they gave Bush what he wanted--a "temporary" bill that endorsed the secret, warrantless spying, and even gave retroactive sanction. Now the Democratic Congress is on the verge of making that sanction permanent, while extending immunity from civil litigation to the phone companies that have been going along with the spying.

In all this, the Democratic Party leadership and its minions in House and Senate have not been cowards. Rather, they have apparently decided that they can gain power in November 2008 not by playing the part of feisty and principled opposition, but by playing dead for two years. The idea appears to be to pass no controversial legislation, indeed to do nothing of consequence, and to leave the massively unpopular Bush in power, while allowing his massively unpopular Iraq War continue along its bloody way.

They will complain about the constitutional violations, and complain about the war, but when presented with golden opportunities to act, and to bring an end to those crimes, they have done nothing, and will continue to do nothing.

The American public is seeing through this Machiavellian strategy, however, which is why the Congress is now supported by only 11 percent--a figure that is less than half Bush's anemic favorable rating, and only within the margin of error of Cheney's 9 percent support base.

The joke is that in the end, this strategy, if it can be called that, may end up backfiring.

Americans traditionally have a pretty low opinion of politicians. They may not be very good at spotting hucksters, but when they do feel that they are being played, they are quick to punish.

I think the public has caught on to what the Democrats are doing, and may well decide next November that they'd rather go with Republicans who, while crazy and bad with checkbooks, are at least willing to act on their wacky beliefs, than with Democrats, who just cynically sit back and watch, hoping to win by default.

________________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olashansky, is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now out in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

GLBT History: Gertrude Stein

b. February 3, 1874
d. July 27, 1946

"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears."


Known as an influential American writer who focused on character depth, Gertrude Stein spent most of her life in Paris. While in France she met her life partner, befriended famous artists and developed into an influential literary figure and feminist.

Born into a wealthy family in Pennsylvania, Gertrude Stein grew up in Oakland, California. As an undergraduate she attended Radcliffe College, now incorporated into Harvard University, and studied under psychologist William James. She spent much of 1899-1901 at Johns Hopkins University Medical School but did not earn her degree.

Stein moved to Paris in 1902 and became an avid art collector. She turned her house into an informal salon. It soon became a hotspot for famous artists and writers – including Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Henri Matisse and Thornton Wilder. Hemingway viewed Stein as his mentor and Picasso became her close friend. Stein later called Paris a city of “The Lost Generation.”

In 1907, Stein met life partner Alice B. Toklas. Together during WWI, Toklas and Stein drove supplies to French hospitals. After the war, Stein received a medal for her contributions.

Stein wrote her first book, "Q.E.D.," in 1903, but did not publish a novel until "Three Lives" (1909), a work heavily influenced by former professor James and writer William Henry. Unique because of its similarity to the art form of cubism, Stein’s writing delved into a literary area previously unexplored. "Tender Buttons," a short collection of feminist poems published in 1914, resembled Pablo Picasso’s artwork, albeit in different form. In 1926, Stein explained the connection during lectures at the University of Oxford and Cambridge University. She published her lectures as a book, "Composition and Explanation" (1926).

In 1932, "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," a book that told Stein’s life story, excited the American public. It was her first bestseller. Composers adapted several of her works, including Virgil Thomson’s "Four Saints in Three Acts" and "The Mother of Us All."

Complex and progressive, Stein’s writing transformed American literature and contributed to the feminist movement. A monument on the upper terrace of Bryant Park in New York City honors her memory.

A project of Equality Forum

House To Vote This Week On ENDA

365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

(Washington) The House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would protect gays and lesbians in the workforce and on an amendment that would extend those protections to include gender identity.

ENDA originally included all members of the LGBT community, but the bill's author, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) removed gender identity fearing the legislation might not get out of committee.

The move angered most LGBT rights groups, many of whom accused Frank of selling out transsexuals.

Nevertheless, the revised bill passed the House Education and Labor Committee Thursday on a 27 - 21 vote. (story) Several committee Democrats, including presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich refused to support the measure without the inclusion of protections for trans people.

Following the vote Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) proposed an amendment that would reinstate gender identity and secured the support of House leadership to introduce it Wednesday when ENDA reaches the floor. (story)

Frank and Baldwin are the only two out members of Congress.

Friday, Frank announced he would support the amendment and said he would lobby for its passage. (story)

ENDA, as currently worded, would make it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee.

There are, however, some notable exceptions. It does not cover small businesses, religious organizations and the uniformed members of the armed forces.

The bill, and the amendment, will be in for a fight on the floor.

Republicans and some Democrats say once the bill reaches the floor they will attempt to kill all of ENDA using a maneuver to send it back to committee where it would most likely languish and die in the current session.

Even if it passes both houses there is guarantee it will be signed into law.

The Bush administration has been silent on the legislation, but on another LGBT rights bill - the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act - it has threatened a veto.

That measure has passed the House. The Senate version passed as an amendment to a military spending bill. The two versions are now in conference.

_________________________________

Wasted time, it seems to me. We all know that The BU$H will veto this legislation. No matter what anyone says, I truly believe that. Congress is wasting time not drawing up IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS.
_________________________________

Tagged: The ABC's Of Me...

I have been playfully tagged by my new friend Sorrow11.

Usually I don't participate in this type of meme, but in this case - I do make the exception.

Since, for anyone who knows me in the real world, I am forever bending the rules, I charge anyone who actually reads this post and wants to participate with the responsibility of creating their own proper ABC inclusive to leave a link to it here in the comments section of this post for others to get to know your ABC philosophy:

Here's Mine... Have Fun.

A अ - ART which is the wellspring of my life.

B बी - BRAINSTORMING to repair the damage to this planet.

C क - CREATIVITY coming from that known yet elusive sweet spot.

D डी - DEDICATION to the Truth.

E ए - EVERYONE EQUAL on this planet. Regardless...

F फ - FENG SHUI harmonious placement which sometimes eludes.

G ग - GOD ALONE, not the human judges. Gya Nyame

H ह - HIPPIES - My philosophy and the Ones who shaped my life.

I इ - IMPOVERISHMENT ABOLISHED. The soul is rich.

J ज - JERRY, as in Mr Garcia. Captain Trips. Grateful Dead.

K एक - KARMA (करमा) The Wheel which has one way out.

L ल - LABELS abolished which divide and separate.

M म - MUSIC The soundtrack of my days and nights.

N न - NO BOUNDARIES imposed by another human being.

O ओ - ॐ - OM (mana padme) the sound and order of the Universe.

P प् - PHOENIX - That Fabulous Bird rising from the ashes.

Q क़ - QUESTION AUTHORITY - that which I do continuously.

R र - RESPECT for others as the self.

S स - SHAPING the future even though it may already be written.

T टी - THOR - my Asgardian Guardian

U उ - UNIVERSAL TRUTH

V व - VIZIER close friends, invaluable and without political overtones.

W व - WORDS which have great beauty and can also have the power to kill.

X क्ष - That which marks the spot, whichever spot may need amending.

Y य - YOUTH at heart which everyone has regardless, always and forever.

Z ज़ेड - ZAGS, which help save the ZIGS of Life sometimes...

Namasté

GLBT History: John Maynard Keynes

b. June 5, 1883
d. April 21, 1946

"A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind."

John Maynard Keynes founded an entire school of modern thought known as Keynesian Economics. He helped establish the Bretton Woods system in 1944, a system which oversees international money management. Keynes’s ideas form a large and important part of modern macroeconomics.

Keynes attended King's College in Cambridge, England where he originally studied mathematics and philosophy, but later decided to pursue economics. After receiving his degree in 1906, Keynes moved to London and worked for the government treasury. After WWI, he attended the Paris Peace Conference. In response to the Treaty of Versailles, Keynes published "The Economic Consequences of Peace" to highlight Germany's heavy burden and the probable consequences the terms would have on Germany and the rest of the world. The book provided a brilliant analysis and Keynes subsequently influenced the Marshall plan, instituted by the U.S. to rebuild Europe following WWII.

Keynes is best known for two publications, "The Treatise on Probability" (1921) and "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936), which he published in response to the Depression. Ideas in "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" form the foundation of modern nations’ economies.

In 1908, Keynes fell in love with Scottish painter Duncan Grant. Their relationship lasted only a few years, but they remained close friends for the rest of their lives. Previous to Keynes' marriage to Lydia Lopokova in 1921, Keynes' relationships and sexual encounters were exclusively with men. After his marriage Keynes remained friends with many of his previous homosexual friends and partners.

The stress Keynes experienced during WWII caused his health to decline considerably. On April 21, 1946, Keynes died of a heart attack.

A project of Equality Forum

Hemp: The little weed that could

STEVE WOODWARD
The Oregonian Staff

It's nutritious, delicious and at least as strong as wood. So why the continuing stigma?
Hemp is shedding the dreadlocks and going mainstream.

Consumers are grabbing nutrition-packed hemp milk, bread and brownie mixes off local grocery shelves. A new generation of fashion designers and shoppers is adopting the soft, eco-friendly fabric. Environmentalists see the fast-growing weed as an alternative to cutting down trees for paper.

"All these years it's been about hippies and tie-dye and being stoned," says Scott Gordon, who co-owns Urb Age Designs, a Portland hemp design and apparel company. "Today it's not."

Consumers are beginning to distinguish between industrial hemp and its illicit cousin, marijuana. Though the two belong to the same plant species, hemp farmers have bred out the ingredient that causes marijuana to pack a high.

In other words, smoking hemp would be like smoking rope, not dope.

But don't plant it in your backyard. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration regards hemp and marijuana as identical, regardless of their drug content. Growing hemp without a DEA permit is a crime.

Federal law, on the other hand, gives a green light to importing hemp seed, oil, fiber and other products.

(Sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things")

Hemp milk and hemp bread and creamy hemp smoothies,

Cat litter, caulking and cases for CDs,

Paneling, plaster, soap, solvent and bricks,

There's hardly a problem that hemp cannot fix.

Hemp seems too good to be true. But there's no denying its seemingly endless possibilities.

It's one of nature's most complete foods. Hemp seeds contain all essential amino acids, including two often missing in vegetarian diets. It contains more total essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6) than any other plant source, plus it carries them in ideal proportions. Moreover, it's a substitute for soy.

Hemp fiber can replace trees in the making of paper and building products. Washington State University researchers produced hemp fiberboard twice as strong as wood fiberboard. Stanford University researchers determined that hemp-reinforced resin is strong as Douglas fir, and it biodegrades faster than wood. In addition, white hemp paper requires little or no bleach.

It's farm-friendly. Hemp needs no pesticides or herbicides -- unlike cotton, which uses a quarter of all agricultural chemicals on U.S. farms. One acre of hemp yields as much pulp as four or more acres of trees. Its growing season is only four months. Its deep roots make it a good rotation crop.

It could also be a versatile energy source for vehicles, if hemp biofuels were available. It can be converted into ethanol, like corn, or into diesel, like soybeans.

But hemp faces hurdles as high and broad as a field of 19-foot stalks. Though Oregon had a significant hemp crop in the late 1800s, a 1998 study by the Oregon State University Extension Service concluded that growing hemp profitably today would require irrigation, intensive plant breeding and improvements in harvesting technology.

"There a lot of hype about hemp," says Gerry Shapiro, founder of The Merry Hempsters, a Eugene maker of hemp lip balm. "The truth is, they don't know how to grow it."

Hemp floors and car doors and hemp insulation,

Tons of hemp fiber to cure constipation,

Diapers, detergent and animal food,

Some even claim that it elevates mood.

Despite hemp's growing popularity, the weed still suffers from the stigma of marijuana.

"I had some military investigators call me up once," Shapiro recalls. "They had made a soldier empty his pockets, and they found my lip balm."

The balm can be bought at the local grocery store, but that didn't keep the investigators from confiscating it.

The hemp Shapiro uses contains extremely low levels of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive ingredient in Cannabis sativa, the umbrella Latin name for hemp and marijuana. While marijuana's THC content can reach 30 percent, according to federal data, industrial hemp contains less than 1 percent. The Canadian and European governments require hemp's THC content to be even lower: less than 0.3 percent.

But the 1970 Controlled Substances Act doesn't take THC levels into account. The act simply lists Cannabis sativa -- marijuana and hemp -- as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it's highly dangerous with no medical value.

Federal drug officials aren't swayed by hemp supporters. They and other opponents of legalization -- law-enforcement and anti-drug organizations -- argue that approval of industrial hemp farming opens the door to marijuana legalization, as well as sending mixed messages to kids.

Law enforcers, in particular, say farmers will be able to hide marijuana plants within their hemp fields, thwarting drug surveillance.

Hemp proponents respond that not only would hemp farms be licensed and open to federal inspection, but that planting hemp and marijuana together reduces marijuana's THC content.

"Hemp is nature's own marijuana-eradication system," James Woolsey, CIA director under the first President George Bush, told Audubon Magazine in 1999. At the time, Woolsey was a lobbyist for the North American Industrial Hemp Council.

Plastic composites and hemp-based linoleum,

Hemp biodiesel to pre-empt petroleum,

Paper and carpet and sulfur-free coal,

Hemp beer to quaff at your watering hole.

Hemp use has become increasingly corporate.

Industrial hemp clothing designers include Adidas, Armani, Calvin Klein, Esprit, Walt Disney, Vans.

The Body Shop and Revlon use it for cosmetics and body-care products.

The auto industry has turned to hemp composite materials for door panels, dashboards, trunks and other parts that need strength and flexibility. Among the users: Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Saturn, BMW, Honda and Mercedes.

To keep up with demand, U.S. companies are scrambling to import raw materials from China, Europe and Canada. The United States remains the only industrialized nation in the world without an established hemp crop, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Frozen hemp waffles and Bechamel sauces,

Canvas and plywood and hemp-filled lip glosses,

Animal bedding, brake linings and glue,

Musical instruments, rope, toothpaste, too.

Vote Hemp, an industry advocacy group, says 28 states have introduced hemp legislation since 1996. North Dakota, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana and West Virginia have legalized hemp production or research, although federal drug regulations still trump.

In Oregon, Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, first proposed legalizing hemp in 1997. His latest bill died in committee in June. He plans to consider another in 2009.

"The part that's ironic," Prozanski says, "is you can import as much as hemp as you can get your hands on."

Even if Oregon legalizes hemp, it will be too late for Carolyn Moran's Living Tree Paper Co. in Eugene. Living Tree, which the environmental activist founded in 1994, made hemp paper until last year, when prices, availability and the shortage of pulp-processing equipment forced her to switch to flax.

Hemp supporters think it's only a matter of time until U.S. farmers can start providing seed and fibers for some of the plant's purported 25,000 uses.

"It's not a fad. It's not a phase," says Richard Ziff, co-founder of Of the Earth, a Bend fashion-design firm that uses hemp and other natural fabrics. "Once people have adopted it, it's a lifelong process."

When I'm hungry,

When I'm thirsty,

When I crave some style,

I put on my hemp hat and grab my hemp bag,

And shop for more hemp awhile.

SOME SHOPS:

LIVING HARVEST

TINCTORIA DESIGNS

MERRY HEMPSTERS

WILDERNESS POETS

MAMA'S HERBAL SOAPS

URB AGE DESIGNS

THE MASTER PEACE

Trolling For Christians®

Twisted "Values / Morals" skew the Christian® Right:

Let's not forget that the 'frontrunners' of this Republican® Parade would not show up for the Tavis Smiley Debate on PBS.

Those who came to the Family Research Council's Washington Briefing 2007: Values Voter Summit descended into a deeply guarded place, a sheltered bubble worthy of the lost city of Atlantis -- if Atlantis had been ruled by Jesus or Ronald Reagan.

The Washington Post Reports

Which Republican Candidate is the most "Republican®"?
Granted, Republican® has come to mean something different these days...
Much the same as Conservative® and Christian®
Top Two Choices

From PFAW:

While some speakers, such as Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, asserted that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples is a "foundational value" upon which America is built, and others proclaimed the unfitness of gays to be parents (Jennifer Giroux of Citizens for Community Values: "The ultimate child abuse is placing a child in a gay home"), many speakers pushed the notion of a "homosexual agenda" to the limit. Dobson asserted that the goal of advocates of same-sex marriage is to simply "bring down marriage." (Family Research Council President Tony Perkins claimed that the divorce of the Goodridges, named in the Massachusetts case that established marriage equality in the state, proves that point. "That tells you the commitment to the institution of marriage," he said.) Princeton Professor Robert George, architect of the "Princeton Principles" against gay marriage, warned that the "forces arrayed against the conjugal conception of marriage are very powerful ... And they will strike hard."

Beginning with Romney, speakers warned that equality for gays will lead to "repression" of Christians. "The homosexual agenda and [freedom of] religion are on a collision course," said Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund, as Perkins added that "They know they must silence the church."

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado), sponsor of the federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, said that "If we have gay marriage, our religious liberties are gone!" And Maggie Gallagher, noting the analogy between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, said that "They're going to have to start enforcing" some kind of "repression," just as there is "a broad array of ways in which the law penalizes, marginalizes, and punishes racial bigots."

The "Values" Agenda

Does the argument sound familiar?

GLBT History: Sherry Harris

b. February 27, 1965

"All real and lasting change starts first on the inside and works it way through to the outside. Politically speaking, each person being the change we wish to see in the world is the only stance that can make a lasting difference. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Believing it impossible to win election as an out lesbian, many people warned Sherry Harris against running for Seattle City Council. In 1991, Harris proved her skeptics wrong. She defeated a 24-year incumbent councilman and became the nation’s first openly lesbian African-American city council member.

Prior to politics, Harris pursued a professional career in engineering. In 1980, she received a B.S. in Human Factors Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She worked as a project engineer for PNW Bell Telephone Company.

As Seattle City Councilmember from 1992 to 1995, Harris championed downtown interests. She promoted the expansion of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center and supported a downtown symphony hall. A native of Newark, New Jersey, Harris said, “I was raised in a city where the downtown died, and so did the rest of the city.”

Harris has worked with Humanity’s Team, an organization that emphasizes interpersonal connections. One volunteer who worked closely with Harris said, “She is truly a fine leader demonstrating great passion for humanity’s well-being [who] displays uncompromising strength of character.”

A project of Equality Forum

Last Tyler Show

Tyler State Park, Richboro, Bucks County, PA
October 19, 20 & 21
Fri/Sat: 10 am to 6 pm, Sunday: 11 am to 5 pm

We had an awesome time yesterday at the show... If anyone in the area has time, and is looking for something to do today... I highly recommend a trip to the festival... The music & food are great, and the artists are the best.

These Fine Crafts Art Shows are like Rock Concerts to me.
I love the museum trips, but these shows afford me the chance to get one on one with the artists and ask them about their techniques and the ideas that inspired them. And they love being asked questions about their work. A rare look into the actual making of the art itself, and what it means to the artists personally.

I will truly miss this festival in future, but at the same time I am excited for Jennifer Miller who will be expanding her artists workshop here in the State Park in the next few years. Future shows will be held at Bucks County Community College just down the road starting next year.

I consider myself privileged to have met and talked with Jennifer over the years, and wish her the best of luck on her venture.
(Hopefully, I'll be down for some raku and glass classes)



The next Guild Show will be held at Franklin Marshall College, Lancaster, PA... in November. You can bet I'll be attending.

Spotlight On Jeremy Scahill...

From Bill Moyers Journal

Jeremy Scahill has been covering Blackwater for THE NATION and other publications for more than three years. He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, and is the author of BLACKWATER: THE RISE OF THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY ARMY, published by Nation Books. He is also an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for DEMOCRACY NOW!.

According to THE NEW YORK TIMES, there are between 160,000 and 180,000 private contractors in Iraq, including about 30,000 armed security forces. Blackwater employees represent about 1000 of these armed contractors. There were only about 9,200 total private contractors during the Persian Gulf War.

Few Americans had even heard of Blackwater before March 31, 2004, when four of its contractors were ambushed and brutally killed in Falluja, and days later, a US siege of the region began. It was "what would be one of the most brutal and sustained US operations of the occupation," explains Scahill, who believes the US Military response to the killings sets a dangerous precedent.

Before the September 16, 2007 confrontation, Blackwater employees had been implicated in similar incidents involving questionable force, including in December 2006, when a drunk Blackwater contractor allegedly shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. The contractor was subsequently fired by Blackwater, yet was sent back in the region with another private firm.

[State Department] officials said that Blackwater's incident rate was at least twice that recorded by employees of DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, the two other United States-based security firms that have been contracted by the State Department to provide security for diplomats and other senior civilians in Iraq," writes THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Still, as Blackwater's founder Eric Prince reminded Congress a few weeks ago, "Blackwater personnel are subject to regular attacks by terrorists and other nefarious forces within Iraq." As the WALL STREET JOURNAL reports, "The company has said it has done 16,000 missions for the State Department since June 2005, using its weapons just 1% of the time." And recently two Blackwater helicopters helped evacuate the Polish Ambassador to Iraq after his convoy was attacked.

But questions about accountability still abound: when mistakes are made, to which rule of law should contractors answer, military or US criminal law? Officials in the State and Defense Departments are currently debating this very question.

Blackwater's State Department contract expires next May, and according to the AP, officials in the Department intend to "ease out" Blackwater since many share "a mutual feeling that the Sept. 16 shooting deaths mean the company cannot continue in its current role." Yet according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL, even if Blackwater was forced to leave Iraq, they would simply be replaced by another private security firm, since the State Department does not have the personnel available to step in:

"'There's just no way our system could handle trying to get hundreds of new people trained and sent to Iraq,' said a State Department official. 'That would be a multiyear process.'"

Background: What's really going on in Iraq?

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater contractors, during a complex confrontation in downtown Baghdad, shot and killed Iraqis in the crowded Nisour Square.

The FBI and State Department are currently investigating the incident, yet it further sheds light upon a growing private sector security force in Iraq and elsewhere, that many fear has not been held accountable to the same degree as have US military officials.

photo by Robin Holland

This is fascinating material...
Click and scroll down for Related Links

Charlie Rose Interview with Erik Prince

Waxman Accuses Blackwater of Tax Evasion

GLBT History: Renée Richards

b. August 19, 1934

I made the fateful decision to go and fight the legal battle to be able to play as a woman and stay in the public eye and become this symbol.

Dr. Renée Richards became a transgender icon in 1977 when she won a lawsuit against the United States Tennis Association. Richards sued the Association for its refusal to let her compete in the U.S. Open women’s division following male-to-female gender reassignment surgery. In a landmark decision, the New York Supreme Court ruled in Richards’s favor.

Richards started playing tennis at an early age. Ranked among the top-10 eastern national juniors, she won the Eastern Private Schools’ Interscholastic singles title at age 15. She captained her high school tennis team at the Horace Mann School in New York City and Yale University’s men’s tennis team in 1954.

In 1959, Richards graduated from University of Rochester Medical School. After serving in the Navy as Lieutenant Commander, she pursued a career in ophthalmology and eye surgery while continuing to compete in tennis tournaments.

At the height of her tennis career, Richards ranked 20th in the nation. In her first tennis tournament as a female, she reached the semifinals in the U.S. Open women’s doubles competition. Following retirement, Richards coached tennis star Martina Navratilova. In 2000, the U.S. Tennis Association inducted Richards into its Hall of Fame.

Richards has published two autobiographies: "Second Serve Renée" (1986), also a TV-movie, and "No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life" (2007). She is a renowned eye surgeon and professor of ophthalmology at the New York University School of Medicine.

A project of Equality Forum

Farmers sue DEA for right to grow industrial hemp

By Eliott C. McLaughlin
CNN

The feds call industrial hemp a controlled substance -- the same as pot, heroin, LSD -- but advocates say a sober analysis reveals a harmless, renewable cash crop with thousands of applications that are good for the environment.

Two North Dakota farmers are taking that argument to federal court, where a November 14 hearing is scheduled in a lawsuit to determine if the Drug Enforcement Administration is stifling the farmers' efforts to grow industrial hemp. The DEA says it's merely enforcing the law.

Industrial Hemp and Marijuana are members of the Cannabis sativa L. species and have similar characteristics. One major difference: Hemp won't get you high. Hemp contains only traces of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the compound that gets pot smokers stoned. However, the Controlled Substances Act makes little distinction, banning the species almost outright.

Marijuana, which has recreational and medical uses, is the counterpart to the go-getter hemp, which has a centuries-old history of handiness.

The February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine heralded hemp as the "new billion-dollar crop," saying it had 25,000 uses. Today, it is a base element for textiles, paper, construction materials, car parts, food and body care products.

It's not a panacea for health and environmental problems, advocates concede, but it's not the menace the Controlled Substances Act makes it out to be.

"This is actually an anti-drug. It's a healthy food," explained Adam Eidinger of the Washington advocacy group Vote Hemp. "We're not using this as a statement to end the drug war."

Rather, Eidinger said, Vote Hemp wants to vindicate a plant that has been falsely accused because of its mischievous cousin.

North Dakota farmers Wayne Hauge and Dave Monson say comparing industrial hemp to marijuana is like comparing pop guns and M-16s. They've successfully petitioned the state Legislature -- of which Monson is a member -- to authorize the farming of industrial hemp.

They've applied for federal permits and submitted a collective $5,733 in nonrefundable fees, to no avail, so they're suing the DEA.

North Dakota is one of seven states to OK hemp production or research. California would have made eight until Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week vetoed the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, citing the burden on law enforcement which would have to inspect hemp fields to make sure they were marijuana-free.

Administration skeptical of initiatives

The DEA claims the farmers' lawsuit is misguided because the agency is obligated to enforce the Controlled Substances Act.

"Hemp comes from cannabis. It's kind of a Catch 22 there," said DEA spokesman Michael Sanders. "Until Congress does something, we have to enforce the laws."

Asked if the DEA opposes the stalled House Resolution 1009, which would nix industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana, Sanders said the Justice Department and President Bush would make that call.

"When it comes to laws, we don't have a dog in that fight," he said.

The Justice Department has no position yet on the resolution, said spokesman Erik Ablin. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, however, is skeptical because of the burden hemp would place on law enforcement resources. Also, hemp advocates are regularly backed -- sometimes surreptitiously -- by the pro-marijuana movement, the office alleges.

"ONDCP cautions that, historically, the hemp movement has been almost entirely funded by the well-organized and well-funded marijuana legalization lobby," said spokesman Tom Riley. "All we do is ask people not to be naive about what's really going on here."

Often, the hemp movement -- like hemp legislation -- is inextricably tied to marijuana. Pot advocates like actor Woody Harrelson and activist Jack Herer have double or ulterior agendas when they expound the virtues of hemp.

Not so with Monson, 57. The assistant GOP leader in the state House, who returned to the family farm where he was reared in 1975, said he became interested in hemp in 1993 when scab, or Fusarium head blight, devastated his wheat and barley crops.

Monson grows canola, too, but wants another crop in his rotation. Soybeans are too finicky for the weather and rocky soil. Monson also tried pinto beans, fava beans and buckwheat with no luck.

"None of them seemed to really be a surefire thing," he said. "We were looking for anything that was potentially able to make us some money."

Hemp, said the lifelong farmer, seemed an apt fit. It likes the climate, its deep roots irrigate soil, it doesn't need herbicides because it grows tall quickly and it breaks the disease cycles in other crops, Monson said.

States follow Canada's lead

About 20 miles north of Monson's Osnabrock farm lies the Canadian border, the hemp dividing line. Just over the border in Manitoba, farmers have been reaping the benefits of hemp since 1998, when Health Canada reversed a longtime ban.

In a Vote Hemp video, Shaun Crew, president of Hemp Oil Canada Inc., a processing company in Sainte-Agathe, praised Canada's foresight in differentiating between hemp and marijuana.

While marijuana THC levels can range between 3 and 20 percent, Canada demands its hemp contain no more than 0.3 percent. In some hemp, the THC levels can sink as low as one part per million, Crew said.

"There's probably more arsenic in your red wine, there's more mercury in your water and there's definitely more opiates in the poppy seed bagel you ate this morning," Crew said on the video.

The North Dakota Legislature is convinced, as are the general assemblies in Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana and West Virginia.

With his state's blessing, North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson is backing the farmers and has proposed modeling North Dakota's hemp laws after Canada's strict regulations.

"We weren't just going to tell the DEA to take a hike," Johnson said. "We're serious about this, and we want to do it in concert with the DEA."

In a March 27 letter to Johnson, Joseph Rannazzisi of the DEA's Office of Diversion Control, said the permits were denied because the state hadn't satisfied the agency's security and logistical requirements.

Security aspects require careful evaluation because "the substance at issue is marijuana -- the most widely abused controlled substance in the United States," Rannazzisi wrote.

"We've been terribly brainwashed"

Hemp wasn't always banned in the U.S. Jamestown Colony required farmers to grow it in 1619. Even after Congress cracked down on marijuana in 1937, farmers were encouraged to grow the crop for rope, sails and parachutes during World War II's "Hemp for Victory" campaign.

Jake Graves, 81, heeded the call. Graves, whose father grew hemp in both world wars and whose grandfather grew it during the Civil War, was a teen when his father died in 1942. At the time, Graves' family was growing hemp for the Army.

The Graveses continued growing hemp on their 500-acre Kentucky farm until 1945, when the market dried up after the advent of synthetic fabrics and the post-war reinvigoration of international trade.

But Graves stands by the crop and its versatility and says that by lumping hemp in with marijuana, lawmakers "threw the baby out with the wash."

"We've been terribly brainwashed as a society," Graves said. "Man didn't use it for all those hundreds and hundreds of years without knowing what they were doing."

In the U.S., tapping hemp's versatility relies on imports. The DEA clamped down on most hemp imports in 1999 and 2001, but relented after a Canadian company sued, saying the ban violated its rights under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Though advocates considered it a victory, Johnson said hemp won't be fully utilized until it can be grown and researched stateside.

"For us to grow it isn't enough. You have to build that infrastructure," Johnson said. "None of those uses is really going to develop to any great degree until we're able to grow this commodity."

Johnson said the farmers' Vote Hemp-funded lawsuit has no hidden agenda. It's aimed solely at allowing farmers to grow hemp -- without going to jail because federal law says hemp and marijuana are the same.

"I've got a state Legislature saying they aren't and the entire world saying they aren't. This is about a crop that is a legitimate crop every place else in the world," Johnson said. "It's not a crusade thing. It's a crop. Let farmers grow it. We don't want anyone to be growing drugs."

The History Of Hemp, A Timeline

Vote Hemp Website

GLBT History: Cary Grant

b. January 18, 1904
d. November 29, 1986

"I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me."

One of Hollywood's most distinguished actors, Cary Grant finished behind only Humphrey Bogart as the American Film Institute's second greatest male American screen legend. Grant starred in over 70 films and earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. In 1970, Grant won the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Originally Archibald Alexander Leach, Grant was born in Bristol, England as the only child in an impoverished family. When Grant was nine years old, his mother was institutionalized.

Grant left school at age 14 and joined the Bob Pender comedy troupe, which helped develop his dancing and acrobatic skills. In 1920, the troupe stopped performing in small English towns and took a two-year tour of the US. Grant decided to stay in New York, and in 1927 he performed in the musical "Golden Dawn." In 1931, Grant moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. When he signed a 5-year contract with Paramount, Paramount had him change his name to Cary Grant.

Grant debuted in "This is the Night" (1932), but "The Awful Truth" (1937) made him a star. Handsome, witty and charming, Grant succeeded in creating a unique onscreen character. After starring in hits such as "Bringing up Baby" (1938), "Holiday" (1938), "Gunga Din" (1939), "Only Angels Have Wings" (1939), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "My Favorite Wife" (1940) and "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), as well as three Hitchcock films, Grant retired in 1966 as a mega-star.

While Grant married five women and fathered a child with his fourth wife, he was sexually active with men. Between marriages, Grant often resided with fellow actor Randolph Scott.

Grant died of a stroke on November 29, 1986.

A project of Equality Forum

Copper it Is...

Today is my anniversary...

7 years ago today Butch and I were Civilly United (for lack of a better word) in Brattleboro, VT on a wonderfully sunny and beautiful day at the Gazebo in the Park Downtown. All the Autumn colors were bursting around us - yellow, orange and red. It was a fabulous time, with great expectations. We had the whole world ahead of us to share together...

We did the obvious things that people do, bought a house to make a home, unite our finances, sharing our lives was the greatest thing we could offer each other. We both wanted that. To create our own little history in this crazy world we all are bound to for a bit...

Today we settle into the monotonies that make day to day living the thing that it is. But, I refuse to take things for granted...
I tell him every day how much I Love Him.

Life's too short, especially at this stage of the game.
Wish I'd get a response...

Why Did The Turkey Cross The Border?

To Get To The Kurds Inside...

GLBT History: Audre Lorde "Gamba Adisa"

b. February 18, 1934
d. November 17, 1992

"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."

A self-proclaimed “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde dedicated her life to combating social injustice. She helped found Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the world’s first publishing company run by women of color.

Lorde was the third daughter of immigrant parents from Grenada. She began writing poetry at age twelve and published her first poem in Seventeen magazine at age fifteen. Lorde was strongly influenced by her West Indian heritage, which she explored in her autobiography, "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name."

In 1954, Lorde attended the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where she solidified her identity as both a poet and a lesbian. She entered the Greenwich Village gay scene after her return to New York in 1955.

She continued her studies, receiving a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College in 1959 and a master’s degree in Library Science from Columbia University in 1961.

Lorde worked as a librarian while continuing to write and publish poetry. In 1962, she married Edwin Rollins. The couple had two children before their marriage dissolved. Much of Lorde’s poetry written during these years explores themes of motherhood and love’s impermanence.

In 1968, Lorde received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and published her first volume of poetry, "The First Cities" as a poet-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. She began a romantic relationship with Frances Clayton that same year that would last until Lorde’s death in 1992.

Rich with introspection, Lorde’s work contains extensive sociopolitical commentary. As a lesbian woman of color Lorde asserted, “I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain.”

Lorde explored her long battle with cancer in her last work, "The Cancer Journals" (1980). In an African naming ceremony shortly before her death, Lorde took the name Gamba Adisa: “Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known.”

A project of Equality Forum

Library Card

Staying updated to the situation in Burma

Junta says crackdown continues on protesters in Myanmar

UN envoy to make new mission to Myanmar

WHITE HOUSE FOR SALE
Follow the money trail of campaign bundlers – or people who funnel money to campaigns – as they collect thousands, and sometimes even millions, of dollars from other people for the 2008 presidential candidates.

Chris Dodd puts a "hold" on the FISA Bill
[Click to sign on and show your support]

New Direction for Passing an Inclusive ENDA

Turkey Crosses The Iraq Border

China's Reserves Near Milestone, Underscoring Its Financial Clout
Roughly 70% of the Chinese reserves are believed to be in U.S. dollar assets.

Darfur activists urge China to stop arming Sudan
International activists working to end the conflict in Darfur called on Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday to stop selling weapons to Sudan and press Khartoum to admit U.N. peacekeepers.

The letter to Hu by the Save Darfur Coalition was accompanied by a new study that accused China of "trying to have it both ways" by appearing to help ease the Darfur crisis to avoid trouble before the 2008 Beijing Olympics while continuing to arm and enrich the Khartoum government.

At least 110 dead in blasts near Bhutto's convoy in Pakistan

MRSA... The New Superbug | Hits Locally

Earmarked Clinton / Schumer Woodstock Proposal Gets Cut Off
Shades of Vincent Van Gogh

ZENCOMIX

ZEN @ ZENCOMIX IS CELEBRATING

THE FESTIVAL OF ZAPPADAN.

47 days left until Zappadan




...also appearing at IN SEARCH OF UTOPIA

...and The Aristocrats

Yoko Ono's Iceland Peace Tower

Amy Goodman, Truthdig

The peace tower in Iceland that Yoko Ono dreamed up 40 years ago has as much resonance now as it would have during the Vietnam War.



John Lennon would have turned 67 years old last week had he not been murdered in 1980, at the age of 40, by a mentally disturbed fan. On his birthday, Oct. 9, his widow, peace activist and artist Yoko Ono, realized a dream they shared. In Iceland, she inaugurated the Imagine Peace Tower, a pillar of light emerging from a wishing well, surrounded on the ground by the phrase "Imagine Peace" in 24 languages.

The legacy of Lennon is relevant now more than ever. The Nixon administration spied on him and tried to deport him, all because he opposed the war in Vietnam. Parallel details of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program and the Pentagon's participation in domestic spying, with mass roundups of immigrants, are chilling, and the lessons vital.

Ono conceived the peace tower 40 years ago, at the outset of her relationship with Lennon. She grew up in Japan, surviving the firebombing of Tokyo. She told me, "Because of that memory of what I went through in the Second World War, it is embedded in me how terrible it is to go through war."

She continued: "I thought of building a light tower, and John loved that idea, this light tower that just emerges once in a while. And so, he actually invited me in 1967, the first time that he invited me to his house. I thought it was a party or something, but, no, it was a very quiet day. And he said, 'Well, actually, I invited you because I wanted to know if you can build the lighthouse in my garden,' and I said: 'Oh, dear, no, no. It's just a conceptual idea. I don't know how to build anything,' and I was just laughing. But that's when he wanted this light tower, and that was 40 years ago."

Forty years ago, the young couple became increasingly active in the anti-Vietnam War movement. The FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, spent tremendous resources targeting critics, most engaged in perfectly lawful dissent. This was later exposed as COINTELPRO, the FBI's counterintelligence program, which for decades spied on, infiltrated and disrupted domestic groups.

Lennon was a pacifist in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. As the anti-war movement was growing in militancy, Lennon and Ono got married, and used their honeymoon as a public appeal for peace. They decided to spend a week in bed, as a "Bed In." Knowing their action would attract the global news media, the newlyweds ensured that their call for peace was heard and that all photos included the word "Peace." They launched a poster and billboard campaign, using the phrase "The War Is Over -- If you want it." The actions were creative and lighthearted -- but clearly threatening to the Nixon administration.

They developed a closer connection to the U.S. anti-war movement and, by 1971, were planning a massive get-out-the-vote concert tour to help defeat Nixon. Nixon and Hoover stepped up their campaign to neutralize Lennon.

The FBI increased surveillance and harassment of Lennon, followed by an attempt to deport him. Lennon's activities were also tracked by the CIA, as revealed in recently declassified documents. Arch-conservative Sen. Strom Thurmond wrote a secret memo pushing deportation to then U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, and the effort moved into full gear. Lennon beat the deportation attempt, and by 1980, with the release of the "Double Fantasy" album, was back demonstrating his creative brilliance, only weeks later to be slain.

Today, revelations about current government wiretaps and surveillance continue. Verizon has just revealed to Congress that it supplied customer records to the government more than 94,000 times since 2005. The American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered collusion between the Pentagon and the FBI in circumventing the law to obtain financial and credit information on people in the U.S. I asked Yoko Ono to compare the Nixon and Bush administrations: "I'm not that concerned about professional politicians. I always believe that we can change the world by grassroots movements. It is a very important thing to do. It is the first time that I realized that I respect America so much because there are so many Americans trying to shift the axis of the world to peace."

With major anti-war demonstrations set for cities around the country on Sat., Oct. 27 (see oct27.org), John Lennon's legacy lives on, from the illuminated sky above Iceland to the heavily surveilled streets here at home.

___________________________________________

In The Airwaves:

"SHINE" - JONI MITCHELL (2007)

___________________________________________

GLBT History: David Hockney

b. July 9, 1937

"It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work."



Initially famous for popularizing British pop art in the 1960s, David Hockney grew more influential as he showcased exceptional artistic flexibility. From oil paintings to lithography, photomontage to computer sketch, Hockney demonstrated an uncanny ability to adapt his creative talents to various media. The Hockney exhibit in the National Portrait Gallery in London from October 2006 to January 2007 was one of the Gallery’s most successful exhibitions.

Hockney began to display his work while at the Royal College of Arts in London in 1949. At a featured exhibition, he presented paintings which became forerunners of British pop art. Hockney won a gold medal for outstanding distinction at the college’s convocation ceremony.

Hockney’s early work often explored homosexual themes. "We Two Boys Together Clinging" (1961), titled after a Walt Whitman poem of the same name, became one of his more famous works. Lithography enticed Hockney in the early 1960s when he began to make prints of paintings. "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy" (1971) is one of the most popular paintings in London’s Tate Gallery.

California’s promise of young, athletic men lured Hockney to Los Angeles. Filmmaker Jack Hazan titled his 1974 movie about Hockney, "A Bigger Splash," after a famous work of the same name (1967). Neil Simon, in "California Suite" (1978), used about a dozen of Hockney’s California-themed paintings in the opening credits of the film.

In 1985, Hockney was commissioned to draw with the Quantel Paintbox, a computer program in which the artist sketches directly onto the computer monitor. BBC captured Hockney’s mastery of the Paintbox in a movie produced while he was working with the program. Also in 1985, Hockney designed the cover of the French edition of Vogue.

On June 21, 2006, "The Splash" (1966) sold for 2.6 million pounds ($5.3 million), a record for a Hockney painting.

...and On and On and On...

Randi Rhodes Mugged In NYC

I learned about this from Michael @ Spontaneous Arising...

Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Ave, nearby her Manhattan apartment, while she was walking her dog Simon.

According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week. At of late Monday night we have not able to locate any press accounts of the attack and nothing has been posted on the AAR website.

Several liberal blogs, including the Randi Rhodes Message Board and Democratic Underground have logged numerous posts on the Rhodes mugging with most of the posters expressing concern about the condition of the popular lib talker.

Morning talk host, Lionel filled in for Rhodes on Monday, but did not say anything about why she wasn’t on hand to do her show. The Randi Rhodes board reports that Sam Seder, who does a Sunday afternoon show for AAR, will be filling on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying “it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home.”

Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that “this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging.”

“Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own,” he asked. “Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we’re winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us.”

UPDATE: Hat Tip to Sorrow11 Thank You ;o)

Talk show host apologizes for faulty report of NYC mugging

By DAVID B. CARUSO | Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - An Air America radio personality apologized Tuesday for saying that a colleague, the liberal talk show host Randi Rhodes, had been the victim of a violent street mugging perpetrated by "the right wing hate machine."

Air America's Jon Elliott announced on his late-night show Monday that Rhodes had been assaulted Sunday while walking her dog in Manhattan near her Park Avenue apartment. He also speculated that the attack was the work of someone trying to silence a liberal voice.

Elliott's account of the incident, however, was contested Tuesday by Rhodes attorney, Robert Gaulin.

Gaulin confirmed that Rhodes was injured after she was floored by someone _ or something _ as she strolled the streets of Manhattan's Murray Hill district around 8 p.m., but wasn't sure herself what sent her tumbling to the pavement.

"She hit her head on the street and was disoriented," Gaulin said. "She's not sure what happened. She didn't see anything." He added that she never reported the incident to police.

Air America released a statement saying that "the reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded." Elliott followed that up with a retraction.

"I shouldn't have speculated based on hearsay that Randi Rhodes had been mugged and that it may have been an attack from a right wing hate machine. I apologize for jumping to conclusions based on an emotional reaction," he said in a written statement.

Air America's vice president of programming, David Bernstein, said Rhodes missed her shows on Monday and Tuesday, but hoped to be back soon.

"She's OK. She needs a little dental work, and that's all," he said.

A message posted on Rhodes' Web site acknowledged that she was "a bit under the weather," but didn't say why.

New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said investigators tried to contact Rhodes after learning of the incident, but were told that she did not intend to file a report.

Concert For Peace At National Cathedral

CBS NEWS

Fundraiser Celebrating Congressional Medal For Dalai Lama

The National Cathedral in Washington - home to so many momentous ceremonies over the years, including state funerals - was host to another kind of event Tuesday: an interfaith Pray for Peace service, followed by a Pray for Peace Concert.

Both were organized not so much in reaction to Iraq, but more to pray for an end to all wars, and also to honor the Dalai Lama, who has embraced non-violence throughout his some 50 years of exile from Tibet and is to receive a Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday.

Several dozen monks were among the many musicians on hand for Tuesday night's prayers and song, delivering their prayers in the form of a chant, wearing headdresses and robes in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Then came the headliners - bluesman Keb' Mo' and rockers Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Graham Nash, plus Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls.

There were some unique Washington touches. John Hall, now a Democratic congressman from New York state but formerly a member of the band Orleans, reverted to his first career but not entirely - singing out strong, but wearing a conservative suit perhaps more befitting of an elected official.

Looking around the huge sanctuary before the concert, David Crosby acknowledged that it was an unusual venue for him.

"I have a lot of trouble with organized religions," said Crosby, in an interview with the Washington Post, adding that his faith has been renewed by Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane, who also happens to be a musician. "He's got real courage, to say war is not the answer. I feel comfortable here."

Nash was also reflective.

"These are desperate times, calling for desperate answers," Nash told the Post, noting that the first step to peace is dialogue, and that he is speaking out now on behalf of his children. "I'm 65 years old.... My time is passing."

Money raised at the concert is to be donated to the Cathedral Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation and the International Campaign for Tibet.

Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Losang Jampa, from left to right, his unidentified interpreter, Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, Krishna Das, singer David Crosby, National Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III, singer Jackson Browne, singer Graham Nash, Imam Mohamed Magid and Bishop John Bryson Chane pose for a picture at the National Cathedral in Washington,Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2007. They and other performers and religious leaders a taking part of the Interfaith Peace Prayer Practices being observed this week at the National Cathedral. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

POOH ON CHINA


_____________________________________

Sri Chinmoy would have loved this and probably would have been in attendance.
Unfortunately he passed at the end of last week... ॐ

IN THE AIRWAVES:

"LOVE DEVOTION SURRENDER" - Carlos Santana / John McLaughlin (1972)

"IF I COULD ONLY REMEMBER MY NAME" - DAVID CROSBY (1971)

"SONGS FOR BEGINNERS" - GRAHAM NASH (1971)

"CROSBY NASH" - DAVID CROSBY / GRAHAM NASH (2004)

_____________________________________

GLBT History: Nancy Mahon

b. July 25, 1964

"In public health, sometimes the farthest distance is the one that is most important to travel."

After graduating magna cum laude from Yale University in 1986, Nancy Mahon attended New York University’s School of Law, where she served as editor of the Law Review. She developed an interest in criminal law and became a leading criminal justice expert.

After clerking for two federal judges, Mahon worked as the Director of Research, Policy & Planning for the Osbourne Association, an organization that provides services to prisoners and their families. Philanthropist George Soros named her founding director of the Open Society Institute’s (OSI) Center on Crime, Communities & Culture.

Mahon later became Executive Director of God’s Love We Deliver (GLWD), a New York City-based organization that provides nutrition to individuals living with HIV and other illnesses. Under Mahon’s direction, GLWD grew rapidly in both its functions and clientele.

Throughout her post-graduate career, Mahon has influenced policy through her research and writing. In 1996, the American Journal of Public Health published her groundbreaking article entitled, “New York Inmates’ HIV Risk Behaviors: The Implications for Prevention Policy and Programs.” Numerous academic conferences, including the International Conference on AIDS, have invited her to present research papers. Mahon has been published in the New York Times, and has appeared on media outlets such as NPR, CBS News, ABC’s World News Tonight and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Mahon left GLWD in 2006 to join MAC Cosmetics as the company’s Vice President and Executive Director of the MAC AIDS Fund. The Fund has donated over $80 million to AIDS related causes. At the MAC AIDS Fund, Mahon initiated a grant for research into preventing AIDS among sex workers in Asia.

a project of Equality Forum

David Crosby and Jackson Browne Join Graham Nash For Peace Prayer

...................MY IDOLS..................

by Paul Cashmere Undercover.au

Graham Nash has invited his famous friends such as David Crosby and Jackson Browne to attend the Interfaith Prayer Service and Benefit Concert in Washington, DC tonight (October 16).

Nash conceived the idea for the peace concert with Bishop John Bryson Chane, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington.

Tonight's event will see appearances from Keb' Mo, Emily Saliers, John Hall and Krishna Das.

The event will also honor the Dalai Lama, on the eve of his receipt for the Congressional Gold Medal.

Nash and Bishop Chane came up with the Pray For Peace event to raise awareness of the injustice of war. "To me," says Nash in a statement, "it has always been the most 'un-religious' of actions to kill human beings in the name of God. It is time for the religious community to help put a stop to this madness by coming together and denouncing these killings."

Prayer for Peace will commence with an interfaith prayer ceremony from 6pm and be followed by the concert featuring David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, Keb' Mo', Emily Saliers, John Hall and Krishna Das at 7.30pm.

It will take place at the Washington National Cathedral.

__________________________________________

When you have to go to foreign NEWS sources (in this case, Australia) to find a story that's happening in the US, you know there's something ROTTEN in the STATES...

fucking cowardly bastards [The Media].
(Oh, except for Keith Olbermann & Anderson Cooper, of course.)
__________________________________________

David Crosby and Graham Nash 'Carry On'
By PHIL ROURA

"Yeah, we've been naughty boys in the past and we're not proud of some of the things we've done," Nash admits. "But we're still human beings and fathers. We're concerned with what's going on in the world today, and we've got to straighten this mess out."

Why are they so passionate about this concert?

"Because the world is in such peril. Most religions are being taken over by people who want to kill their neighbors. I find it so unreligious to kill people in the name of God. But we have to start by first taking care of things at home."

The concert is a short break from the tour that brings them to the Borgata in Atlantic City on Saturday. A good deal of the program will undoubtedly focus on music you've heard before - "Marrakesh Express," "Teach Your Children," "Military Madness," "Chicago"/"We Can Change the World," and "Immigration Man" - but Nash hints there will be some tracks from the CD he is working on.

When performing with Neil Young and Stephen Stills, the crew has been a supergroup since 1968 - a band known as much for its political activism as its distinctive harmonies. As charter members of Woodstock Nation, they helped globalize what folk-rockers had been singing about for years.

"We've never shied away from social issues," Nash insists.

Indeed, only a year ago CSN&Y mounted a Freedom of Speech tour that helped support Young's CD "Living With War," a blistering attack on the Bush administration. The tour drew more than its share of protests from people who preferred to hear them play, not preach.

But it's been Crosby and Nash who've remained the closest of friends and regularly tour together.

"We fight," Nash interjects with a giggle. "But we are like brothers. Brothers sometimes fight."

They apparently also think alike, when it comes to the business.

"[It] changed when it went from being about the music to being about what you look like," Crosby said. "Now you got people who look great but can't write, play or sing a thing."

Nash agrees. "We're in a bit of a shit-hole," he says. "I mean, music companies used to be run by people who loved music. Now, they're being run by bean counters who wouldn't know a good song if it flew up their ass.

"Artists used to cut albums with great songs from one end to the other. Now, they're happy just to have two good things on a CD. That's just being lazy. The kids who buy these albums are saying, 'What the fuck, we'll just go online and download what we like.'

"Today it's all about filling big arenas with boy bands and Britney Spears."

A native of Blackpool, England, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer began singing in the early '60s with the Hollies, one of the best bands ever to come out of the U.K.

About the same time, Crosby was starting out with the Byrds in California. Eventually, they teamed with Stills and then Young. These days they mainly tour as Crosby and Nash.

"We've played some of the largest stadiums and basketball palaces you can imagine over the years," he says. "Now, we're trying to play these beautiful little places like the Borgata, where you can get more intimate with your audiences."

Politics & Religion: Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad दलाई लामा ?

CHINA...

That's Hu.

Since the BU$H Administration has caved to China and will not allow press to publish any pictures of the Dalai Lama's visit... I'm posting this:
Now China is telling the US "FREE PRESS" what to publish in THIS COUNTRY...
UNFORGIVABLE & UNBELIEVABLE>>>>................

President Bush and the Dalai Lama will meet today, in advance of tomorrow’s ceremony to award the Dalai Lama with the Congressional Gold Medal. Although China has warned that these events will be bad for US-Chinese ties, the Dalai Lama’s special envoy, Lodi Gyari, stressed the importance of images of the US president standing beside the Dalai Lama in that these images send a powerful message of American support for Tibet. "I have no doubt this will give tremendous encouragement and hope to the Tibetan people," he said, according to the AP. It also "sends a powerful message to China that the Dalai Lama is not going to go away.”

GLBT History: Frank Kameny

b. May 21, 1925

"The momentum is there, and that’s not going to be stopped. It’s moved from hopes of a grass-roots movement, to the actuality of a grass-roots movement. And it’s taken 40 years to do it."

In 1957, the Army Map Service in Washington, D.C. dismissed astronomer Frank Kameny. Though a WWII veteran with an M.A. and Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University, Kameny was discharged because he was gay. Rather than accept a common practice of the times, Kameny fought for his rights. He successfully challenged anti-gay policies of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the US Department of Defense and the US Civil Service Commission.

Kameny sued the Army Map Service and lost his case. On appeal he lost again, and after the Supreme Court denied his petition to direct the case to be reconsidered, Kameny realized his objectives would require a broader movement. In 1961, Kameny co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C with Gay Pioneer Jack Nichols.

Kameny was the first to bring open activism to the gay rights movement. The D.C. Mattachine Society contacted public officials to attempt to change policy. They published a newsletter, The Gazette, and campaigned to overturn security clearance denials, employment restrictions and dismissals of gay men from the Federal workforce. In 1963, Kameny began a movement to repeal sodomy laws and challenge the APA’s classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder.

On April 17, 1965, Kameny led the first public picket for gay rights at the White House. With support from the Daughters of Bilitis, the Mattachine Society extended its protest to the Pentagon and the Civil Service Commission. He helped launch the first organized gay and lesbian demonstrations for equality. These seminal demonstrations by activists from New York, Philadelphia and Washingon D.C. were held annually each July 4th at Independence Hall from 1965 to 1969 and were called annual reminders. They paved the way for the Stonewall Riots in 1969.

Inspired by Stokely Carmichael’s “Black is Beautiful,” Kameny dubbed the phrase “Gay is Good” as a slogan for the movement. He led the fight for gay rights into the 1970s and ran for Congress in 1971 on an equal rights platform. The APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973 and the Civil Service Commission lifted its ban on homosexuality in 1975, an action President Bill Clinton formalized many years later.

In 2000, Equality Forum with WHYY/PBS produced the documentary film “Gay Pioneers” about Frank Kameny and other early activists. In 2006, the Library of Congress incorporated over 70,000 letters, documents and memorabilia from Frank Kameny into its permanent collection. The Washington, D.C. City Council honored Frank Kameny in 2007, hailing him as a “true freedom fighter.”

a project of Equality Forum

Late Repost: The Hippies Were Right!

YOU KNOW I JUST COULDN'T RESIST THIS ONE...

Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good?
Time To Give The Ol’ Tie-Dyers Some Respect
by Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle

Recommended by K-wopper

Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that’s happening right now in the newly “greening” America and don’t say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?

I’m talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I’m looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I’m talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation’s oddest status symbol. You know, good things.

Look around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new generation of cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for “An Inconvenient Truth” and even the soulless corporate monsters over at famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they really, really care about saving the environment because, well, “it’s the right thing to do” (read: It’s purely economic and all about their bottom line because if they don’t start caring they’ll soon be totally screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal Chinese sweatshops).

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing (albeit fitful, bittersweet) pro-environment sea change now happening in the culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along. Oh yes they did.

You know it’s true. All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health? Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural childbirth? Non-GMA seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the alternative worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from far off the goddamn grid and it’s about time the media, the politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, wet, hemp-covered apology.

Here’s a suggestion, from one of my more astute ex-hippie readers: Instead of issuing carbon credits so industrial polluters can clear their collective corporate conscience, maybe, to help offset all the savage damage they’ve done to the soul of the planet all these years, these commercial cretins should instead buy some karma credits from the former hippies themselves. You know, from those who’ve been working for the health of the planet, quite thanklessly, for the past 50 years and who have, as a result, built up quite a storehouse of good karma. You think?

Of course, you can easily argue that much of the “authentic” hippie ethos — the anti-corporate ideology, the sexual liberation, the anarchy, the push for civil rights, the experimentation — has been totally leeched out of all these new movements, that corporations have forcibly co-opted and diluted every single technology and humble pro-environment idea and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cone and Odwalla smoothie to make them both palatable and profitable. But does this somehow make the organic oils in that body lotion any more harmful? Verily, it does not.

You might also just as easily claim that much of the nation’s reluctant turn toward environmental health has little to do with the hippies per se, that it’s taking the threat of global meltdown combined with the notion of really, really expensive ski tickets to slap the nation’s incredibly obese ass into gear and force consumers to begin to wake up to the savage gluttony and wastefulness of American culture as everyone starts wondering, oh my God, what’s going to happen to swimming pools and NASCAR and free shipping from Amazon? Of course, without the ’60s groundwork, without all the radical ideas and seeds of change planted nearly five decades ago, what we’d be turning to in our time of need would be a great deal more hopeless indeed.

But if you’re really bitter and shortsighted, you could say the entire hippie movement overall was just incredibly overrated, gets far too much cultural credit for far too little actual impact, was pretty much a giant excuse to slack off and enjoy dirty lazy responsibility-free sex romps and do a ton of drugs and avoid Vietnam and not bathe for a month and name your child Sunflower or Shiva Moon or Chakra Lennon Sapphire Bumblebee. This is what’s called the reactionary simpleton’s view. It blithely ignores history, perspective, the evolution of culture as a whole. You know, just like America.

But, you know, whatever. The proofs are easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the ’60s counterculture are still so intact and potent even the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their extant power. It’s all right there: Treehugger.com is the new ’60s underground hippy zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam to Bright Eyes to NIN to the Dixie Chicks are writing savage anti-Bush, anti-war songs for a new, ultra-jaded generation.

And oh yes, speaking of good ol’ MDMA (Ecstasy), even drug culture is getting some new respect. Staid old Time mag just ran a rather snide little story about the new studies being conducted by Harvard and the National Institute of Mental Health into the astonishing psychospiritual benefits of goodly entheogens such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA. Unfortunately, the piece basically backhands Timothy Leary and the entire “excessive,” “naive” drug culture of yore in favor of much more “sane” and “careful” scientific analysis happening now, as if the only valid methods for attaining knowledge and an understanding of spirit were through control groups and clinical, mysticism-free examination. Please.

Still, the fact that serious scientific research into entheogens is being conducted even in the face of the most anti-science, pro-pharmaceutical, ultra-conservative presidential regime in recent history is proof enough that all the hoary old hippie mantras about expanding the mind and touching God through drugs were onto something after all (yes, duh). Tim Leary is probably smiling wildly right now — though that might be due to all the mushrooms he’s been sharing with Kerouac and Einstein and Mary Magdalene. Mmm, heaven.

Of course, true hippie values mean you’re not really supposed to care about or attach to any of this, you don’t give a damn for the hollow ego stroke of being right all along, for slapping the culture upside the head and saying, See? Do you see? It was never about the long hair and the folk music and Woodstock and taking so much acid you see Jesus and Shiva and Buddha tongue kissing in a hammock on the Dog Star, nimrods.

It was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie crap no one believes in anymore. Right?

Post "REVIVED" for Blog Action Day

Ecology Flag Image courtesy of Pax Romano

GLBT History: Virginia Uribe

b. December 20, 1933

"As long as I have a breath in me, I will continue to fight for the rights of gay and lesbian students."

As a counselor and science teacher at Fairfax High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Virginia Uribe witnessed the troubles of gay students. The plight of one student who had been kicked out of his house and had dropped out of four different high schools because of sexual harassment convinced Uribe to take action. In 1984, she founded Project 10, a drop-out prevention program for GLBT youth.

Project 10 met resistance. Conservative groups, led by the Traditional Values Coalition, attacked the group and used their influence to threaten to cut funding for the LAUSD. Uribe prevailed at the court hearing and Project 10 continued to provide assistance to GLBT teenagers.

The program focuses on building school-based support for teens by training school personnel in conflict resolution and suicide prevention, helping students participate in the development of school protection policies and providing access to information about human sexuality. In 1998, when she retired from teaching, Uribe became Executive Director of Friends of Project 10, Inc., the nonprofit arm of Project 10. The nonprofit funds programs not covered by the district, including a gay and lesbian prom and a lobbying day for educational issues in Sacramento.

Uribe’s program has spread to dozens of schools in the LAUSD, but her vision has extended to many other parts of the country as well. High schools throughout the nation incorporate aspects of Project 10. Uribe, a Ph.D in counseling psychology, influences policy through her writing. Her articles have appeared in Education Digest, High School Journal, Theory Into Practice, and a special issue of the Harvard Education Review. She has appeared in USA Today and the LA Times, and has spoken on public radio and television.

In 1992, Virginia Uribe received the National Education Association’s Annual Human and Civil Rights Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights, now renamed the Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights. She has been honored by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the California State Senate and Assembly, the Los Angeles City Council and the American Civil Liberties Union.

a project of Equality Forum

Top US general hits out at lack of planning behind Iraq war

Ed Pilkington in New York
Monday October 15, 2007
The Guardian

A retired general who led US forces in Iraq at the start of the insurgency has indicated that he may name and shame the individuals in the Bush administration he blames for a "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan".

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez has delivered one of the most damning assessments of US policy in Iraq, becoming the most senior war commander to do so. "There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," he told reporters in Arlington, Virginia.

The White House responded with a statement that though there was more work to be done in Iraq, progress was being made. But what might cause anxiety within the administration was the veiled threat contained in Gen Sanchez's comments to identify individuals.

Asked by reporters to say who he blamed for the chaos in US policy, he declined, but added: "More to follow later."

Gen Sanchez's threat chimes with speculation that he is planning to write a book about his experiences as chief of the US-led forces in 2003/4 during a period that saw the flaring of the early anti-American insurgency and the outbreak of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

Were he to put his criticisms down on paper he would join a growing line of former officials who have played out their disgruntlement with the Bush administration in book form. They include Paul Bremer, Gen Sanchez's civilian counterpart in Iraq, who published My Year in Iraq in January 2006, and George Tenet, the former CIA director, who accused the Bush administration of deciding to invade Iraq with little or no debate.

Even without naming names, Gen Sanchez's analysis of the mishandling of the occupation of Iraq, delivered on Friday, was piercing. "From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan to the administration's latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronise its political, economic and military power," he said.

Asked at what point he thought the mission in Iraq had started to go wrong, he replied: "About the 15th of June 2003." That was the day he took command of US forces in the country. Gen Sanchez went on to say that after four years of fighting in Iraq, there was still no clarity within the civilian leadership, which he accused of "lust of power" and of failing to mobilise all corners of government for the struggle in Iraq. "The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the state department, must shoulder responsibility for the catastrophic failure, and the American people must hold them accountable."

Though no individual commanders were found responsible for the Abu Ghraib scandal, the fact that Gen Sanchez was in command at the time of the abuse has been held as a negative mark on his record. He continued for a year in active duty after he left Iraq, but was not preferred for promotion to the rank of four-star general, thus forcing his retirement. Critics may accuse him of sour grapes should he seek to take his criticisms to a more personal level.

Gen Sanchez's comments come as a Washington Post journalist was shot dead in Baghdad. Salih Saif Aldin, 32, who wrote under the name Salih Dehema, was killed in the Sadiyah neighbourhood.

ॐ Namasté - अगस्त २७ १९३१ -अक्तूबर १२२००७ ॐ

Internationally renowned peace leader and spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy passed away Friday morning in his home in Queens, New York. The cause of death was a heart attack.

Respected and loved worldwide, Sri Chinmoy’s philosophy for world peace was manifested through a wide array of activities, ranging from literature to art to sports to music. The universal nature of his philosophy embraced and encouraged people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities to work together for peace.

Hailed as a modern day renaissance man, Sri Chinmoy wrote over 1600 books of prose and poetry, composed over 20,000 pieces of music, played over 800 Peace Concerts in venues like Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and was an avid runner, tennis player and champion weightlifter.

Sri Chinmoy was born on August 27, 1931 in a small village in east India. Orphaned at the age of 11, Sri Chinmoy traveled with his six brothers and sisters to a spiritual community in south India, where he spent the next 20 years in intense prayer and meditation. Heeding an inner call, he traveled to the United States in 1964 and made New York City his home.

In the 43 years since his arrival in the West, Sri Chinmoy became a model of the potential of humankind. Opening centers throughout the world for peace and harmony he tirelessly traveled the globe to share his inspiration and goodwill.

A champion of interfaith harmony, Sri Chinmoy was beloved by religious leaders of all denominations. From Mother Teresa to Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II to the Dalai Lama, Sri Chinmoy was celebrated as a true servant of God.

Sri Chinmoy was an ardent supporter of the United Nations. Since 1970 he had served as the leader of the Peace Meditation at the United Nations, an association of delegates and staff he founded under the aegis of the third UN Secretary-General U Thant.

A humanitarian, Sri Chinmoy’s service organization, the Oneness-Heart-Tears and Smiles collected and distributed millions of dollars of medical supplies throughout Asia and Africa. Dedicated to easing pain and alleviating suffering, Sri Chinmoy once wrote, “My Lord, do give me the capacity to wipe every tear from every heart.”

Sri Chinmoy practised a life of spiritual discipline and never married. Over 7,000 people continue to follow his philosophy through the over 100 Sri Chinmoy Centres worldwide.

Namasté

GLBT History: Frederick the Great (II)

b. January 24, 1712
d. August 17, 1786

"The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices."

Frederick II, also known as Frederick the Great, ruled as King of Prussia from 1740-1786. Through innovative military tactics and tolerant domestic policies, King Frederick united previously disconnected territories on opposite ends of the Holy Roman Empire into a cohesive kingdom with Prussia.

Frederick’s predecessor, his father, presided over both his kingdom and his family without compassion. In 1730, when Frederick was 18 years old, he planned a getaway to England with Lieutenant Katte. Before the two men could depart, they were arrested and condemned to death for desertion. Frederick I had Katte executed in his son’s presence. Frederick II escaped death and was sentenced to prison.

Frederick II received a royal pardon six months into his sentence. He ascended to the throne in 1739. He immediately began expanding Prussia’s territory during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). During the first stage of this war, the First Silesian War (1740-1742), Frederick II captured the rich Austrian city of Silesia.

Regarded as one of the greatest tactical geniuses of all time, Frederick II used advanced techniques such as the oblique order to overwhelm foes who outnumbered Prussian forces. During his reign, Austria, France, Russia, Saxony and Sweden were allied against him as part of the Diplomatic Revolution. Frederick the Great’s invasion of Saxony in 1756 initiated the Seven Years’ War. Though allied with only Great Britain and Hanover, Prussia prevailed when the anti-Prussian coalition collapsed in 1763. Frederick II’s ability to retain Silesia during this battle solidified Prussia’s status as a power.

In addition to his military successes, which included the annexation of part of Poland in 1772, Frederick II modernized much of Prussia and fostered economic and artistic growth in his kingdom. State revenues doubled as he simultaneously promoted philosophy and the arts. A musician, Frederick the Great played the transverse flute and composed 122 sonatas and four symphonies.

Disagreeing with Machiavelli’s ruthless “ends justify the means” philosophy of rule, Frederick the Great ran his kingdom according to the more modern ethical code he laid out in the "Anti-Machiavel" (1739). Under his reign, Frederick II abolished torture and corporeal punishment and provided religious freedom.

a project of EQUALITY FORUM

RIAA vs The World...

David Rovics, Counterpunch

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), representing massive multinational corporations with tentacles in every corner of the global economy including the music business, has just won a lawsuit against a mother of two who refused to be pushed around. Jamie Thomas’ pockets were not nearly deep enough to mount the kind of legal defense for the occasion, but she rightly thought that paying an out-of-court settlement of several thousand dollars for the “crime” of sharing music online was ridiculous. So she told the RIAA they’d have to take her to court. They did, and they won.

The fact that one of these cases actually went to trial, the amount of money involved, and the fact that the defendant could have been your neighbor, a middle-aged single mother of two who was not selling anything, but was just engaging in commonplace song-swapping via Kazaa’s peer-to-peer network, has made this case newsworthy. But what lies beneath it are the ever-growing tens of thousands of people who have been spied upon, harassed and threatened with lawsuits if they didn’t pay the RIAA thousands of dollars for sharing copywritten music in a way the RIAA, the US government, the World Trade Organization, etc., deem inappropriate.

In spite of the RIAA’s campaign to staunch the profit losses of it’s corporate members by waging a campaign of fear and intimidation against your average everyday music fan, the numbers of legal and “illegal” downloads continue to rise rapidly. However, the industry’s campaign is not just about robbing working class American music fans of hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars. The music industry is waging a war for the hearts and minds of the people of the US and the world, spending tremendous amounts of money on advertising campaigns to convince us of the rightness of their cause and the wrongness of our actions.

The RIAA is both powerful and desperate. They are a multibillion-dollar industry that has been “suffering” financially for years, and they are up against the very nature of the internet ­ that being peer-to-peer sharing of information in whatever form (stories, songs, videos, etc.). The internet has given rise to unprecedented levels of global cultural cross-pollination, and it has led to a democratization of where our news, information, music, etc., comes from that has not been seen since the days of the wandering troubadors who went from town to town spreading the news of the day.

The RIAA is trying to use a combination of the law, financial largesse, and encryption and other technologies to try to reassert their dominance over global culture. But perhaps most importantly, they are trying to reassert the moral virtue of their position, the rightness of their positions vis-a-vis the concept of intellectual property and the notion that the fear campaign they’re engaged in somehow benefits society overall and artists in particular.

The success of their campaign to convince us that the average person is essentially part of a massive band of thieves can be easily seen. Look at the comments section following an article about the recent lawsuit, for example, and you will find people generally saying they thought Ms. Thomas was wrong but that the amount of money involved with the lawsuit is outrageous. You will find people admitting that they also download music illegally, and they feel bad about it, but it’s just too easy and the music in the stores is too expensive.

Obviously the idea of anyone being financially bankrupted for the rest of their lives because they shared some songs online is preposterous, and very few people fail to see that. But the idea that Ms. Thomas did something wrong is prevalent, even among her fellow “thieves,” and I think it needs to be challenged on various fronts.

“We’re doing this for artists”

The RIAA represents artists about as effectively as the big pharmaceutical companies represent sick people. I’ll explain. The vast majority of innovation in medicine comes from university campuses. The usual pattern is Big Pharma then comes in and uses the research that’s already been done to then patent it and turn it into an obscenely profitable drug (especially if it’s good for treating a disease common among people in rich countries). Then they say anybody else who makes cheap or free versions of the drug is stealing, and by doing so we’re stifling innovation and acting immorally.

Similarly, the vast majority of musical innovation happens on the streets by people who are not being paid by anyone. The machine that is the music industry then snatches a bit of that popular culture, sanitizes it, and then sells it back to us at a premium. They create a superstar or two out of cultural traditions of their choosing and to hell with the rest of them. Sometimes the musicians they promote are really good, but that’s not the point. The point is that if the RIAA were truly interested in promoting good artists, they’d be doing lots of smaller record contracts with a wide variety of artists representing a broad cross-section of musical traditions. But as it is, if it were up to the RIAA we’d be listening to the music of a small handful of multimillionaire pop stars and the other 99.9% of musicians would starve.

The overwhelming majority of great music in the US (and most certainly in the rest of the world) is not supported by the RIAA. Rather, it is marginalized as much as possible. “Payola” is alive and well. The commercial radio stations are paid to play RIAA artists and paid not to play anyone else. A strategic, financial decision is made to promote a few styles of formulaic anti-music, each style represented by a few antiseptic pop stars, the lowest common denominator that can be created by the corporations behind the curtain. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of great writers, recording artists and performers are ignored, denied record contracts, promotion, airplay, distribution, etc.

In short, the RIAA does their best to stifle art, at the expense of money. They represent some artists, no doubt ­ a few very well-off ones, the few (occasionally very talented) beneficiaries of their money-making schemes. In the US, even the system through which royalties are distributed ends up benefitting only the industry and a few pop stars. The comparatively little airplay independent artists receive is measured by organizations like ASCAP in such a way that it is largely ignored, and royalties we should be receiving end up in the pockets of the industry.

“Downloads hurt CD sales of our artists”

OK, so the RIAA’s claims to represent artists in general may be laughable, but surely they have a point when they complain about the annually decreasing CD sales of Coldplay and the Rolling Stones? Even if they are just a cartel representing the interests of the few and trying to prevent access or representation by the many, surely suing average music listeners is at least some kind of response to their artists losing sales to these free downloads?

The kind of logic that sees loss of CD sales for major label artists as a direct response to being able to download their music online for free is flawed. It assumes that people would be buying the CD’s of these artists were it not available for free. The reality, I’d suggest, is very different and also hard to measure with any degree of accuracy.

With the rise of the worldwide web has come an explosion of interest in an ever-broadening array of music. People are downloading for free and paying for new music from all over. When bigtime artists get loads of conventional publicity and everybody can’t avoid knowing that Janet Jackson has a new CD out because this news is covering the sides of every bus in the city, many people will go ahead and download tracks from her new CD if they can find them on the web for free. But would they bother buying the CD in the current, rich musical environment of the internet otherwise? Or would they just move on and download other stuff from the independent artists they’re constantly discovering out there on the web instead?

I’d suggest the latter, and I’d further suggest that there is no reliable way of knowing whether or not I’m correct. If the major artists are losing sales because of the availability of their songs for free on the web, I couldn’t care less. However, I think what is more the case is they are losing sales to the internet itself, as a result of the blossoming of grassroots musical culture that the internet is fostering.

“Giving away music hurts small artists”

This is an argument the RIAA is fond of putting forward. Sadly, many of my colleagues, many other independent recording artists, believe it. They seem to think that if the major artists are losing sales to the internet, it must be happening to us, too. Either deliberately or through inaction, they don’t put their music up on the web for free download. Fans of theirs, it often seems, respect this and don’t put up the music either (sometimes). I’m convinced this is all born out of confusion, and these artists are shooting themselves in the foot.

What’s good for GM is definitely not what’s good for the guy in Iowa City making electric cars out of his garage. I constantly run into people who assume that I must be losing CD sales and suffering financially as a result of the fact that I put up all of my music on the web for free download. Sometimes they are artists who think I’m something of a scab. Other times they’re fans who appreciate the free music but are concerned for my financial well-being.

Principles aside for the moment, on a purely practical level, the reality is that many independent artists, most definitely including myself, have benefitted from the phenomenon of the free MP3. Like others, the fact that I’m making a living at all at music — unlike the overwhelming majority of musicians ­ is largely attributable to the internet, and specifically to free downloads.

It’s not simple, and it’s fairly easy to hypothesize one thing or another and back it up with selective information. But overall, my experience has been that I sold a few thousand CD’s a year before the internet, and have continued to sell a few thousand CD’s a year after the internet. Gig offers and fans in far-off places have multiplied, however, and in so many of these cases it’s clear that they first heard my music on the internet, usually because someone they knew guided them to my website.

Every year, over 100,000 songs are downloaded for free from my website, and many more from many other websites where they are hosted in one form or another. This represents many times what CD sales could possibly have been for me without a major record contract, previous to the internet. My conclusion is that the free download phenomenon behaves more like radio airplay that I never would have had otherwise. And it’s international airplay that has led me to tours in countries around the world and gigs in remote corners of the US that resulted directly from someone telling someone else about songs of mine they could find online for free.

The reality, pop stars aside, is that the overwhelming majority of musicians who are able to make a living from their music make it from performing. For DIY musicians who are not having their tours booked by Sony BMG’s booking agencies, the most valuable resource are fans, especially the ones who are well-organized and enthusiastic enough that they want to organize a gig for us somewhere. Through fans like this, we can cobble together another tour. This process has been helped immensely by the “viral marketing,” the buzz that can happen when music people like is freely available on the web.

I’m sure that there are many people who would have bought my latest CD if they weren’t able to download it for free. Of this there is no doubt. But to think that this is therefore how the free download phenomenon works in general is extremely simplistic. For every person who downloads the songs instead of buying the CD, I’d guess there are 100 who hear the music on the web for the first time, who would probably never have heard it otherwise. For every 100 people who hear the music for free, say one of them will buy a CD to support the artist. For every 1,000, maybe one will organize a paying gig. This may not cause a big rise in CD sales, but ultimately it doesn’t hurt them, either, and what it does for sure is dramatically increase the overall audience of independent artists around the world.

“But people are stealing private property on those P2P networks”

There are many ways to try to compensate artists for original work, scientists for ground-breaking research, inventors for great new inventions, etc. There is no single, sacred way to do this. There are many ways to support art and artists in society and reward them for their work. Paying royalties based on airplay, downloads and/or CD sales is one way among many.

If royalties are going to be a primary way artists are compensated, there are many ways to do this, too. With CD sales, according to the current system, the songwriter gets something like 7 cents per song per CD sold in the stores. With radio airplay, the onus on paying the royalties that may eventually get to some of the artists is on the radio stations, and the radio stations are usually supported by corporate advertisers.

If the RIAA really thought their artists could compete with the rest of the world’s artists on a relatively open playing field, they’d probably be busily trying to create some kind of web-based infrastructure where corporate advertising would pay some kind of royalties for their artists. If this infrastructure existed, people would drift towards it as the path of least resistance, compared to finding music on P2P networks.

The problem is, the RIAA doesn’t control the internet the way they control the commercial radio airwaves, and they know that the musical tastes of the people are broadening, and threatening their pop star system, threatening their profit margins. They can’t keep out the competition, so they’re trying hard to control the environment in a way that’s most beneficial to their corporate interests — screw everybody else. Screw independent artists and screw the public at large.

I don’t know if anybody can predict these things with certainty, but it seems to me the basic nature of the internet will ultimately triumph over the narrow interests of the music industry. The music industry will not cease to exist by any means, but it will shrink somewhat, and will have to give way to the flourishing grassroots music scene which the internet has nurtured.

It seems to me that the most relevant question in terms of the efforts of the RIAA is, at what cost to society at large? How far will they go to maintain this broken system, to maintain the inequities of their star-making machinery?

And another crucial question: why should a system be allowed to continue that massively rewards a few artists for their “original” records full of “original” songs, while leaving destitute the masses of musicians and others who created the cultural seas in which these “original” artists swim?

Musicians, as a whole, represent some of the richest people in the society and many of the poorest. The music industry’s system, in conceptual terms and in practical terms, is broken. It represents the interests of the monopolies against the interests of the rest of the world’s people, cultures, musical traditions and musical innovations.

To my fellow musicians I say put all your music up for free download, help your careers and screw the music industry. To music fans I say keep on downloading, don’t feel bad about it — and try not to get caught.

– David Rovics is a musician.

HAT TIP to NATALIE

GLBT History: Mary Edwards Walker

b. November 26, 1832
d. February 21, 1919

"You men are not our protectors... If you were, who would there be to protect us from?"

A steadfast feminist, Mary Edwards Walker defied nineteenth century patriarchal society by refusing to live within the confines of gender-based roles. As a student, physician, and activist, Walker defined her place in society while paving the way for future generations of women. Diverging from the norm, Walker’s liberal parents encouraged her and her five sisters to attend college and pursue careers. Her father, a self-taught doctor and advocate of women’s dress reform, largely influenced Walker.

In 1855, Mary Edwards Walker graduated from Syracuse Medical College, becoming one of only a few female physicians in the country. She married fellow student and physician Albert Miller in an unconventional ceremony. Walker wore trousers and a man’s coat and chose to keep her last name. The marriage ended four years later.

At the onset of the Civil War, having been denied a position as an Army medical officer, Walker volunteered as a nurse for the Union Army. During the next few years she served in several battles including the First Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Fredericksburg. Despite her service, Walker often found herself at the scrutiny of male superiors who questioned her credentials.

The Confederate Army captured Walker in 1864 and held her captive for four months. The imprisonment proved to be a turning point in her career, winning her both respect and credibility. Later that year she became the first woman commissioned as Army Surgeon, earning a monthly salary of one hundred dollars.

The following year, Walker became the first and only woman in history to receive a Medal of Honor, the highest military honor in the United States. The bill, which President Andrew Johnson signed upon the recommendation of two major generals, reads:

Whereas it appears from official reports that Dr. Mary E. Walker, a graduate of medicine, has rendered valuable service to the Government, and…has devoted herself with much patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers, both in the field and hospitals, to the detriment of her own health, and has also endured hardships as a prisoner of war four months in Southern prison while acting as contract surgeon...It is ordered, That a testimonial thereof shall be hereby made and given to the said Dr. Mary E. Walker, and that the actual medal of honor for meritorious services be given her.

After the war, Walker continued to live a nonconformist lifestyle. A strong advocate of dress reform, she wore men’s clothing exclusively and was arrested on several occasions for impersonating a man. In 1917, Congress revoked her Medal of Honor after revising the criteria for receiving the medal. Walker refused to return the medal, wearing it until her death.

a project of EQUALITY FORUM

Canada's Great Hemp Hope

By WAYNE ROBERTS, Now Magazine

Hempola Valley Farms’ Greg Herriott says if canola oil can make it,
hemp oil can, too.
Photo By Kelly Smith

"Rope, not dope" was my slogan some years back, when I was involved in a successful campaign (yes, we do win some battles) to legalize industrial hemp in Canada.

My eye was on the 25,000 industrial products hemp was thought to offer, a farm-friendly, pesticide-free, green source for everything from clothing to rope to paper to plastic.

It never occurred to me that food would be first out of the gate once the plant was legalized.

But it did occur to Greg Herriott, who was then running a design shop that had just won acclaim for producing a reusable takeout coffee cup.

Herriott understood that paper, clothing and plastic are volume businesses. Manufacturers won't switch inputs until they can be guaranteed a continuous and reliable supply. So the place to start ramping up the volume of the hemp supply was food, he figured.

Food products are small-scale, niche-friendly and offer a base for independent entrepreneurs who can substitute sweat and chutzpah for equity a gateway industry, so to speak.

As soon as he tasted some hemp oil in 1993, Herriott was hooked. "It was a no-brainer, since it could work itself into gourmet and health circles," he said, referring to the rich store of essential fatty acids and antioxidants that make hemp oil an alternative to flax and fish oils, the latter not an option for vegans or those concerned about mercury contamination.

But back in the 1990s, nobody, including Herriott, knew that oil and flour could be produced from hemp seeds while leaving the long stem of the plant available for animal bedding and paper.

Herriott first isolated what he calls hemp flour in 1998, holding the premiere for it at a health food show in Baltimore. He has just patented the cold press machine that can produce both oil and flour.

I dropped in to see him earlier this fall at Hempola, his combo oilseed farm, processing operation, farm store and summertime farmers' market just north of Barrie.

He was riding an old tractor, looking like a little boy who'd just got a big play truck. "Smell those delicious fumes," he said, before jumping down to show me around his farm.

Herriott isn't dismayed by the slow marketing of hemp salad oil. "Canola was branded 40 years ago and is essentially rapeseed,'' he says. "That's a really interesting parallel for the hemp industry to learn from.''

Herriott's operation uses pressure to squeeze most of the oil out of the seeds and down a tap. He tries to use as much of the oil as possible in the product that fetches the highest price and makes best use of hemp's nutrients: salad oil. But if he can't sell enough salad oil, he'll convert as much as possible of what's left into wood finish. And whatever can't be used that way gets turned into diesel oil, which fetches the lowest price.

The part of the seed left after the first tapping is called seedcake. Lab tests required by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency show that the flour milled from seedcake is made up of eight percent oils, 40 per cent protein, 20 per cent fibre and carbs.

Herriott sells it through his own brand of pancake and brownie flour, and markets his leftover flour to one T.O. baker and a leading U.S. one. His latest dream is to find a breadmaker who's interested in a package deal of flour for bread plus diesel oil for the bread delivery trucks.

While that deal is being worked out, whatever flour can't be sold for human consumption can, as soon as government regulations catch up with the possibility, be used as feed for livestock and fish farms. Unlike most farm crops, hemp is all about co-products, not single ones, a reality that stretches the time and skills of any lean cottage industry.

Then there are the political challenges: hemp's possibilities for a quadruple bottom line position it as a front-running alternative to corn-based ethanol fuels.

Financially and legislatively supported by many North American governments, corn ethanol requires heavy inputs of fossil-fuel fertilizers and further dependence on the giant oil companies that are key ethanol partners at the distribution end.

As well, corn is the opposite of a nutritional wunderkind. The production of ethanol takes almost everything the plant has to offer, which is mainly carbs. All that's left is mash that can be fed to cattle. And corn is difficult to grow, usually requiring harsh pesticides and genetically engineered seeds, and its wide rows commonly lead to severe soil erosion.

If all the subsidies that now go to corn ethanol went instead to hemp foods and bio-fuel, the green farm economy could start to rock. And that's what Herriott wants to oil the skids for to kick-start farm hemp volume to the point where it's an alternative to chopping down forests for toilet paper and scratch pads, or to growing pesticide-intensive cotton.

As farm entrepreneurs like Herriott succeed, the harvests of the future will start to look very different. It's hard to get a sense of the scale of possibilities, because agriculture over the past 40 years has not been very innovative, concentrating almost exclusively on new ways of doing old chores.

What Herriott offers are old ways an ancient crop and adaptations to relatively traditional cold-pressing technologies to do new things, multiplying the efficiency of agriculture and in the process inventing ways to localize economies.

When neighbourhood farms can produce transportation fuel, wood finish, paper and animal feed as well as premium human foods, we are enroute to agro-ecology, the next revolution in agriculture.

_____________________________________________

Meanwhile, Back In The States:

Schwarzenegger has vetoed AB 684, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act. A lot of time, hard work and money had been invested by numerous people and organizations in passing the bi-partisan, four-county, five-year hemp farming bill.

If you would like to learn more about what we were up against with the anti-hemp lobbying efforts concerning the bill, please check out the "Hemp and Law Enforcement" segment of the "all Cannabis" NPR show "Marijuana Laws: From Medical Marijuana to Hemp", produced by the talented people at Justice Talking.

There are also interviews with Jean Rawson of the Congressional Research Service, Kyle Pulliam of Hemp in the Heartland, and Representative David Monson of North Dakota — one of the first licensed U.S. hemp farmers in fifty years. It is an amazing series of shows. Please take some time and check it out.

Thank You Markkus... ♥ ♥ ♥Fabulous

FREEMASONS - "RAIN DOWN LOVE"...
...Featuring Siedah Garrett



Markk from UK sent me this link and I'm sharing it with you all...

He absolutely adores the cops in their "sexy" boots, and I love them all...

Those girls got it going on!
(not to mention the sailors)

Thanks Markk...

oops, I misunderstood. Markk says he WAS one of the Cops. Rock on, bud...
Absolutely Fabulous

Here's a better Quicktime Movie version

(referring to the CD cover):
I think we all need a bit more of this here in the States...

Gore Finally Wins...

"The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its work to alert the world to the threat of global warming."

In the New York Times, Walter Gibbs has the story, while Jim Rutenberg has the immediate commentary, calling the Prize "the latest twist in a remarkable decade of soaring highs and painful lows... Even before Mr Gore won an Emmy for his so-called 'user generated' cable television network, Current, or an Oscar for his film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, he was growing in stature for another reason: his early opposition to the Iraq war."

The Guardian has video.

You know this drafting Gore for President business is going to Ring from the mountaintops now...

HAT TIP to THIVAI ABHOR

GLBT History: Peter Gomes

b. May 22, 1942

"There can be no light without the darkness out of which it shines."

Peter Gomes offers a look at religion from a distinctive perspective. Gomes, a Reverend and Professor at Harvard University, argues that the Bible is neither anti-Semitic, anti-feminist nor anti-gay.

In 1991, Peninsula, a conservative Harvard magazine, published a 56-page issue largely critical of homosexuality. Gomes denounced the magazine and came out publicly at Harvard’s Memorial Church. A small group called Concerned Christians at Harvard immediately called for his resignation, but Gomes received support from the Harvard administration.

Renowned for both his teaching and his preaching, Reverend Gomes is the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard and the Pusey Minister at Harvard’s Memorial Church. A graduate of Bates College in 1965 and Harvard Divinity School in 1968, he also studied at the University of Cambridge, where he is an Honorary Fellow and where the Gomes Lectureship was established in his honor. Gomes holds thirty-three honorary degrees. Religion and American Life named him Clergy of the Year in 1998, and he won the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award from Harvard in 2001. Gomes offered prayers at the inaugurations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Gomes is a widely published author. Of the ten volumes of sermons and numerous articles and papers he has written, two of his works – "The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart" (1996) and Sermons: "Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living" (1998) – were New York Times and national bestsellers.

GLBT History: Lily Tomlin

b. September 1, 1939

"Don’t be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed."

Lily Tomlin is an accomplished actress, comedian, writer and producer who has won numerous awards including six Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards and a Grammy Award. She has been involved in many performing arts genres including film, stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, Broadway and television. She starred on "The West Wing" and "Murphy Brown" and also appeared on "X-Files" and "Will and Grace."

Tomlin attended Wayne State University as a premed student until her elective classes in theater arts inspired her to pursue a career as a performer. She started as a stand-up comedian in New York City.

In 1966, Tomlin debuted on television on the "Garry Moore Show." After a few appearances on the "Merv Griffin Show," she joined the comedy series "Laugh-In" in 1969. Ernestine, her character on "Laugh-In," captivated audiences and earned her a Golden Globe Award in 1972. Tomlin worked on comedy television specials with her partner, Jane Wagner. The duo’s six specials, produced over the next nine years, netted them three Emmy Awards, the first for “Lily” in 1974.

"Nashville" marked Tomlin’s entrance into film in 1975. Two years later, she starred on Broadway in "Appearing Nitely," a show written and directed by Wagner. Another Wagner show, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," became a major Broadway hit in 1985. Tomlin won a Tony Award in 1986 for her lead role.

Returning to television in 1993, Tomlin starred in "And the Band Played On," an HBO special about AIDS. From 1994 to 1998, she entertained children with her role as Mrs. Valerie Frizzle on "The Magic School Bus." In addition to her featured roles on "The West Wing" and "Murphy Brown," Tomlin continued to appear in hit movies such as "The Kid" (2000) and "I Heart Huckabees" (2004).

Tomlin officially came out to Gay TV in 2000. Her relationship with Wagner had been openly acknowledged for the majority of its existence.

Tomlin and Wagner started the Lily Tomlin Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center, which provides art exhibits, theatre and other programs. The Center donates to services for people with HIV/AIDS and funds programs at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.


a project of EQUALITY FORUM

New World Order: NAU + SAU = China Rising

From: Global Gulag

GLBT History: Gore Vidal

b. October 3, 1925

"We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself."

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal’s career as a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, critic and political activist spans six decades. Boldly challenging the status quo, Vidal has weathered censorship and criticism for his progressive writing and politics.

His childhood was marked by access and privilege. Vidal attended Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the country’s most prestigious preparatory high schools. His family’s political connections played a major role in shaping Vidal’s life work. Vidal’s maternal grandfather served as a Democratic senator from Oklahoma, while his father worked in the FDR administration as the Director of the Bureau of Air Commerce. Vidal has familial ties to the Kennedy family and is a distant cousin of Jimmy Carter and Al Gore.

After graduating from Exeter, Vidal joined the U.S. Army Reserve. He served in the Army Transportation Corps in Alaska, where he wrote much of his first novel, "Williwaw" (1946).

The release of Vidal’s third novel, "The City and the Pillar," met scathing criticism for the book’s homosexual themes. Major media publications, including The New York Times, refused to review his subsequent books. Vidal’s sales declined.

Financially strained by the censorship of his work, Vidal began to dabble in alternate writing media that proved more lucrative. These pursuits culminated in Vidal’s success as a distinguished playwright and screenwriter.

In 1957, Vidal’s first political play, "Visit to a Small Planet," premiered in New York. A satire on post-World War II fear of communism, the play received Broadway acclaim and became a film in 1960.

Vidal also excelled as an essayist and historian who often stirred controversy with his progressive political views. His social and political commentary spans four decades and includes over 20 pieces. In 1993, Vidal received the National Book Award for his collection of essays entitled "United States: Essays 1952-1992."

Since the inception of his writing career, Vidal has published over 30 novels of various genres. His successful series of historical novels includes "Washington D.C." (1967), "Lincoln" (1984) and "The Golden Age" (2000). Vidal explores feminism and transsexuality in his satirical novel "Myra Breckinridge" (1968).

a project of EQUALITY FORUM

IMAGINE PEACE: VIBES SENT... पेअस

Together, we stand for peace for the world to see.

The Federal War on Medical Marijuana Becomes a War on Children

Why risk provoking the American public's outrage by escalating its war on medical marijuana patients?

By Dan Bernath, AlterNet.

Automatic weapons. Check.
Helicopters. Check.
Dogs. Check.
Bulletproof vests. Check...

You may not buy the government's characterization of its campaign against medical marijuana patients as a "war on drugs," but increasingly violent, militaristic tactics in recent months offer a troubling glimpse into the federal law enforcement community's mentality: To them, this is war.

Raids on medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California on July 17 by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents, often with local law enforcement officers in tow, seemed designed to send a clear signal that the feds were deliberately escalating their war on medical marijuana patients.

The enemy, then, are people like Ronnie Naulls, a Riverside medical marijuana patient who owned two of the dispensaries raided that day.

A church-going family man who used medical marijuana to ease chronic pain from injuries sustained in a 2001 car accident, Naulls already had two successful businesses -- one as an IT consultant and another as a real estate property manager -- when he established the Healing Nations Collective to save fellow Corona patients the hours-long drive to Los Angeles for medicine.

By all accounts, Naulls ran his collectives with exemplary scrupulousness. He maintained strict dress codes and professional standards for all employees. He paid state taxes on the dispensaries -- amounting to several hundred thousand dollars a year -- even when loose tax regulations allowed other dispensary owners to slip through the cracks. Profits from the dispensaries went to local and national cancer organizations.

Nevertheless, at 5:50 a.m., July 17, Naulls' home and businesses were invaded by DEA agents armed with shotguns, automatic rifles -- even helicopters. They seized everything he owned: his businesses, his property, all of his accounts.

But that wasn't the worst of it. County child protective services came along on the raid and took Naulls' three daughters, aged 1 to 5, and charged him and his wife with child endangerment. They weren't even accused of breaking any state laws.

When Naulls spoke to his children in their foster home, the oldest said, "Daddy, we're ready to come home now. We promise to be good."

Of course they were too young to understand that they were victims of the strong-arm tactics of drug warriors whose goal was probably to make Naulls regret helping fellow patients receive their medicine in a safe, compassionate environment. Who cares if that means ruining a family financially, imprisoning the parents and traumatizing the children?

Federal drug warriors have shown no sign of letting up since then, as dispensary raids have continued steadily in California and Oregon. The DEA has even found creative ways to open new fronts in its war by threatening to go after landlords who lease property to licensed dispensaries.

But why now? Why risk provoking the American public's outrage by escalating its war on medical marijuana patients? Here's one possible explanation: They're losing, and they know it.

While federal law enforcement agencies are busy wasting time and money harassing innocent citizens like Naulls and his family, the rest of the country shows increasing impatience with the government's bullying tactics.

In fact, thanks in large part to the efforts of MPP's Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana, every single Democratic presidential candidate has come out against federal intrusion in medical marijuana states. Two Republican candidates, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, have also voiced strong support for the rights of states to establish medical marijuana laws.

These candidates understand that the vast majority of Americans oppose the federal government's war on medical marijuana patients.

Then again, if the late comedian Bill Hicks was right when he said a war means two armies fighting each other, then this was never really a war, anyway. After all, the ranks of suffering Americans, though large, are hardly an imposing threat to the well-equipped federal forces bent on their destruction.

Instead of calling it a war, perhaps there's a more accurate phrase to describe what we've witnessed from federal law enforcement this summer. How does "pogrom on medical marijuana patients" sound?

The War on Pot: America's $42 Billion Annual Boondoggle

By Rob Kampia, AlterNet.

What else could we spend $42 billion each year on?
Health insurance for kids?
Better paid teachers?
It's our choice.

What would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?

For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children's Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost -- and there'd still be $35 billion left over.

Or perhaps you'd hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.

Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what's left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.

Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country -- $560 for a family of four.

The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.

Why $42 billion? Because that's what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. -- $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.

That's like arresting every man, woman and child in the state of North Dakota plus every man, woman, and child in Des Moines, Iowa on marijuana charges ... every year. Arrests for marijuana possession -- not sales or trafficking, just possession -- totaled 738,916. By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined.

Basing his calculations mainly on U.S. government statistics, Gettman concludes that marijuana in the U.S. is a $113 billion dollar business. That's a huge chunk of economic activity that is unregulated and untaxed because it's almost entirely off the books.

Of course, the cost of our marijuana laws goes far beyond lost tax revenues and money spent on law enforcement. By consigning a very popular product -- one that's been used by about 100 million Americans, according to government surveys -- to the criminal underground, we've effectively cut legitimate businesspeople out of the market and handed a monopoly to criminals and gangs.

Strangely, government officials love to warn us that some unsavory characters profit off of marijuana sales, while ignoring the obvious: Our prohibitionist laws handed them the marijuana business in the first place, effectively giving marijuana dealers a $113 billion free ride.

All this might make some sense if marijuana were so terribly dangerous that it needed to be banned at all costs, but science long ago came to precisely the opposite conclusion. Compared to alcohol, for example, marijuana is astonishingly safe. For one thing, marijuana is much less addictive than alcohol, with just nine percent of users becoming dependent, as opposed to 15 percent for booze. And marijuana is much less toxic. Heavy drinking is well-documented to damage the brain and liver, and to increase the risk of many types of cancer. Marijuana, on the other hand, has never caused a medically documented overdose death, and scientists are still debating whether even heavy marijuana use causes any permanent harm at all. And then there's violence. Again, the scientific findings are overwhelming: Booze incites violence and aggression; marijuana doesn't.

Despite all that, we now arrest one American every 38 seconds on marijuana charges. And we do so at a staggering cost in law enforcement expenses, lost tax revenues, and staggering profits for criminal gangs.

The alternative is clear: Regulate marijuana just as we do beer, wine, and liquor. The only thing lacking is the political will.

GLBT History: Susan Sontag

b. January 16, 1933
d. December 28, 2004

"To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old."
Susan Sontag spent her childhood in Tucson, Arizona and Los Angeles, California. A precocious child who excelled in academics, Sontag graduated from high school at age 15. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Chicago. Sontag pursued graduate work in literature, philosophy and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.

In 1950, at age 17, Sontag married Philip Rieff, a professor of sociology theory. Two years later, Sontag gave birth to her only child, David Reiff. After her divorce nine years later, Sontag never remarried.

Sontag began her writing career at age 30 with "The Benefactor" (1963). Literary critics consider her critically acclaimed short story "The Way We Live Now" (1986) a monumental work of literature on the subject of AIDS. It was selected for inclusion in John Updike’s "The Best American Short Stories of the Century" (1999).

In addition to writing six works of fiction, including her best selling novel "The Volcano Lover" (1992), Sontag produced her most celebrated work as an essayist. The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation and the London Review of Books have published her provocative essays.

Sontag kept her sexuality mostly private. In an interview with Out Magazine, she discussed her reluctance to live an openly gay life: “Maybe I could have given comfort to some people if I had dealt with the subject of my private sexuality more, but it's never been my prime mission to give comfort, unless somebody's in drastic need. I'd rather give pleasure, or shake things up." Sontag had several committed relationships with women, including her decade long relationship with photographer Annie Leibovitz.

On December 28, 2004, Sontag lost her battle with cancer. Her Village Voice obituary read: “She was the indispensable voice of moral responsibility, perceptual clarity, passionate (and passionately reasonable) advocacy: for aesthetic pleasure, for social justice, for unembarrassed hedonism, for life against death.”

GLBT History: Klaus Wowereit

b. October 1, 1953
"I want to live in a country that is open to the world, where gays and lesbians live lives free from discrimination. But a tolerant society doesn't just happen. There is only a tolerant society when enough people decide to stand up for this. And I am calling for this."

Berlin has played a unique role in gay history. Prior to the rise of fascism in Germany, Berlin was home to the world’s first gay rights organization, Magnus Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. In 1933, over 100 gay and lesbian bars functioned as social centers in Berlin. The Nazi regime destroyed German gay culture and imprisoned an estimated 15,000 gays in concentration camps.

Berlin is once again a thriving sanctuary for gays and lesbians. In 2002, the city elected Klaus Wowereit as its first openly gay Lord Mayor. Before the mayoral election, Klaus Wowereit declared “Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so,” or “I’m gay, and that's okay,” paving the way for other gay politicians.

Wowereit grew up in Berlin without a father. Although the youngest of three siblings, he was the first to attend grammar school. Wowereit praises Willy Brandt, the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1969 to 1974, for social policies that enabled poor children like him to attend school. He describes Brandt as his inspiration and role model.

Wowereit studied law at the Free University of Berlin and joined the Social Democrats. In 1984, he became Berlin’s youngest city councilor. As a councilor of education and culture, Wowereit learned the nuances of Berlin’s political atmosphere. In 1995, he joined the Berlin House of Representatives. After four years, the parliamentary group of the Social Democrats elected him their chairman.

Loved by Berlin’s citizens, Wowereit easily won reelection as Lord Mayor in 2006 and has maintained high approval ratings.

a project of EQUALITY FORUM

On Torture and American Values

NY Times VIA: TRUTHOUT

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.

The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper’s front page last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.

After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were captured and held in secret. Some of their methods — simulated drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress positions and isolation — had been classified as torture for decades by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.

The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers concocted documents that redefined “torture” to neatly exclude the things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bush’s loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those acts did not violate the lower standard of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to do it, from any kind of legal accountability.

Mr. Bush and his aides were still clinging to their rationalizations at the end of last week. The president declared that Americans do not torture prisoners and that Congress had been fully briefed on his detention policies.

Neither statement was true — at least in what the White House once scorned as the “reality-based community” — and Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was right to be furious. He demanded all of the “opinions of the Justice Department analyzing the legality” of detention and interrogation policies. Lawmakers, who for too long have been bullied and intimidated by the White House, should rewrite the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act to conform with actual American laws and values.

For the rest of the nation, there is an immediate question: Is this really who we are?

Is this the country whose president declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and then managed the collapse of Communism with minimum bloodshed and maximum dignity in the twilight of the 20th century? Or is this a nation that tortures human beings and then concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid accountability before American voters?

Truly banning the use of torture would not jeopardize American lives; experts in these matters generally agree that torture produces false confessions. Restoring the rule of law to Guantánamo Bay would not set terrorists free; the truly guilty could be tried for their crimes in a way that does not mock American values.

Clinging to the administration’s policies will only cause further harm to America’s global image and to our legal system. It also will add immeasurably to the risk facing any man or woman captured while wearing America’s uniform or serving in its intelligence forces.

This is an easy choice.

GLBT History: Bessie Smith

b. Unknown: July 1892 or April 15, 1894
d. September 26, 1937

"It's a long old road, but I know I'm gonna find the end."


Details of Bessie Smith’s childhood, including the year of her birth, vary. Both Smith’s parents died before her ninth birthday. As a child, she and her brother performed as a musical duo on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee to support themselves.

In 1912, Smith joined a traveling troupe. While with the troupe she met blues singer Ma Rainey, who became Smith’s friend and mentor. Smith’s extraordinary talent as a blues singer, coupled with her vivacious personality, quickly landed her a solo act in Atlanta, Georgia. She entered the Eastern Seaboard vaudeville circuit and over the next ten years her popularity soared.

Columbia Records signed her in 1923 and she quickly became the highest paid African American entertainer of her time. She earned up to $2000 per week during the height of her career. Her successful first recording, titled “Down-Hearted Blues,” catapulted her to national success.

Smith toured the country and recorded over 160 songs while accompanied by some of the greatest jazz instrumentalists of her time, including Louis Armstrong. From slow blues to jazz standards, Bessie Smith consistently produced original work with her broad range and versatility. Columbia Records upgraded her unrivaled status as “Queen of the Blues” to “Empress of the Blues.”

Five years after signing with Columbia Records, Smith’s career began to decline during the Great Depression. Her last recording, featuring Benny Goodman, took place in 1933. Although she never received the same level of acclaim bestowed on her during her early career, Bessie Smith continued to perform in clubs up until her death. She died shortly after a car accident in 1937.

a project of EQUALITY FORUM

Children of an Epoch

Wislawa Szymborska

We are the children of an epoch,
the epoch is political.

Everything of yours, ours, theirs,
daytime affairs, night-time affairs,
are political affairs.

Like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin has a political hue,
and your eyes a political aspect.

What you speak about has resonance,
What you hush has a voice
more or less political.

Even walking through field or forest
you take political steps
on a political basis.

Apolitical verses are also political,
and the moon above is shining a thing no longer moonly.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
What kind of question? answer, my dear.
A political question.

You don't even have to be a human being
to profit from political significance.
It's suffices for you to be crude oil,
animal feed or recycled materials.

Or a conference table, about whose shape
they debated for months
as though it were a matter of life or death:
should it be round or square?

Meanwhile people perished,
animals died,
homes burned
and fields went to seed
as they did in less political
bygone epochs.


-translated by Walter Whipple

Imagine Peace

by Cindy Sheehan VIA: CommonDreams

"Imagine all the people,
living life in peace."

John Winston Ono Lennon



October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980



"A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality."
Yoko Ono Lennon

On October 9th, on what would have been John Lennon’s 67th birthday, his widow, Yoko Ono is dedicating a peace tower in Reykjavik, Iceland in the memory of her husband. There will also be almost a half a million peace wishes buried in capsules around the tower which is a blue tower of light extending up to the sky above us.

I received the link to the Imagine Peace website while I was on a layover in the airport in Las Vegas, Nv. Still reeling from the reports of hundreds, if not thousands of Burmese monks and other humans being slaughtered for protesting against their oppressive government, it was hard for me to watch all the people sitting hypnotized at the slot machines, pulling the handles or pushing the buttons as if the world is not going to hell in George’s hand basket. The dichotomy of business as usual in America compared with genocides in Darfur and Iraq while I am still and always will be mourning my son makes me dizzy sometimes.

So, I made myself close my eyes for a few minutes between planes and tried to shut out the bells and whistles of the slots and “imagined” peace. What would a world at peace look like? What would a world at peace be like to live in? I have a great imagination but I knew this exercise would be challenging.

John Lennon called his song Imagine an “anti-religious, anti-nationalism, anti-conventional, anti-capitalist” sort of a “Communist manifesto.” It is for sure a utopian vision of a perfect society that unfortunately can not be achieved by imagining, and probably not at all—but how close can we get to this world and how much sacrifice will a world at peace take from each and everyone of us?

First of all, imagine a world with no religion. A world where sick and evil people could not manipulate the masses into believing that the set of myths and beliefs that they profess are more important or powerful than the other’s set of myths or beliefs. Israelis could not (with the help of Christian extremists) tell Palestinians that it is okay to occupy them or kill them so that the Jews could claim their “Promised Land.” Land promised to whom by whom? Muslims could not proclaim “jihad” against infidels. There would have been no Nazi holocaust against Jews; no Crusades; no holocaust against our own native population; no black slavery justified by the Christian scriptures; no George Bush saying that his Christian God is like a mob-boss ordering him to “hit” the world. Imagine that!

Secondly, imagine no countries. No jingoistic worship of banners made of mere cloth (not spun gold) or arrogant nationalism that gives leaders the right to kill other human beings just because they do not happen to live within the same false borders that were artificially drawn many years ago by empires that have long ago fallen. In this homeland-istic fervor it is especially correct to kill those other people if they are not the same religion as the religion of your state (and don’t kid yourself that the US does not have a state sanctioned religion). Imagine no armies that in reality kill and get killed for the imperialistic neo-liberalism that has crept around our globe like a flesh eating bacteria since the Reagan years. Imagine that.

Imagine no possessions: This is the crux of our problem. Going back to my brothers and sisters at the slot machines in Vegas, pulling almost catatonically on the lever of the One Armed Bandit, for what? To win the “jackpot” of course! How nice is it of the State of Nevada to allow gambling machines in their airports, so we can perchance live the American dream of buying higher stacks of stuff! On a day that George vetoed the health of over six-million children here in America, 16,000 children around the world died of starvation. In a week that we saw murder on a horrendous scale in Burma, more Iraqis were killed or forced from their homes by violence: to wander in the desert, or probably off to Syria where their daughters may be forced into prostitution to help support the family which should be able to live in peace and relative prosperity in their own country. Imagine that.

It was hard for me to imagine or envision peace when I am terrified because BushCo is contemplating even more slaughter in the Middle East in Iran and when Congress, Inc is busy supporting a murderous status quo that hurts humans within all borders, even our own.

Peace will only happen when every member of humanity is guaranteed prosperity, health and security which will not happen when we here in the US can’t even get off our asses to protest a war that is four and a half years and hundreds of thousands of bodies old, now.

We can imagine peace all we want but until each and everyone of us is willing to sacrifice some of our prosperity (because we have already had our security robbed from us by the rotten Republicans and complicit corporate Democrats) true peace—not just the absence of war—will be as elusive as a morsel of truth or modicum of courage coming out of Washington, DC.

Voluntary sacrifice is truly a revolutionary concept here in the United States of America.

So you say you want a revolution? Imagine that.




Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: Not One More Mother’s Child and Dear President Bush.